The E.U. Emissions Trading System (ETS) has given a sense of urgency to the development of renewable aviation jet fuel. British Airways is the latest airline to ink a deal, announcing that they are building capacity to produce renewable aviation biofuels using waste biomass as a feedstock.
British Airways has partnered with the U.S. company Solena Group to establish Europe’s first sustainable jet-fuel plant and plans to use the low-carbon fuel to power part of its fleet starting in 2014.
“Sustainable development” has generated substantial buzz since the concept was brought into focus by the Brundtland Commission’s now famous 1987 report, Our Common Future. The Commission defined the concept as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Since then, the definition has been debated and adapted for specific purposes throughout policy, academic, governmental, and organizational circles. Many of these interpretations are only relevant to the circumstances in which they are applied. In the context of biomass and biofuels, sustainability standards are specific rules and criteria by which the production, transportation, and processing of feedstocks can be assessed for their environmental, social, and other values.
In the international community, sustainability guidelines for biomass have begun to emerge, but remain aspirational at best. While high oil prices, increasing pressures to mitigate climate change effects, and efforts to boost rural agricultural production throughout the world will continue to sustain support for the development of biomass and biofuel resources, environmental concerns will temper optimistic projections for the industry.
The U.S. biofuels story is a mix of interrelated elements: energy security (lessening dependence on Middle Eastern oil), ethanol, a clean energy economy…and China.
Traditionally, the geopolitical reality plays out like this: the United States relies on politically sensitive Middle Eastern petroleum, which makes the U.S. particularly sensitive to oil price volatility, which in turn, compels the U.S. to invest money and human capital in guaranteeing supply.
But as a major corn producer, the United States commits corn resources to biofuels in the name of moving towards energy independence, price security, and a clean energy economy. Meanwhile, China is industrializing, making a lot of money in the process, and beginning to suck up a rapidly growing percentage of the global supply of crude oil.
With so much volatility in the price of oil over the last decade, who can blame the airline industry for “going big” these past couple months and placing bets on emerging renewable jet fuel companies?
The list of deals is long: AltAir signing an MOU with 14 airlines to supply camelina-based fuel, BioJet and Great Plains working together to develop their own green fuel derived from camelina, Kingfisher Airlines working with three companies on R&D for renewable jet fuel, and Qatar Airways leading a consortium to investigate potential biofuels, just to name a few.
Heading into the new year, we are left wondering what impact Copenhagen’s legacy (a nonbinding Accord) will have on the US Senate’s cap-and-trade bill. With the House “ACES” bill passed, the attention is now squarely focused on the Senate as it reconvenes and takes another crack at legislation regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
Cap-and-trade legislation from Washington may include a federal renewable electricity standard (Washington’s version of a renewable portfolio standard). How this standard would be integrated into existing state standards or vice versa will remain a hot topic throughout 2010.
This week, the international community launched another attempt at world governance around climate change. But in the lead-up to what has been called our last chance to mitigate the most severe consequences of human-induced climate change, a sputtering world economy, political anxiety, and legislative lethargy may have derailed the entire process before it even began. The goal now: hammer out the foundation for a later agreement. With the clock ticking, can we afford to wait?
What space junk teaches us is that we get down to the business of debating solutions only after the cause of the problem has had sufficient time to germinate and evolve into something far more insidious. Before climate change events reach a tipping point, however, we owe it to ourselves to revisit the enabling circumstances that precipitated it in the first place so that we can begin to enact smarter policies aimed at systemic change. Copenhagen must be that opportunity.
Climate change not only presents difficult challenges for the energy industry, but also raises serious concerns about food security as loss of topsoil and desertification reduce arable land around the world. Within this climate, genetically-modified crops (GMOs) will play a crucial role in supporting increased development and population growth.
GMOs are organisms, such as plants and animals, whose genetic characteristics are being modified artificially in order to give them a new property. Last month, Monsanto, the world’s leading seed producer, announced that it expects African countries to increase plantings of GMOs in order to boost food security and economic development in the face of climate change. Africa is the only continent where per-capita food output is falling, which also raises concerns about introducing fuel-dedicated crops. GMOs could increase yields for both food and fuel, but international and regional rules governing GMOs represent a significant barrier to increased international trade.
