France has unveiled a new renewable energy investment program which will see its government provide E1.35 ($1.74 US)  billion to support the development of cutting-edge clean energy technologies. Datamonitor feels that this may help chart a new developmental roadmap for the French energy industry, which has until now focused primarily on nuclear energy.

The investment program, entitled “Demonstrateurs Energies Renouvelables et Chimie Verte” (Renewable Energy and Green Chemistry Demonstration), aims to support the development of renewable energy sources other than wind, such as solar, marine and geothermal, and also to help develop carbon capture and biofuel technology. The E1.35 billion investment in decarbonizing projects, to be spread out over 2010-14, will provide subsidies equivalent to E450m and another E900m in low-interest loans. While E190m will be spent in 2010, this will be followed up with a E290m yearly spend for the next four years.

The French government hopes to significantly increase the share of renewables in the country’s energy mix by attracting considerable private investment in solar, marine and geothermal projects.

France currently sources 75% of its electricity through nuclear fuel. However, in accordance with the European Union’s 2001 Renewable Electricity Directive, France was bound to source 21% of its electricity generation from renewable energy by 2010. Although the French government did step up its wind power generation in order to meet these obligations, according to Datamonitor’s Energy Market Landscape report series for 2009, the contribution of renewables to total electricity generation is still estimated to represent only around 2%. Of this renewables sector, wind power forms the majority, with an installed capacity of 4.4GW.

Given that France will now inevitably miss its renewable electricity generation obligations for 2010, it is imperative that the state ramps up its renewable energy generation from sources other than wind in order to avoid the penalty of E0.04/kWh that is levied for non-compliance.

Although the new investment program is a welcome step, it is not entirely sufficient. To attract private investment, the government needs to overhaul market policies and dilute the dominance of EDF, which still controls 86% of France’s power generation capacity. New policies are also needed to streamline the approval process for offshore wind power generation and to abandon or simplify the convoluted ZDE law, which states that only wind farms built in special Wind Power Development Zones are entitled to feed-in tariffs.

Additionally, Datamonitor’s Green Consumers Survey for France indicates that the majority of French consumers seem unwilling to pay a premium for green energy, despite having a high level of environmental concern. This shows that, although utilities and the government must improve infrastructure and market policies, the best way to encourage consumers in France to opt for green energy is to focus on achieving grid parity.

Source: Datamonitor

Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Energy has announced two new Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) to support university and college efforts to build or expand their school’s nuclear science and engineering basic research or education capabilities.

Under the Nuclear Energy University Programs, the Department will provide approximately $14.5 million to upgrade university level research reactors and purchase general scientific equipment and instrumentation.

“There is a critical need for a trained workforce as the nation moves toward greater use of nuclear energy to meet our energy needs and reduce carbon pollution,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “To ensure that the United States leads in the global nuclear energy industry, we must support nuclear education and make sure students have the tools they need to learn and lead the field.”

The goal of the infrastructure program is to enable and support the education and training of nuclear scientists, engineers, and policy-makers, in graduate and undergraduate study and two-year programs, as well as R&D that is relevant to the Department and the nuclear energy industry in general. The Department will provide one-year awards totaling up to $7 million for university reactor upgrades and equipment and $7.5 million for general scientific equipment and instrumentation.

Two- or four-year U.S. universities and colleges, and trade schools are eligible to apply through Grants.gov. Applications will be due by the following dates:

General Scientific Infrastructure Support (DE-FOA-0000321) – April 22, 2010

Reactor Upgrades (DE-FOA-0000322) – May 11, 2010

The Department anticipates notifying selected recipients by the following dates:

General Scientific Infrastructure Support (DE-FOA-0000321) – June 8, 2010

Reactor Upgrades (DE-FOA-0000322) – June 22, 2010

Final awards are planned for summer 2010.

Additional information is available on the Nuclear Energy University Programs website.

The US department of energy expects to fund $49.7 million in nuclear power research through its Nuclear Energy University Programs in fiscal year 2010. The department under the direction of the Obama administration has invested in a vast cross section of energy technologies in the last 8 months. Technologies in solar PV,thermal,wind,marine,batteries,fuel cells, bio-fuels, conservation and sequestration have received billions of dollars in funding. 

