From the Editor's Desk

JAPAN RISING SOLAR - At What Cost?

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:08:00 -0600

AEON Lake Town Center fashions itself as Japan`s largest mall and one of the largest in Asia.

It also may well be the most energy efficient palace to shopping anywhere in the world. It opened two years ago on the sprawling plains outside of Tokyo, about a half hour drive from the center of city in off-peak traffic periods. The place is gleaming. Fitting its image, one smacks into a Prius dealership walking in one of the main entry ways. A soaring ovoid structure nestled next to the building is topped with photo-voltaics, as are some high awning-like projections from the main building.

The developer of the mail with 565 stores says the goal was to develop `the most comfortable shopping center in the world.`

A spokesman for Kyocera, which made the PV planted on the facility, said that in March 2009, the PV generated 41.8 megawatt hours of power, and during the preceding six-month winter period, it cranked out 186 megawatt hours.

The group of visiting American utility executives were duly impressed. But when one member of the group, assembled by the Solar Electric Power Association, asked about the relative cost of the power and the business practicality of the investment, the Kyocera guy and a number of Japanese officials could not come up with a clear answer.

Which was an answer in itself.

Particularly coming one day after the group`s visit to Ota City, where aided with generous government support a neighborhood of 553 homes were outfitted with solar panels, free to the residents involved in an experiment. The object of t he effort that lasted from 2002 to2008 was to study in detail the technical issues that are created when a small area densely equipped with PV is integrated into a larger power grid. All the homes, with a capcity of 2,200 kilowatts, were connected to a single distribution line.

`We assume this is the prototype of the smart grid,` one executive said.

After a tour of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Koichi Sakua, director of its international affairs department, told the group that Japan once was number one in photovoltaics. `We would like to come back to that position.`

Japan`s government is investing what it can, but the sum is diminished as it like other governments in the world deals with a debilitating long-term economic slide. Private sector outfits like the owners of the AEON mall are stepping into the breach.

So as a society, Japan has its shoulder to the wheel trying to figure out where the next big break through will come cutting solar costs and solving the many technological challenges of integrating it into the power system.

But as I walked through the venerable Tsukiji Fish Market in the pre-dawn hours this morning in a jet-lag lingering fog, i couldn`t help but reflect on the fact that this is a merchant nation. Every last person working the fish market knows the value of each fish down to the smallest prawn. When will they apply that fine-tuned sense of commercial value to the whale of an enterprise waiting to be born worldwide - and help solar reach its full potential?

Japanese Consumers Want PV

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 03:07:00 -0600

As the lightning crackled around a nearby a major manufactured housing factory, a group of American utility folks touring Japan this week learned Monday about the appeal of PV in this island nation.

The Solar Electric Power Association group spent the afternoon touring the Sekisui factory in Saitama outside Tokyo. Here is the deal. The company started offering consumers the option of buying prefab houses with photovoltaics on the roof in 1999, and they promptly sold 5,000. Now the PV option is selected by a whopping 78 percent of the company customers. That is roughly 7,800 of the 10,000 units a year that they sell. The PV option tacks on about 9 percent to the cost of the home.

The Japanese government is banking on successful companies like Sekisui to drive the adoption of solar throughout the nation of 120 million. That is what one prominent national government official, Shoji Watanabe, told the group. He carries the long title of director of the new and renewable energy division of the powerful government agency, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

Somewhat sheepishly, he told the SEPA delegation that the deficit-haunted Japanese government has earmarked 134 billion yen for renewable deployment and research and development. Roughly, that is about $1.5 billion, a paltry sum when stacked against the Obama administration efforts to use energy investments to create jobs and stimulate the US economy.

I asked Watanabe if Japan should be doing more. A most difficult question he responded to the group, and to me privately, after our meeting.

`We expect the private sector to step in,` he said. And Sekisui gets the message.

JAPAN EMERGING SOLAR POWER HOUSE

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 00:27:00 -0600

Leon Roose will be there. He is with the Hawaiian Electric Co.

So will Sharon Staz, with Kennebunk Light & Power.