While the slumping economy has delivered a gut shot to the CleanTech sector, many optimists are confident that a new wave of investment is coming. Even so, one must wade through a torrent of sobering news to arrive at such a conclusion.
A quick peak at recent headlines tell the story. Cleantech.com reported that venture investment in the CleanTech sector dropped 41 percent in 1Q09 compared to the last quarter. And Biofuels Digest has run a series of articles about highly regarded biofuel startups succumbing to market forces (here and here).
While policy momentum behind biofuels has sputtered in recent months due in part to a slumping economy, indirect land use change debates, and life cycle studies concluding that “green” fuels cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels, using waste as a fuel feedstock represents a promising shortcut on the path to energy security.
Waste-to-fuel is nothing new, but it remains a vastly underdeveloped alternative despite being cheap, abundant, and according to the EPA, renewable. More recently, a convergence of environmental, economic, and energy factors have bolstered the development of increasingly innovative waste-to-energy solutions.
This article is part of a series on the Stimulus Update. Previous posts:
– Smart Grid Funding Guidelines Released
– Inching Towards Smart Grid Funding Guidelines
– EE and Conservation Block Grant Funds Releases
– Next Generation Electric Vehicles Funds Released
– Energy Efficiency Funds Released
– Climate Change, the Stimulus Bill, and how CleanTech will benefit
As part of an ongoing effort to reduce US dependence on foreign oil and address the climate crisis by increasing the use of domestic renewable fuels, Secretary of Energy Chu announced Tuesday plans to provide $786.5 million in ARRA funding to accelerate advanced biofuels research and development, and to provide additional funding for commercial-scale biorefinery demonstration projects.
The funding is available through ARRA’s Research and Development program and will be awarded through competitive grants from the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).
Updating my previous post, VP Biden announced plans to distribute more than $3.3 billion in smart grid technology development grants and an additional $615 million for smart grid storage, monitoring, and technology viability late last week.
The announcement comes with mixed reviews, including warnings that the $20 million cap on grant awards ($40 million with matching funds) is too small to incentivize large and medium IOUs to deploy smart meters. This post notes that Xcel Energy’s SmartGridCity is a $100 million dollar project on it’s own and involves only a single city.
With specific dollar allocations published for Conservation Block Grants, $780 million released for energy efficiency and Weatherization (more to come), and grant announcements worth $2.4 billion for next generation electric vehicles issued, the first wave of DOE stimulus has come and gone.
In its wake, state, city, and county energy offices, agencies, commissions and departments are scrambling to make sense of how to funnel additional money into their respective jurisdictions. This includes readying Strategic Energy Plans for SEP program approval and drafting State Comprehensive Applications for the remaining Weatherization funds, as well as exploring potential partnerships and programs to win highly competitive grants for additional projects.
$3.2 billion in energy efficiency and conservation projects for US cities, counties, states, territories, and Native American tribes was released last Thursday. The announcement comes on the heels of $8 billion for Weatherization programs and $2.4 billion for Next Generation Electric Vehicles released earlier in March, all part of $16.8 billion allocated under ARRA for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy programs.
The most recently released funds will be administered under the DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program (EECBG), which provides federal grants to reduce energy use and fossil fuel emissions through improvements in energy efficiency in the transportation, building, and “other appropriate sectors.” Unlike the State Energy Program, EECBG emphasizes a bottom-up, community-based energy efficiency strategy through Title V of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.
While visiting Southern California Edison’s Electric Vehicle Center Thursday, President Obama announced the availability of $2.4 billion for the “Electric Drive Vehicle Battery and Component Manufacturing Initiative” and “Transportation Electrification”.
The funds will be awarded through competitive grants. Specific announcements are available here (for the Manufacturing Initiative) and here (for the Transportation Electrification). Both grants are “unrestricted” meaning all entities may apply.
The programs are intended…