Milking it

Here at Flow, we’re no strangers to the world of smelly energy. After all, when decomposition and anaerobic digestion start doing their odorous work, it’s more important that they produce energy than nice smells. That’s why it’s always exciting to see a Canadian first wafting into Abbotsford, British Columbia: the first dairy farm to be powered by its own manure.

Generating 60,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity every year,the Bakerview EcoDairy is a sustainability demonstration project created by its parent agribusiness company, the Nutriva Group. The farm employs a variety of sustainability practices, including a natural ventilation system and a water conservation system designed to retain and redistribute rainwater, but it’s its on-site digester that really makes Bakerview come out smelling like roses.

By feeding manure into an on-site digester, the farm is able to produce biogas (also known as landfill gas) that, in turn, powers a generator. But the process of digestion doesn’t just create a ready source of fuel, it also produces heat, which is returned to the farm. And since a dairy farm’s compliment of cows isn’t ever going to stop producing manure, the farm is never short of a ready source of biomass. It’s win-win, provided you don’t mind the smell.

Like many renewable energy projects, this one wouldn’t have been possible without government support. Bakerview was funded in part through a $240,000 grant from the BC Bioenergy Network, a $70,000 grant from the Environmental Farm Plan (EFP) Program and an $80,000 grant from BC Hydro’s Power Smart Technology Demonstration Funds.

Energy isn’t always glamorous, but so long as we’re able to harness renewable energy sources, we’ll be keeping warm and electrified until the cows come home.

Via BC Hydro

You Decide

The Department of Energy and Climate Change in the UK is challenging you to solve the problem of reducing the country’s CO2 emissions by 20 per cent of 1990 levels by the year 2050.

The data behind the 2050 simulation is based on actual UK data. You read along and learn about how the country uses energy and then decide how you see its future. The program quantifies your ideas and prompts further questions about the impact of your choices.

When you are done you get a snap shot of what your world looks like – again nicely quantified and easy to understand – including geography references, scale and scope of development that would be required, nod to efficiencies realized and a literal count of things like wind turbines and nuclear power plants that would be required. You can return to your musing and try again or submit the results.

But what we really like about this sim is that it’s the foundation for the Pathway Debate. Eight climate and energy experts have set out how they think the UK could meet the target using the 2050 tool. Brilliant. This is one of the best online tools we’ve seen recently to help consumers understand the relationship between supply and demand. It’s about the energy mix and how all of the sources work together to power the future. So hop to it and take a spin or should we say a sim.

Really, everyone these days is an energy armchair critic, picking winners and losers and thinking they have a better idea. Now it’s your turn. You decide. And you just might learn something in the process.

Go Small

A lot of the energy solutions we talk about are massive — power plants with outputs measured in megawatts, wind turbines that tower above us, national energy strategies (or the lack thereof). Sometimes, though, the most innovative solutions to our energy woes are downright microscopic.

Take, for example, a pair of genetically engineered bacteria called Geobacter and Shewanella capable of converting carbon dioxide into fuel, such as butanol or octanol. Essentially, the using sunlight and carbon dioxide to produce fuel is simply the next step beyond biofuels — rather than trying to extract the chemical energy stored in plant matter that originally derived its energy from the sun, these microorganisms would jump straight to the fuel. And where current fuel cells are still struggling to reduce their size, these artificial microscopic organisms already function as microscopic fuel cells— stealing electrons via protein tubes that extend from their central mass and generating electricity.

A similar pilot project in Texas uses modified single cell organisms to convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into ethanol or diesel fuel. Using solar panels to collect sunlight — a method of enhancing the light absorbed that is also being used with the Geobacter and Shewanella bacteria — the organisms “sweat” out hydrocarbon fuel, which can then be easily separated from the water in which they’re suspended.

Add Flow’s earlier article “Water power” on a nanotechnology that allows water molecules to be split into their constituent hydrogen to those microorganisms, and you’ve got tantalizing glimpses into the microscopic world of energy generation. We’re often encouraged to go big or go home, but in a world where we can engineer microscopic solutions to our massive energy use, maybe sometimes it’s better to go small after all.

Image Georgia Tech

Powering Canadian communities

More than 80 per cent of Canadians live in urban centres, a number that’s been steadily increasing since records began in 1851. That leaves most of our attention focused on cities, especially when it comes to energy. Where the people live, the energy will follow.