SEPA has assembled a diverse cluster of utility industry executives from Hawaii to Maine and points in between to head to Japan this week for its third annual mission to study what foreign countries have been able to do deploying solar. The implication is that the United States has some catch up.

Previous missions were in 2008 to Germany and last year to Spain. Your faithful blogger [ www.energyblogs.com/rosenberg ], also employed as editor-in-chief of EnergyBiz magazine [ www.energybizmag.com ] was the sole journalist SEPA invited to tag along this year.

Here is what Julia Hamm, the head of the Solar Electric Power Association, has to say about the mission, which has 21 participants:

“During our time in Japan, the utility participants will engage in fruitful dialog with their Japanese utility counterparts, government officials and solar industry representatives as well as see first-hand examples of successful solar integration into the power grid. We expect to come back with an in-depth understanding of how Japan has developed a sustainable solar market and how they are technically preparing for even greater solar integration in the future.”

In some briefing sessions we held prior to departure I learned some fascinating tidbits that I will be checking out on the ground in Japan. One is that 70 percent of manufactured housing now being built in Japan is equipped with solar electric power equipment. That represents a hefty share of new housing in the country.

As you read this, we probably have just trooped through the offices of NEDO – The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization. That is Japan’s equivalent of our nifty National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo.

Please stay blogged in in coming days as I try to give you a bird’s eye view of some of the more intriguing things we are learning about solar power and renewables in one of the most advanced economies in the world.

One thing I will be watching out for is insight on the following question.

How is it that a country with soaring government deficits and mired in a decades-long economic slump has achieved such stellar results with solar?

Obama's Ambitions Throttled

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 02:50:00 -0600

It seems half a loaf is what Team Obama wants to now settle for instead of a whole.

News reports surfaced yesterday saying the administration will press forward on a carbon cap on just the utility sector, which is responsible for one-third to 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, depending on who is doing the counting.

The rest of the economy will be excluded from the cap. I wonder if some of the ads I have been seeing on TV in recent evenings - against enacting new "energy taxes" and sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute - is having an impact.

The problem with focusing on "just" utilities is that Obama may be losing some Democratic Senate votes from coal producing states. Who says that there is a good chance the entire effort at carbon cap will fizzle in the fall as every mouse in Congress scammers to find his or her re-election cheese?

Meanwhile, Obama is finding new merit in suggestions by T. Boone Pickens - who captivated a recent EnergyBiz Leadership Forum - the pied piper of natural gas powered transport.

Heck of a way to run a country.

Numbers Don't Lie - Renewable Trend Lines

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 01:07:00 -0600

The chart popped off the page of a recent Business Week.

It is titled OF GREENBACKS AND GREEN POWER,

One heading: total gigawatts of green power - and the US with its sizable energy economy is tops at 53.4 gigawatts. But China is fast closing on the US at 52.5 gigawatts.

More telling is the category of green power as a share of total capacity. It begs a glaring question. The US stands at 4 percent, while Brazil is at 11 percent and Germany and Spain hover around the 30 percent mark. One-third. That is quite a sizable slice of the pie.

Why - is relatively well known. When the US was porking out on its ever-rising-tide of property values during the last few decades of bubblemania, some of our European friends were indulging in old-fashioned pump-priming. Government subsidy. Heck, you may even want to call it socialism. Those nations were spending a good hunk of their income on business technologies that could not stand alone. Yet.

But now the race is on. The final chart stat tells that story. Clean energy investment from 2005 through the first quarter of 2010 amounted to $121.9 billion in the US, double the level of Spain and 40 percent ahead of China. The dice are being thrown. If old renewable technologies dominate the US may never catch Europe and a surging China.

BUT if researchers and scientists now hard at work in the USA on next generation solar and wind - and energy storage - capture the momentum, then the global clean energy may yet be headquartered in America. I cannot help being patriotic about our prospects. Call it the after image of those dazzling sparklers my kids and their cousins lit up in a Dallas driveway on the Fourth.

