CLEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGY

Team Stock Hop

U.S. & JAPAN:

Economy of U.S. & Japan

U.S. has the largest national economy in the world. Its nominal gross domestic product (GDP) was estimated

at $14.2 trillion in 2009, which is about three times that of the world's second largest national economy, Japan.

The U.S. is the largest energy consumer in terms of total use.

Currently, the U.S. invests slightly more money in clean energy research and development than Japan.

However, Japan is aggressively challenging the U.S. for economic dominance in the global clean technology industry.

The U.S. is behind Japan in the production of solar PV cells, but the U.S. is ahead of them in nuclear and wind power.

U.S. Recovery Act

On February 17, 2009 President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) Stimulus Package $36.7 billion went towards the Department

of Energy Specifically, $16.8 billion towards Energy

Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Energy Supply in the U.S.

Energy Supply in Japan

Advanced Vehicles and Batteries –Involves the market for hybrid, plug-in and electric vehicles.

The vehicles are working to advance energy-efficient transportation methods while using environmentally friendly fuels.

Advanced Batteries

Advanced Batteries

Currently, the average hybrid battery costs in the neighborhood of $3,000 and if not mistreated have a life expectancy of approximately 150,000 miles.

Advanced Batteries: U.S.

Hybrid sales have increased 2.8% this past year and in the first 9 months of 2009, 221,000 hybrid vehicles were sold.

Japanese car company, Toyota, supplied over 65% of the U.S. hybrid market.

Advanced Batteries: U.S. cont. Recovery Act

Will distribute $2.4Billion of funding to 48 new advanced battery and electric drive projects.

Will create tens of thousands of jobs in the United States, North Carolina expecting to create several hundreds alone.

Michigan will receive approx. $10Million to create educational, workforce training programs to prepare people for the switch to hybrid and electrical vehicles.

Advanced Batteries: U.S. cont. The United States Advanced Battery

Consortium (USABC) is made up of Chrysler, Ford Motor Company, and General Motors in collaboration with the United Stated Department of Energy.

They are trying to produce a more reliable, cheaper, longer lasting hybrid battery for vehicles.

Advanced Batteries: U.S. cont. OM Group, a specialty chemical provider,

has signed a definitive agreement to invest $171.9 million in EaglePicher, the leader in designing and manufacturing batteries, to further develop the lithium ion.

EaglePicher recorded approximately $125 million in revenues in 2009. Of the $125 million, 31% came from the use of batteries in the aerospace industry.

Advanced Batteries: Japan

In May of 2009, 21,601 hybrid units were sold; making up 12% of new light-duty vehicle sales.

In July of 2009, 30,000 more hybrid units were sold in Japan.

Advanced Batteries: Japan cont. Daimler AG, Japan’s second largest maker

of luxury autos have been working on making their vehicles more energy efficient and also have been experimenting with battery/electric cars. Currently they have a state of the art Lithium-Ion battery that contains over 200 battery cells. This Lithium-Ion battery can power a standard 4 door car 500 kilometers (311 miles) on a single charge.

Advanced Batteries: Japan cont.

A company called Better Place has realized the need for maintenance stations for battery and electric powered vehicles.

Demonstrated the first “battery swap station” located in Japan.

Time for swap from start to finish at 40 seconds.

Typical customer a battery swap would take roughly 1 minute and 20 seconds depending on the car and battery.

Wind Power

Converts wind energy into a useful form of energy by using wind turbines to make electricity.

Currently an important part of the current global power supply and is growing rapidly, having doubled in the three years between 2005 and 2008.

During 2009 alone, $63 billion worth of wind turbines were installed globally, a 31% increase, putting the global wind capacity at 157.9 gigawatts (GW), equivalent to roughly 1.5% of the global electricity usage.

Considered a clean, reliable energy source that is quick to install.

Wind Power cont.

The current wind power capacity produces 340 TWh [terawatt-hours] of clean electricity and saves 204 million tons of CO2 every year, helping to reduce pollution and prevent escalation of global warming.