But in a public environment where we’re increasingly concerned about the costs of our power, both financial and environmental, we can’t forget about our rural communities either. Fortunately, local governments and the communities themselves are already paying attention.

At 3.3 inhabitants per square kilometre, in a total area of almost 10 million square kilometres, Canada is one of the least densely populated places on Earth. That leaves us trying to stretch 160,000 kilometres of high voltage lines between our power plants and our major urban centres, an enormous grid that still isn’t large enough to reach our most remote communities. Whether these communities are isolated by distance, a harsh climate, unyielding geography or (usually) some combination of the three, the result is that they have to generate their own power. And, as it happens, generating your own power tends to be a fairly dirty business.

Diesel generators have been the go-to solution for small communities’ power needs for years — they provide a dependable source of power and can be built on a relatively small scale, or they can purchased and imported. But while these generators allow remote communities to stay powered without staying connected to the grid, they’re also using fuel whose carbon emissions are under increasing scrutiny.

In Northwest Territories, for example, the territory’s 43,000 citizens (spread across almost 1.2 million square kilometres) get most of their power from 25 diesel generating facilities dotted in communities. But under Northwest Territories’ energy strategy, Community Energy Plans would be implemented across the territory by 2011, encouraging a more sustainable approach to each community’s power generation.

One of the most practical methods of improving remote communities’ energy use has been cogeneration. By harnessing the heat that is generally lost in facilities only designed to generate electricity, cogeneration plants are able to provide both heat and electricity, requiring between 10 and 30 per cent less fuel.

Given that communities in northern climates also rely on carbon-intensive heating oil for their heating, it’s not hard to see why cogeneration plants would reduce both the financial and environmental costs of energy. And it isn’t only northern communities changing the way they use energy.

BC’s Bioenergy Network, for example, has already begun awarding contracts for wood waste cogeneration plants under their BC Bioenergy Strategy. And the Ontario Government, like many other provincial governments, is encouraging agricultural operations to consider wind and other alternative sources of generation.

And communities are still actively seeking out new opportunities to generate their own power in more cost-effective and environmentally responsible ways.

From April 21 to 22, the Town of Cochrane, Ontario (population: less than 6,000) will be hosting its Energize Your Community Conference, a showcase for communities hoping to encourage green community energy initiatives. Featuring talks from organizations like Nipissing University’s Biomass Innovation Centre and the Ontario Power Authority, the conference bills itself as a chance for like-minded communities to network and learn. Its scale is appropriately modest, but if you’re a community interested in joining the conversation on changing energy use in Canada’s, go ahead and drop them a line holly.touchette@town.cochrane.on.ca. After all, in a country where only 20 per cent live outside of cities, communities need to stick together.

Vancouver’s mandatory electric car chargers

Today, there are so many possibilities for alternative fuels; it’s hard to know which one will dominate in the future.  A good solution might be to prepare for any or all of them.

In Vancouver, it could become mandatory for new condo developments to have electric car charging stations in 10% of their parking stalls. With so much talk of biofuels, it may seem unusual to bet on this particular horse.  Mayor Gregor Robertson says the future is electric.

He points out that many cities – in Europe, Japan, and nearby San Francisco – already have such charging stations in place, for electric cars already on the road. Vancouver would be the first city in Canada to make them mandatory.

While detractors argue against the current usefulness of plug-ins, many claim that the only way electric cars will catch on is if the infrastructure is already in place.

So while one doesn’t see a lot of Mitsubishi iMieVs today, charging stations will make it easier and more convenient for motorists to make the switch.  Put another way, electric cars are the chicken and charging outlets are the egg.  Or is it the other way around?

Making outlets mandatory in new developments could end up being a costly gamble.  Or, a future-minded stroke of genius – especially if the demand for electric cars in Canada grows.

Only by making an effort today, will changes be possible for tomorrow.

Biofuels caravan rolling along

Federal funds continue to flow to an array of biofuel projects across the country, mainly from Natural Resources Canada’s ecoENERGY program in a determined bid to encourage production of renewable alternatives to gasoline and diesel. Compared with gasoline, grain-based ethanol can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 40 per cent on a life-cycle basis and the difference can be as much as 60 per cent for biodiesel.