ENERGY TRANSFORMATION: BRING IT ON

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:33:00 -0600

Dan Arvizu, the head of the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colo., was in Kansas City yesterday to talk energy with the city's Economic Club.

He reminded everyone how much the US has accomplished. "The United States is the number one producer in the world" when it comes to wind energy. At least for now.

He and I have talked in the past about the roller-coaster funding his lab has received from the federal government over the decades. Yesterday, he said that the funding levels over the decades closely correlate to the price of oil. When oil is up, so is government spending on new energy technologies. When oil is down, R&D tanks.

"We've lost a lot of opportunities,' he said.

Arvizu is at the pinnacle of trying to forge a new direction for energy in America. He does so as the co-chair of a special task force to the National Science Board, which governs the National Science Foundation and advises the president and Congress. The task force's mission: "Building a Sustainable Energy Future: U.S. Actions for an Effective Energy Economy Transformation."

Going forward, Arvizu told the economic leaders of Kansas City, " The discussion needs to be richer - we need to be thinking about things differently.'

He correctly reviewed the figures that show that energy companies and government spending on energy R&D is a small fraction of what is spent on other areas, such as the life sciences. This is important. To drive that story home, the upcoming July/August issue of EnergyBiz contain guest pieces by MIT's Don Sadoway and the Brookings Institutions' Mark Muro on the huge ramifications of this sparse support for energy R&D in the USA.

The key question, as I see it, is this. Others, most notably Germany, Denmark and China, have captured wind and solar discoveries minted in America and built large industries around them with tens of thousands of jobs. Is it too late for America?

No way, Arvizu said. Take crystalline silicon solar panel technology. The Chinese are all over it. But research is urgently needed to advance beyond that technology to get solar to the second and third generation - and cut costs dramatically. We need to do that research in America and we "need to capture the benefits" in America, Arvizu said.

The key? Simple. "Shape the market so market forces can encourage private investment - that is the only way this is going to happen," Arvizu said.

He was careful to sidestep any discussion of national energy policy, particularly since the news media was in the room - and the country was still roiling over the verbal indiscretions of one general and his squad in Rolling Stone. But he said this:

"The answer to our dilemma is transforming our energy infrastructure. It wont be as much as sacrifice as many thing it will be."

Backing that up, he reported on a new research support building going up on the NREL campus that cost about the same as conventional government space - $2.65 a square foot - and will generate as much energy as it consumes. "This is the future," he said.

"The future is not that far away."

Grid Game Changers - Gulf Catastrophe - And Electricity's Future

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:55:00 -0600

The capstone of the EEI annual chief executive confab, this year, this week, in Hollywood, Fla., was the concluding session. Like most concluding session, attendance was unfortunately sparse as scores of attendees headed to the airport to get back home - or to the golf course to sizzle their brain in the tropical sun.

Lucky for you, your intrepid blogger was on hand.

The master of ceremonies this year was John Rowe, the head of Exelon. He was reflective as he led his peers, Lewis Hay of NextEra Energy, Thomas Farrell, of Dominion, Anthony Earley, of DTE Energy and Richard Kelly, of Xcel Energy, through many of the issues of the day.

Rowe reflected on the Gulf disaster and its possible lingering implications to business in general and electric power companies in specific.

This is what he said. "It raises again the question - can we manager our technologies better than the oil industry."

Rowe confided that his company takes its senior management to Three Miles Island to impress upon them the dimensions of true crises when they arise and their decades-spanning implications. I wonder if oil industry executives plan similar excursions in the years ahead to the oil-slickened Gulf.

Turning to another significant theme, Rowe wondered if, in today's world of $5 per thousand cubic feet natural gas prices, any new technologies - nuclear, wind and carbon capture and storage - will have any appeal.

Even so, Hay weighed in, "Smart grid has the opportunty to be a real game-changer in our industry."

A number of execs seemed to agree that smart grid will have to be seamless and run by the utility because customers are not going to want to mess around with complicated new technology to save a few bucks a month.

Dick Kelly said that his tech savvy customers, like the Boulder crowd, want their TV on and their beer cold. Beyond that, energy is not top of mind.