Around half a million people are now employed by the wind industry around the world.

Wind power also has a low marginal cost due to negligible fuel costs and relatively low maintenance costs.

For a preexisting wind turbine, the marginal cost is usually less than 1 cent per kilowatt-hour.

Wind Power: U.S.

For the past decade, wind power capacity has increased by an average of 35% each year.

By 2008 they surpassed Germany as the highest wind energy producing country in the world.

In 2009, the U.S. installed an additional 10,000 MW of capacity, breaking all previous records, bringing total capacity to over 35 GW.

Wind Power: U.S. cont.

The power generated from wind turbines can: power the equivalent of 9. 7 million homes avoid an estimated 62 million tons of

carbon dioxide annually (equivalent to taking 10.5 million cars off the road)

conserve approximately 20 billion gallons of water annually, which would otherwise be consumed for steam or cooling in conventional power plants

Wind Power: U.S. cont.

Reason for the growth in 2009, despite the state of the economy during the recession, is due to the Recovery Act It gave $93 million to wind energy

projects Spurred the growth of construction,

operations and maintenance, and management jobs, which helped save and create jobs in those sectors

Wind Power: Japan

Japan is currently ranked 13th worldwide for its wind capacity at 2,059 MW.

Greatly falling behind the United States due to: Geography

Typhoons & lightening strikes have caused severe damage to wind turbines

Lack of Incentive Government passed the Renewable Portfolio

Standard (RPS) law in April 2003 but it set very low targets for renewable energy compared to other countries and provided no incentive for growth

Solar Power

Solar Power - the generation of electricity from sunlight. This can be direct as with photovoltaics (PV), or indirect as

with concentrating solar power (CSP), where the sun's energy is focused to boil water which is then used to provide power.

A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell (PV), is a device that converts light into electric current using the photoelectric effect.

Solar power has the potential to provide over 1,000 times total world energy consumption in 2008, though it provided only 0.02% of the total that year.

If it continues to double in use every two to three years, or less, it would become the dominant energy source this century.

Solar Power cont.

Sun= several thousand times more energy per day than we use.

Solar energy development dates back more than 100 years- Industrial Revolution.

Henri Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect- deals with the production of electricity directly from the sun.

Early photovoltaic applications were aimed more towards sensing and measuring light (i.e. camera light meters) than towards actually producing power.

Solar Power cont.

Common solar panels- around 12 % effective, around 4 times more productive than a few years ago.

Still used in two forms: thermal and photovoltaic

Thermal- using the heat of the sun to heat water or another working fluid, which then drives a turbine or another piece of machinery, creating electricity

Photovoltaic- producing energy directly from the sun with no moving parts

Solar Power cont.

Ray Kurzweil predicts that solar power will scale up to produce all of the energy needs of Earth’s people in twenty years. Also predicted the fall of the Soviet Union and the spread of

the internet and wireless access Kurzweil worked on the solar energy solution with

Google co-founder Larry Page as a part of a panel of experts convened by the National Association of Engineers.

Solar energy is an information technology, therefore subject to the Law of Accelerating Returns. deals with accelerating change and its effect of the rate of

technological progress throughout history Kurzweil uses examples from the past to show that,

once a form of technology reaches some sort of barrier, a new technology will be invented to help cross that barrier.

Solar Power: U.S.

Pricing price per watt peak- primary unit of measurement watt peak- watt output of a solar module as

measured under an industry standardized light test before the solar module leaves the manufacturers facility

high power band prices (power over one-hundred and twenty-five watts)- have dropped from around $27 per watt peak in 1982 to around $4 today.

Other variables that will affect price: where you live, how much power your household holds, whether you buy the panels new or used, and how much sun your property receives.

Solar Power: U.S. cont.

Recovery Act DOE will provide $117.6 million in Recovery Act

funding to accelerate widespread commercialization of clean solar energy technologies across America.

Photovoltaic Technology Development ($51.5 Million) DOE will expand investment in advanced

photovoltaic concepts and high impact technologies.