Ottawa has committed $1.5 billion over nine years for development of the renewable fuels industry in Canada.  The most recent recipient of ecoENERGY support is Husky Energy, which will receive up to $72.8 million for its ethanol plant in Minnedosa, Manitoba. Other announcements this year include up to $23.2 million for Permolex Ltd. of Red Deer, Alberta, up to $19.9 million for Western Biodiesel in High River, Alberta, and up to $72.4 million for Biox Canada in Hamilton, Ontario.

However, the main ecoENERGY beneficiary is GreenField Ethanol, Canada’s main producer of ethanol. It has federal commitments of up to $212.3 million for facilities in Ontario, including up to $117.5 million in Johnstown, up to $72.8 million in Chatham, and up to $14 million in Tiverton. The Johnstown project also is receiving $7.3 million in repayable funding from ecoAgriculture Biofuels Capital, a $200-million program run by Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada.

Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) is also involved in encouraging ethanol production through its NextGen Biofuels Fund. An SDTC grant of up to $1.82 million to Lignol Energy Corp. of Burnaby, B.C., will support development of an industrial-scale plant for production of cellulosic ethanol and other renewables.

The Great Oil Sands Journey Part 1

From waves to wells to wheels to winds

Next time you fill up your car to drive from Winnipeg to Waterloo, take a moment to ponder the full journey. Not your journey – the journey of your fuel, starting from the oil sands. Actually, let’s go further than that, beginning before the oil sands, when oil was just a sparkle on an oceanic wave.

Waves to Wells
Part one of a five-part series

In the beginning, and we’re talking hundreds of millions of years ago, the remains of tiny plants and animals, mainly algae, were buried in sea beds. As they became more deeply buried, they began to heat up at temperatures between 50 and 150 degrees, eventually turning into liquid hydrocarbons, sulphur compounds, CO2 and water. Some of the liquid hydrocarbons included “light” compounds, others included “heavy” compounds and the rest contained everything in between.

Next time you start to feel impatient when you’re stuck behind a slow driver, imagine how long it would have taken for this viscous oil to migrate from strata beneath the western sea, eastward and upward through 100 kilometers of rock until finally reaching and saturating the large expanses of sand and sandstones that we now know as Alberta’s oil sands. We’re talking about 50 million years.

Enter the bacteria who are, at once, the heroes and the villains of the natural world. Sadly, the heroic nature of bacteria, which are being tested in new technologies today to create biofuels, improve oil sand extraction efficiency, speed up tailings pond reclamation and to upgrade heavy oils into lighter, cleaner burning fuels underground, is for another story.

This particular story, on the origins of the oil sands, is about how the hungry bacteria feasted on the lighter hydrocarbons first, leaving the heavier ones and metal compounds that cannot be digested behind. To this day, oil sands bitumen contains the more heavy hydrocarbons, which is why they receive so much attention. It requires more energy to transform the carbon heavy bitumen from the oil sands into fuel for your car than it does to transform conventional crude. And, often, more energy equals more greenhouse gas emissions, particularly when the energy used is natural gas.

On the plus side, however, Canada’s oil sands are vast and bountiful, fueling not only North America’s planes, trains and automobiles, but our bustling economy as well. Who knew such tiny little critters bobbing aimlessly in the ocean would have such a huge ripple effect on how we power our lives today?

Next week: Wells to Wheels – Do I have to separate you three?

The brightest ideas of 2008

From ideas that are bright because of their simplicity to ideas that are simply bright. Check out the best and the brightest from 2008.

The expression “reliable as the tides” is an expression for a reason. The tides are as reliable as sunrise and sunset.  Finding ways to harness this cheap, renewable, and predictable energy source definitely counts as a bright idea.

If the downside to biofuels is diverting crops from food production…well, then what about using crops that have no food value?  Research into cellulosic biofuels such as switch grass aims to give us the best of both worlds.

Of course, a review of the year’s brightest posts should include the one titled “A Bright Idea.”  MIT’s announcement of new storage capabilities for solar power definitely qualifies.

Hydrogen fuel cells are the bogeyman of renewable energy sources – often threatened, seldom seen.  It’s never been cost-effective or efficient enough to be practical, but researchers at Penn State have discovered it might just be possible – even if just eventually.

The power of green

Pond power: an idea whose time has scum?

Pun aside, something many swimming pool or aquarium owners know well – algae – could become a critical source of renewable energy.

Its green potential, literally and figuratively, was outlined at the 5th annual Canadian Renewable Fuels Association summit by Daniel Oh, chief operating officer of Renewable Energy Group. Headquartered in Ames, Iowa, REG accounted for some 22% of U.S. biodiesel production last year, most of it from tried and true sources.