Meanwhile, smart grid is very relevant going forward. That was the thrust of views in a rollicking webcast I conducted yesterday on Shaping Demand in Pursuit of Energy Efficiency.

I polled the audience on how much each year utilities will increase the amount of peak load reductions in the next few years. Half said 1-5 percent. About one-third said 6-10 percent. The balance said more than 10 percent.

Recent history?

Interestingly, government stats show utilities managed to cut peak load by 32,741 megawatts in 2008, up 8.1 percent from 2007.

I asked how much utilities will increase annual spending on demand side management in the next few years.

44 percent said under 10 percent; 34 percent said 11-20 percent; 13 percent said 21-30 percent; 10 percent said more than 30 percent.

History? Spending increased 47 percent in 2008, compared to 2007, and at an average annual rate of 23 percent between 2003 and 2008.

Healthy growth.

Demand side management and efficiency programs are here to stay, although activity may dip somewhat, perhaps a side effect of a lingering nasty recession.

BLOWN AWAY BY WIND

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:13:00 -0600

Before I put away my AWEA file for 2010, it is worth reflecting on the phenomenon known as wind power in America circa the summer of 2010.

The cavernous Dallas convention center was swarming with wind entrepreneurs, giant corporations, consultants. A big convention would have filled one or two bays of the convention barn. This one spilled on wing after wing. Countries like China and the United Kingdom had pavilions carved out, clusters of businesses from their nation eager to win new wind business.

Don Furman, a top executive of Iberdrola Renewables, took time to chat about the wind gathering and its implications in one of the meeting rooms carved out in the heart of his company’s exhibit space. Attendance was at 20,000 or so, he said. That would be down slightly from a year ago when the meeting took place in Chicago – easier to get to from around the country. On top of that, Furman said that lots of industrial suppliers in the upper Midwest – feeling a slackening of wind in the sails of the auto sector – were eager to stop by the Windy City event and check things out.

But the exhibitor interest in the American Wind Energy Association Dallas 2010 gathering was up from a year ago – “considerably” in Furman’s view.

And attendance dwarfed the 12,000 logged in Houston two years ago.

“The growth has been vertical for this conference.” Just nine years ago – 9 – a few hundred AWEA spawners met in a Holiday Inn.

Fancy that.

Furman, perhaps one of the most eminent big picture wind strategists in the nation, reflected on this moment and the issues before our nation – with the Gulf Oil Disaster, mining disasters and everything else.

Putting it in an interesting double negative, Furman declared: “WE CANNOT NOT MAKE PROGRESS ON CLIMATE IN THIS CONGRESS.”

Want to know what makes Furman and the wind industry tick these days? Going to the printer in a few days will be the July/August issue of EnergyBiz with an in-depth interview conducted with Furman in his Portland, Oregon offices a few months ago. Watch for it, sailing into cyberspace soon by visiting EnergyBiz.

Energy Revolution - Capture US House of Representatives

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 23:05:00 -0600

It was a hot day late last week when I ambled up to the US Capitol in Washington.

Among other things, I was there to spend some time attending the 13th Annual Congressional Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Expo + Forum.

13th? you asked, incredulous.

Well, at one point, one of the speakers asked how many House staffers were in the audience. No hands. More on that later. Then, he asked for members of the media to lift a hand. Mine was the only one to go up. Me - EnergyBiz editor-in-chief - the only media on hand to be part of a day-long celebration of entrepreneurism on the renewable energy front. Now you understand why you haven't heard about the Expo.

I will be editorializing about the event in the pages of EnergyBiz. But here is a flavor of what I heard and saw.

Scott Sklar, president of the Stella Group, cited a study that by 2030 we can cut our energy demand by one-third with existing technology and meet all our electicity needs without using coal, oil or natural gas.

Bob Rose, of the Breakthrough Technology Institute, said that Korea intends to see 2 million fuel cells in residential homes by 2030. And the fuel cell business could generate 3 million jobs in the next two decades.

Gia Schneider, CEO of Natel Energy, said that 70,000 megawatts of low-head, low-hanging hydro is ready to be captured in the USA. Good, clean, hydroelectric power.