The aim is to make solar energy cost-competitive with conventional sources of electricity and to strengthen the competitiveness and capabilities of domestic manufacturers.

Solar Power: U.S. cont.

Recovery Act (cont.)

Solar Energy Deployment ($40.5 Million) DOE will focus on non-technical barriers to solar

energy deployment. Will include grid connection, market barriers to

solar energy adoption in cities, and the shortage of trained solar energy installers.

Concentrating Solar Power Research and Development ($25.6 Million) This will focus on improving the reliability of

concentrating solar power technologies and will enhance the capabilities of DOE National

Laboratories to provide test and evaluation support to the solar industry

Solar Power: Japan

Leads the world photovoltaic energy market- 45% of PV cells being manufactured.

Promotions- tax credits and subsidies for installation costs

Expected to reduce the costs of photovoltaic systems by an average of fifty percent over three to five years.

These incentives should prove to be exceptionally appealing, because the cost of electricity in Japan is nearly double what it is in the United States.

“Energy for the Desert”- large scale PV power systems

Solar Power: Japan cont.

Solar Power in Space Solar power systems in space- 2040 plans to launch a satellite capable of

generating one million kilowatts per second, which would be the equivalent to a nuclear power plant

two giant solar power-generating wing panels aimed at producing electricity that will be sent

back to Earth in the form of microwaves, with a lower intensity than those emitted by a mobile phone

Nuclear Power

Nuclear power is energy which is produced with the use of a controlled nuclear reaction.

Many nations use nuclear power plants to generate electricity for both civilian and military use.

This form of energy is considered cleaner than fossil fuels, such as coal.

Nuclear Power cont.

In general, nuclear power is cost competitive with other forms of electricity generation, except where there is direct access to low-cost fossil fuels.

Fuel costs for nuclear plants are a minor proportion of total generating costs.

In assessing the economics of nuclear power, fuel management, waste disposal costs, and decommissioning are taken into account. These are internal costs.

The cost of nuclear power generation declined over the 1990s and into the new decade because of declining fuel, and operating and maintenance costs.

Longer construction periods will push up financing costs.

Nuclear Power: U.S.

The US is the world’s largest generator of nuclear power, and accounts for more than 30% of global nuclear electricity generation.

The US was a pioneer of nuclear power development.

It has 104 nuclear reactors currently in operation, which account for almost 20% of all electrical output. Most of these were built between 1967 and 1990.

US reliance on nuclear power has increased significantly due to increases in the output of existing plants.

Nuclear Power: U.S. cont.

The United States does not have any new nuclear plants under construction, and hasn’t completed a new plant since the 1970s. Since this time, the US industry dramatically improved its safety and operational performance.

However, 13 applications for 22 new reactors are under review because interest in new nuclear plant construction has grown.

Over $4 billion has been spent on new nuclear plant development over the last several years and the industry plans to invest nearly $8 billion to start new reactor construction in 2012.

Nuclear Power: Japan

Japan has had an active nuclear power program since research began in 1954. Their first nuclear reactor went into operation in 1970.

They have many new plants under construction or planned, so nuclear power’s role in Japan’s energy future will increase in the next 10 years.

Nuclear power accounts for around 30% of Japan’s electricity and will continue to rely on nuclear power to contribute to the nation’s electricity mix.

Currently, Japan has 53 nuclear power plants in operation and has the 3rd largest installed nuclear capacity in the world, behind the US and France.

Conclusions

“The nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy.”

- President Obama As the economy stabilizes, the U.S. needs to

continue investments into clean energy technology, especially into research and develop in order to compete globally, as foreign countries like Japan continue to grow its clean energy technology.

Conclusions cont.

It should focus on alternative batteries/hybrids to achieve the higher market levels that other countries such as Japan have achieved.

In the long run, clean energy will benefit the economy as it creates jobs and create new cost effective markets.

It will help us gradually lower our dependency on oil and prove to be reliable energy sources.

Questions?