At first glance nuclear energy would seem to look like a square peg in a round hole with these obviously green technologies. Nuclear plants however produce clean energy in very large quantities and on paper are capable of supplying much of our future electricity demand. Nuclear energy then does seem to be green when you look at it in the short term and as long as the world does not have another  3 mile Island or Chernobyl incident it will remain so. 

“Nuclear energy is our largest source of carbon free energy and must play a major role as we face the threat of climate change and transition to a thriving clean energy economy,” said Secretary Chu. “This announcement reflects a strong partnership with our great research institutions to ensure that America remains on the cutting edge of nuclear energy research and development. It will help us to create the jobs of the future that will power America’s economy.”

DOE expects to fund up to $49.7 million in research through its Nuclear Energy University Programs in fiscal year 2010 pending final appropriation. The maximum total amount awarded per project will be $1.5 million for three to four years.

The request for research and development pre-applications is available at the University Programs link at the NE website. Proposals are due November 10, 2009, and must be submitted through Nuclear Energy University Programs to be considered. In early November, DOE anticipates inviting principal investigators of selected proposals to submit full proposals by mid-December 2009.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory will receive a two-year federal grant of $13.8 million as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

The grant, which was announced Tuesday, Aug. 4, by DOE, includes $8.8 million for a variety of initiatives in fusion energy research and $5 million for infrastructure improvements at the laboratory. PPPL is one of 10 DOE national laboratories in six states receiving funding at this time through ARRA, the economic stimulus bill signed by President Barack Obama earlier this year. The stimulus funding will be in addition to PPPL’s regular budget allocations for fiscal years 2009 through 2011.

“We are pleased that stimulus funding is being made available for Princeton’s fusion energy research program,” said PPPL Director Stewart Prager. “The additional research capabilities enabled by this funding will accelerate the advancement of understanding in plasma science, fusion science and fusion technology, which form the knowledge base needed for an economically and environmentally attractive fusion energy source.”

PPPL, which is funded by DOE’s Office of Science and managed by Princeton University, is a collaborative national center for science research and innovation leading to an attractive fusion energy source.

Fusion is the process that powers the sun and the stars. In the interior of stars, matter is converted into energy by the fusion, or joining, of the nuclei of light atoms to form heavier elements. At PPPL, physicists use a magnetic field to confine plasma — a hot ionized gas that is the fuel for fusion energy production. Scientists hope eventually to use fusion energy for the generation of electricity, and as an alternative to current energy sources that are harmful to the environment.

PPPL plans to use the ARRA funding to upgrade and expand the use of the laboratory’s primary fusion device, the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX). Several of the diagnostic devices, which are employed on the experiment to measure the behavior of plasma, will be upgraded, and NSTX research operations will be increased by a total of five weeks during the next two years — closer to the device’s full utilization level.

The funding also will allow the hiring of additional postgraduate staff to support these enhanced research capabilities. The upgrades and greater run time are expected to significantly enhance the NSTX’s scientific output, accelerating its contribution to the fundamental understanding of fusion plasmas and providing urgently needed results for next-step fusion experiments, including ITER — a large international fusion energy experiment under construction at Cadarche, France.

A portion of the funds will be dedicated to the modernization of the laboratory’s electrical distribution system to improve reliability and availability for PPPL’s experimental systems.

As a long-term source of alternative energy, fusion has many distinct advantages including: worldwide availability of inexhaustible low-cost fuel; no contribution to global warming or acid rain; and no possibility of a runaway reaction or meltdown. The materials and byproducts of fusion are not suitable for weapons production.

The PPPL grant was included in more than $327 million of new ARRA funding announced by DOE Aug. 4 to support scientific research, instrumentation and laboratory infrastructure projects.

“The projects provide vital funding and new tools for research aimed at strengthening America’s energy security and tackling some of science’s toughest challenges,” DOE Secretary Steven Chu said in the department’s announcement.