And Sean O'Neill, president of Clean Renewable Energy Coalition, said that 100 technologies are being studied around the world that could capture the energy in waves and tides - and 40 of them are in the US.

All these folks trooped to Washington to tell members of Congress that policies and financial resources are needed to make our energy future robust.

A handful of Congressman trooped in during the noon hour to talk with the developers and visionaries. Rep. Van Hollen, D-Maryland, said the work of energy independence is vital to our national security. And the time is now. "This is a sputnik moment, folks,' said Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., with some passion.

More of their colleagues should have been on hand to listen, ask questions and learn.

Maybe more media will be there late next May. America needs to know what is bubbling up in our energy fields.

FINANCIAL DEPENDENCY - The Nuclear + Renewable Reality

Fri, 21 May 2010 07:28:00 -0600

I heard it again yesterday in a webcast I conducted on overcoming obstacles to renewables.

One of the more than 300 energy folks who tuned in asked, "When will renewables be able to stand on its own two feet without subsidies?"

When will nuclear power be able to stand on its own two feet? Since the dawn of the nuclear age, the federal government had to provide backstop insurance to the commercial nuclear fleet in the event of catastrophe. To date, that has been a sound decision - since there has never been an enormous nuclear accident related catastrophe of a scale that only the federal government could address.

Now the next generation of nuclear, like wind and solar, needs more federal support - in the form of loan guarantees. It seems the kitty offered up to kickstart a new generation of nuclear is not sufficient to handle all of the first tier projects. So today's newspaper reports the Obama administration will seek $9 billion more on top of the $18.5 billion it announced in February for nuclear loan guarantees.

There is another track that nuclear proponents are talking to support nuclear. Exelon, the largest nuclear operator in the US, has said that the best shot in the nuclear arm would be to establish a carbon emissions price of $100 a ton. That would make nuclear viable relative to fossils. Problem: the Senate energy bill - which faces an uncertain fate - calls for pegging the price of carbon at $25 a ton.

If you like nuclear, you should be pushing carbon cap. Ditto if you like renewables.

And our poll of webcast listeners Thursday reveals that many of you believe renewables will surge in importance. I asked listeners what share of our electricity generation in 2020 will come from renewables? Just 10 percent of the respondents believe it would be under 5 percent. Today, it is around 1 percent. Close to 44 percent believe it will be between 5 and 10 percent, 38 percent believe it will be 10-20 percent and 8 percent believe it will be more than 20 percent.

I wonder when our policy makers and industry leaders will start connecting the dots - the headlines dominating our news. The coal mine disaster. The horror in the Gulf. Those are real world events with real costs - both human and financial. Those are costs after the fact

Getting proactive with our energy reality - pricing carbon - will allow renewables and nuclear power to take their place rightful place in the energy pantheon, lessening our ties to the fossil past and all that entails. They require we shoulder costs up front.

CCS - BS? Carbon Delusions + Pipe Dreams

Fri, 14 May 2010 00:57:00 -0600

I have seen carbon capture and sequestration up close, visiting one year ago a Vattenfall experiment in the technique on the German-Polish frontier.

I am a skeptic about the effort. The Schwartze Pumpe facility on small scale demonstrates the carbon can be captured. And other tests are showing that here in the US. But what to do with all that gas? There is only so much carbonated beverage that the world's consumers can tap.What has nagged me is images of a hose and pump handle coming out of the storage tank at the German coal generating unit ready to inject the C02 into tank trucks for transport to an underground storage facility. Asked when those storage caverns would be ready, the Vattenfall folks responded with sidelong glances and mumbled something about political and technical complications.

Now the Kerry Lieberman energy proposal revealed mid-week offers up $2 billion on the platter of CCS research and development - on top of $2.4 billion in the stimulus spending package. [By the way, no one knows if or when our premiere research effort - FutureGen - will ever resume.]

