The Bailout has also bought with it incentives for renewable energy production and is expected to have a positive impact on use of biomass and waste to energy conversion.The bill provides authorization of US$2 billion for CREBs (Clean Renewable Energy Bonds) for facilities producing electricity form resources such as biomass , landfill gas and trash combustion.It also extends the biodiesel production tax credit for three years expanding the filed to include non-vegetable oil diesel producers and also provides a 50% write-off for cellulosic ethanol facilities in operation by 2013.
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Bailout to Aid Greentech
Srikant Rajan -
Decreased Demand for Hybrids
Srikant RajanThere is a crisis on hand.Now I am not talking about the wall street , I am talking about the rippling down effect of the wall street on the US economy , into varied sectors such as the automobile sector.The hybrid vehicle segment for instance is seeing a decline in sales as compared to last year.The demand for hybrids is strong although not quite as much as when crude was soaring to new heights,but the demand for automobiles as such is decreasing.However , as I had highlighted before the liquidity crunch has made it harder for consumers to access credit.Also , number of hybrid shoppers have decreased, and many who had earlier purchased hybrids are finding it tough to make payments.So not many are buying ,those want to buy don’t have funds and those who have bought cant pay !!!! (hybrid prime in hand ??? )
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Billion Dollar Bailout Impact on Greentech
Srikant RajanUS economy is in midst of one of the biggest turmoil’s in the financial sector. The administration is proposing a 700 billion package to ease the banks of their bad loans. So what does this mean for investment in Greentech ? Going by the present economic trends , jobless claims are at a high and more importantly the oil price is slowly moving up on the assumption that the bailout may actually boost up the economy. This bailout may end up benefiting the big banks , who were hit hardest by the housing bubble and that too marginally. However just as the war on Iraq failed to find any weapons of mass destruction, this bailout is unlikely to do the economy any real good. It is however probable that increasing oil prices may increase focus on Greentech , but the liquidity crunch may make it difficult for the greenies to pursue their research.
As Jeff Sparrow editor of Overland remarks “ President Bush and his supporters can find $700 billion to spend on a war of choice. Almost overnight, they can stump up an equivalent amount to stop Adam Smith’s invisible hand from throttling their cronies in the banking sector. Such extraordinary sums, if devoted to public transport or alternative energies or scores of other socially useful outlays, would go a long way to ending America’s dependence on carbon fuels “
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Hybrid Air Conditioners ?
Srikant RajanHeard about hybrid cars , now how about hybrid air conditioning ? This is the latest in a series of technologies to emerge in the rather bewildering domain of Greentech.Hybrid air conditioning essentially seeks to tap into the power grid late in the night at times of low demand ( oh no not again !!!! )and put the excess power to some use.The “ Ice Bear “ a patented concept from Ice Energy is the core of this new system.This device is similar to a three dimensional refrigerator but is around four feet high and four feet across with rows of coil filled with water.The system uses power from the grid during nighttime to freeze the water using a conventional refrigerant.During daytime this ice is used as a cooling medium for conventional air conditioners , thereby reducing the demand for power.
Hybrid air conditioners are designed to work for about six hours, long enough to cover the peak demand times. One unit can cool down about 2,000 square feet of space using the power required to turn on a couple of high-wattage light bulbs.Ice Energy executive says “ We’re like a plug-in air conditioner.Once the coils are frozen, they can satisfy a building’s demand for cool air during the day without using a traditional, power-hungry air compressor-based air conditioner.So we reduce the overall cost, we reduce greenhouse emissions and we mitigate the need for extra power plants, so really everybody wins “
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Israel On the Forefront of Greentech ?
Srikant RajanIsrael has seen rapid development of a slew of alternative technologies such as solar energy and biofuel in the past couple of months.Just a couple of months back Issac Berzin undertook to build a center for creating strategic energy policies for promoting renewable energy development and use.Israel based Seambiotic is also investigating possibilities for using emission from coal plants as a feedstock for algae based biofuel.
HelioFocus, another Israel based organization founded just an year back,received a $5million from Israel Corps renewable energy arm.HelioFocus has also partnered Capstone Turbine Corp for micro turbines to be integrated with its patented Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) systems.Capstone plans to modify its C65 Micro Turbine to integrate with HelioFocus CSP systems.The initial modifications would entail design of micro turbine to operate on superheated air and thus aid in effective integration with CSPs.
CSPs essentially try to enhance the the solar energy available per unit area.Thus they offer a high energy density as compared to other solar energy devices.However the use a heating oil for transfer of heat which poses the challenge of effective heat transfer.BrightSource, has developed an alternative Distributed Power Technology (DPT) to counter this challenge and has shown promising results.