In March, Chu announced $1.2 billion of stimulus funding for DOE Office of Science projects. On July 17, DOE announced a new Office of Science Early Career Research Program to be funded with $85 million in Recovery Act funds. With this third and final round of funding, projects covering the full $1.6 billion that the DOE Office of Science received from Congress under the Recovery Act have now been approved.

Torresol

In a presentation before national policymakers and analysts today, leading clean energy CEOs, venture capitalists and academics unveiled the “Gigaton Throwdown,” an assessment of the nation’s clean energy potential that identifies seven industries capable of creating 5 million clean energy jobs and reducing CO2 emissions by 5-7 gigatons by 2020. The report, a collaborative effort between leading researchers at UC Berkeley, MIT, University of Michigan, Stanford, and Drexel University, and clean tech leaders, challenges Washington policymakers to remove obstacles that keep billions of capital investment dollars sitting on the sidelines.

Sunil Paul, founder of the Gigaton Throwdown and founding director of Spring Ventures said:

What we’ve outlined today is an ambitious goal, but one that is entirely attainable through hard work and a concerted effort between government, business and private investment. We are at a crossroads, and the U.S. has an opportunity to become a leader in this new global sector if we act now. To us the choice is clear.

Post a Job! $19 for 30 days

U.S. Senator John Kerry

This study is a loud, clear message about the importance of acting now to create a vibrant clean energy econom. By passing strong legislation, we can grow our economy and end our dependence on foreign oil. We can ensure that the United States takes back the lead in creating the clean energy technologies of the future — wind turbines, solar panels and energy efficiency products — and that American companies benefit. This will help rebuild our manufacturing base, jump-start our economy and create millions of clean energy jobs that can’t be shipped overseas.

John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy commented:

Investments in clean energy technologies — and policies that encourage those investments — can pay off handsomely with jobs and economic growth while reducing our dependence on foreign oil and tempering the impacts of climate change.

The report identified seven existing industries — biofuel, nuclear, solar, geothermal, wind, building efficiency, and construction materials — that could reach gigaton scale over the next 10 years with new infusions of private capital. To attain gigaton scale, a single technology must reduce worldwide carbon dioxide and equivalent greenhouse gas emissions by at least 1 billion tons — a gigaton — per year by 2020.

“The Gigaton Throwdown sets our collective sights on game changing combinations of science, technology and policy that can turn the needed levels of climate protection and energy security into a road map for laboratory-to-industry partnerships,” said Dan Kammen, of the University of California-Berkeley. “Quite frankly, I am tired of watching the exceptional technology advances in the renewable energy field become big business in Europe or Asia when they could just as easily become multi-billion dollar companies here. The Gigaton Throwdown can be a catalyst for academia-government-industry synergies to make these innovations in U. S. green businesses.”

“Thinking at gigaton scale is helping us identify our ultimate potential,” said Steen Riisgaard, President & CEO of Novozymes. “Novozymes has the aim to help our customers achieve a 75 million tons reduction in greenhouse gases by 2015. But we actually believe the potential is much, much higher if you look at entire industrial biotech space, where we think can reach gigaton scale within 10-20 years.”

Currently more than $13 trillion in private capital is prepared to invest in the traditional base of energy technologies over the next decade. Redirecting that capital to clean energy is an $8 trillion opportunity that will depend in large part on US energy and climate policy. The report also identified several key policy barriers preventing that private capital from immediate investment and recommended several changes the U.S. should undertake to spur investment. These changes include:

Establishing a price on carbon that will level the playing field and stand above political influence or pressure;

Setting more stringent renewable energy, efficiency, and fuel standards;

Enhancing the electrical grid to better utilize the new power generated by renewables;

Fixing the market for efficiency upgrades by reforming utility and building regulation.

The Gigaton Throwdown was launched as an initiative to educate and inspire investors, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and policy makers to “think big” and understand what is needed to massively scale clean energy in the next 10 years. A unique group from the business community — executives, investors, and entrepreneurs — teamed up with leading academics over the past 18 months to develop the report.