REG has unveiled “scalable commercialization technology” for refining large volumes of algae-based biodiesel, enabling the company to partner with almost any algae-oil supplier.

The concept’s potential was first identified three decades ago, but interest waned when energy prices fell. The focus now, Oh said, is “fairly near term” and he expected “important” volumes to be flowing within five years and that while its initial contribution to the overall biofuels mix would be “small”, it has the potential “to accelerate rapidly” as the biofuels industry distanced itself from the food-versus-fuel controversy.

Oh said customer recognition is critical to early adoption of biofuels and that uniformly high quality, regardless of the feedstock source, is equally important. He said both the heavy equipment and petroleum sectors have been quick to recognize the economic and environmental advantages of biodiesel.

Algae’s potential is enhanced by the fact that it generally is done at low temperature and pressure and that, unlike sources such as corn, a “crop” can be harvested in a week or two rather than once or twice a season. “We’re getting a lot closer than people think,” Oh said.

Biofuels’ financial catalyst

Vicky Sharpe, President and Chief Executive Officer of Sustainable Development Technology Canada, laments the fallout from “absolutely appalling” news media coverage of first-generation agricultural biofuels which suggested that any gains were at the expense of food production.

Acknowledging a backlash that undermined government and public support, she nevertheless is adamant that public funding equal to or in excess of private investment is crucial to research, development and exploitation of biofuels’ huge potential.

“It does require public money,” Sharpe told the 5th annual Canadian Renewable Fuels Association summit. “It is not a commercially viable opportunity just yet.”

Founded in 2001, her organization is a government-led not-for-profit foundation which supports development and demonstration of clean technologies. It operates a $550 million SD Tech Fund in support of projects that address climate change, air quality, clean water and clean soil. More important to the renewable fuels sector, its $500 million NextGen Biofuels Fund, announced in the 2007 federal budget, supports the establishment of “first-of-kind large demonstration-scale facilities” for second-generation production from non-edible sources.

Sharpe, who has a doctorate in microbiology and chemistry, told summit delegates that the U.S. has the strongest commitment to biofuels and is the only country which distinguishes between first- and second-generation fuels. That said, she expects the U.S. to achieve little more than half of its “really high” production goals. President George W. Bush has called for the use of 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels, including biofuels, by 2017.

In contrast, Canada’s legislated goals – mandated by amendments to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act which were passed by Parliament last summer – begin with a requirement of 5% average renewable content in gasoline by 2010 and then 2% in diesel and heating oil by 2012, subject to a successful demonstration. Gasoline-powered vehicles have been able to burn up to 10% ethanol in gasoline since the 1980s and many diesel-engine manufacturers warrant the use of 5% or higher biodiesel blends. One of the main attractions of biodiesel is that it generates 93% more energy than is required to make it, according to the American National Standards Institute.

When in introduced the draft legislation as bill C-33, the government said its proposals would reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by about four megatonnes. That’s equal to taking nearly a million vehicles off the road.

Sharpe expects most of the earlier biofuels targets to be met from first-generation sources and that capital investment in the $8-13.5 billion range is “roughly what we’re looking at.” The scale of the investment was such that governments, oil companies, other industries and the capital markets “obviously need to play an important role” and that international capital was “absolutely” necessary “to get the job done.”

Price could be a hurdle for second-generation biofuels, which Sharpe said are coming in at about $1.60-$1.80 per litre. They needed to be closer to $0.50-$1.20/l to be practicable. “We have momentum (and) we have to build on it, but let’s not over-promote.” Doing so, she said, generates cynicism.

Since its inception, SDTC has become a “very positive story” in that some $200 million has been invested in 16 companies with a “very good range of capability.” STDC mitigates its exposure by committing up to 40% of a project’s costs to a cap of $200 million, the investment being repayable from cash flow once a project is viable.

The foundation currently is reviewing the latest applications for NextGen funding. “The future of biofuels lies in cellulosic ethanol and next-generation biodiesel, produced from non-food feedstocks that do not encourage land-use changes,” Sharpe said in announcing the call for applications. “The projects that SDTC wants to support . . . will bring cellulosic ethanol and next-generation biodiesel one step closer to market and help secure Canada’s position as a world leader in the renewable fuels industry.”

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