Building retrofitting, geothermal energy among growing sectors

President Barack Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus plan is intended to revive the economy, largely by putting people back to work. A hefty chunk of that money, $40 billion, is aimed directly at creating what the administration calls “green jobs.”

1. Advanced biofuels
2. Building retrofitting
3. Geothermal energy
4. Green chemistry
5. Green manufacturing
6. Smart grid
7. Solar energy
8. Sustainable agriculture
9. Sustainable green retailing
10. Wind energy

For More Detail listing go to: MSNBC

Exxon Mobil Corp. said Tuesday it will make its first major investment in greenhouse-gas reducing biofuels in a $600 million partnership with biotech company Synthetic Genomics Inc. to develop transportation fuels from algae.

Despite record-breaking profits in recent years, the oil and gas giant has been criticized by environmental groups, members of Congress and even shareholders for not spending enough to explore alternative energy options.

One of the company’s requirements was finding a biofuel source that could be produced on a large scale. It says photosynthetic algae appears to be a viable, long-term candidate. If the alliance is successful, pumping algae-based gasoline at Exxon service stations is still several years away and will mean additional, multibillion-dollar investments for mass production.

For More information: MSNBC

Sun-powered device converts CO2 into fuel

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1662…

Powered only by natural sunlight, an array of nanotubes is able to convert a mixture of carbon dioxide and water vapour into natural gas at unprecedented rates.

Such devices offer a new way to take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into fuel or other chemicals to cut the effect of fossil fuel emissions on global climate, says Craig Grimes, from Pennsylvania State University, whose team came up with the device.

Although other research groups have developed methods for converting carbon dioxide into organic compounds like methane, often using titanium-dioxide nanoparticles as catalysts, they have needed ultraviolet light to power the reactions.

The researchers’ breakthrough has been to develop a method that works with the wider range of visible frequencies within sunlight.
Enhanced activity

The team found it could enhance the catalytic abilities of titanium dioxide by forming it into nanotubes each around 135 nanometres wide and 40 microns long to increase surface area. Coating the nanotubes with catalytic copper and platinum particles also boosted their activity.

The researchers housed a 2-centimetre-square section of material bristling with the tubes inside a metal chamber with a quartz window. They then pumped in a mixture of carbon dioxide and water vapour and placed it in sunlight for three hours.

The energy provided by the sunlight transformed the carbon dioxide and water vapour into methane and related organic compounds, such as ethane and propane, at rates as high as 160 microlitres an hour per gram of nanotubes. This is 20 times higher than published results achieved using any previous method, but still too low to be immediately practical.

If the reaction is halted early the device produces a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen known as syngas, which can be converted into diesel.
Copper boost

“If you tried to build a commercial system using what we have accomplished to date, you’d go broke,” admits Grimes. But he is confident that commercially viable results are possible.

“We are now working on uniformly sensitising the entire nanotube array surface with copper nanoparticles, which should dramatically increase conversion rates,” says Grimes, by at least two orders of magnitude for a given area of tubes.

This work suggests a “potentially very exciting” application for titanium-dioxide nanotubes, says Milo Shaffer, a nanotube researcher at Imperial College, London. “The high surface area, small critical dimensions, and open structure [of these nanotubes] apparently provide a relatively high activity,” he says.

For more info: New Science

Triple Point Technology®, the leading global provider of multi-market commodity and enterprise risk management software solutions, announced today Commodity XL for Emissions™. Commodity XL for Emissions enables organizations to track, manage, analyze, comply and report against all regulatory schemes around the world including the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EUETS), National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme (NGERS), US Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and California Climate Action Registry (CCAR).

“Many analysts forecast emissions to become the most widely traded derivative product in the next 20 years, surpassing even T-Bills with the market growing to over US$3 trillion,” said Michael Schwartz, chief marketing officer, Triple Point. “Emissions management is a corporate governance and compliance issue for our customers but it also offers a potentially large trading opportunity when handled with a sophisticated, multi-commodity platform such as Commodity XL.”

Commodity XL for Emissions is the only solution that handles the full scope of emissions trading and management across all regulatory schemes on a multi-commodity platform. It is the most sophisticated and flexible system available that supports organizational corporate governance strategies in the quickly evolving emissions market. Commodity XL for Emissions tracks position by installation, business line, company, country or any other hierarchical level enabling identification of any shortfalls or surpluses in compliance position. This ensures timely and accurate reporting to regulatory bodies. Commodity XL for Emissions provides what-if scenario analysis to optimize abatement strategies, fuel switching alternatives and trading programs.

For more information: Triple Point

Japan plans to offer loans to power producers in the U.S. and Australia that buy so-called clean coal generators from Japanese manufacturers, according to a government document obtained by Bloomberg News.

Funding from state-owned Japan Bank for International Cooperation would help drive sales of the plants that cost about $3.1 billion apiece, said a senior trade ministry official involved in producing the 113-page draft plan, due to be released today. The ministry said in an e-mail it will brief the media on a report about clean coal at 4:30 p.m. in Tokyo.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Hitachi Ltd. compete with General Electric Co. and Germany’s Siemens AG to supply plants that convert coal into gas before generating power, making it easier to trap carbon-dioxide emissions. Japan wants to benefit from new demand for clean energy after world leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama pledged to back technologies that reduce gases blamed for global warming.

“The government’s marketing campaign will be a big plus for Mitsubishi Heavy in the competition to capture the market for ‘green technology,’” said Futoshi Usui, a Tokyo-based analyst at Credit Suisse, who rates the stock “outperform”.

Excerpt from Obama proposal issued June 17, 2009

“To contain systemic risks, the Commodities Exchange Act (CEA) and the securities laws
should be amended to require clearing of all standardized OTC derivatives through
regulated central counterparties (CCPs). To make these measures effective, regulators
will need to require that CCPs impose robust margin requirements as well as other
necessary risk controls and that customized OTC derivatives are not used solely as a
means to avoid using a CCP. For example, if an OTC derivative is accepted for clearing
by one or more fully regulated CCPs, it should create a presumption that it is a
standardized contract and thus required to be cleared.”

The following map shows pipelines in North America, including cross-border, international pipelines which originate or end in North American countries. You can click the map to see an enlarged version. The pipeline routes on the map are labeled with the codes that are explained in separate tables. These tables, together with more detailed maps of groups of countries, can be accessed through the following links. On the maps and table, pipeline label codes are colored green for oil, red for gas and blue for products, such as gasolene and ethylene. The diameter, length and capacity of the pipelines, if known, are shown on the tables.

Click here to see the detail Map of US and Canada

Here’s an interesting post on how T. Boone Pickens is using social media to promote the Pickens Plan.

The U.S. electric grid is a complex network of independently owned and operated power plants and transmission lines. Aging infrastructure, combined with a rise in domestic electricity consumption, has forced experts to critically examine the status and health of the nation’s electrical systems.

* The source of power
* Power plants
* Solar power
* Wind power

Click here to see the more detail grid map

Looking for a way to squeeze more distance from your tank of gas? Here’s a great list of gas-saving tips.