Robert Bryce, a researcher, in an op-ed in yesterday's NY Times offered some fascinating stats about the volume of carbon dioxide to be handled. Last year, the US generated 5.4 billion tons. Hard to visualize? Half that volume, compressed for storage WOULD EQUAL 'THE VOLUME OF DAILY GLOBAL OIL PRODUCTION," he writes. He cites a study that says it would require 23,000 miles of new pipeline.

Put that in your pipe for a moment.

The world generates a certain volume of oil each day and every bit of it is used. Would our leaders - and us consumers - be willing to foot the bill to deal with an equivalent volume of gas - which would have no useful purpose other than to be out of the atmosphere? I think not.

So if you are worried about global warming - what to do?

I am working on an interview with one of the world's leading solar business execs who truly believes that solar could very well provide half of our energy by mid-century. He is putting millions of dollars and hiring hundreds of workers in Oregon based on that belief.

If so - game over - for coal. The half of our power pulled from the black monster mineral could be instead wrested from sunbeams. No need to pump compressed, useless gas through 23,000 miles of new pipeline around the American landscape.

Eating Their Seed Corn - THE REAL SCOOP

Fri, 07 May 2010 01:00:00 -0600

The fact was buried in a David Brooks column in the NY Times this week. I bumped into Brooks at a social event in Washington a few weeks ago - how often do I get to say that - not often - and he impressed me as a nice chap with lots to say.

Anyway, he wrote that the American Power Act - you know - the one that will put a price on carbon - is needed for a big but hidden reason. The act- championed by Kerry, Lieberman and Graham - has been fouled by the Gulf oil disaster, since one leg of its stool is to allow offshore oil drilling.

At any rate, what was the little under-appreciated gem in the legislation? While technology companies spend 5 to 15 percent of revenues on R&D, energy companies spend only ONE-QUARTER OF 1 PERCENT,

Clearly, there is a disconnect at energy companies. Technology companies get the fact that their short and long-term future requires innovation. Energy companies - particularly the regulated ones guaranteed a profit - short-circuit that thought process. They are content to let others innovate and be late adopters of technologies others own.

On top of that, the federal governments believes it is more important - ten times more important - to deal with our health rather than how we power our lives, Brooks reported. Uncle Sam spends $30 billion on health research but only $3 billion on clean energy research. Surely more parity is called for.

Some experts say energy research should be at $25 billion a year - and we are getting one of those experts lined up to explain why in a future issue of EnergyBiz.

But let's know that putting a price on carbon will create a deep pool of funds, and a good chunk of it will go to energy research. Such research would help free us from the shackles of fossil fuels responsible for the Gulf disaster. But the disaster itself is now muddying the waters for the carbon cap legislation.

Until we can get past it all, energy companies will eat their seed corn - maximizing revenues as they should - but seeing no need to plant the seeds for their very own - and our very own - energy futures.

Mating Elephants - In the Utility Space

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:49:00 -0600

Would someone please explain to me which way is up - and how to make a solid nickel of profits?

The entire world sometimes seems to be upside down. Maybe it is an Alice in Wonderland economy.

Here is the trigger to my perplexity. PPL announced it will pay $6.7 billion for E.On's utility business in the United States. What that means is picking up Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities - and 1.2 mllion customers. That should be a good thing. Taking control of our US assets away from foreigners - specifically Europeans that do not give us equal investment opportunities in their lands - is good.

But here is the deal. The PPL executives said the deal will not generate cost savings "which often drive corporate consolidations," reported the Wall Street Journal.

Existing management stays on. No staff cuts are anticipated.

Driving the deal? PPL's desire to get into new regions to "become a more formidable U.S. utility business," said the Journal.

If you read on to the jump page inside the paper buried on the bottom of page B4, you learn that PPL plans to finance the deal with a short-term $6.5 billion bridge loan and issue new stock and debt.

Growth is good, right? That is why we give our kids plenty of glasses of milk. But when you put A and B together, save no money and then have to issue stock and debt to pay for the matrimony - how does that make sense? The entire operation has to cover a debt burden that would not otherwise exist. Will rates have to go up? You can be sure that regulators are going to be asking why increase rates for a deal that generates no economies. Why does Joe the Plumber care if his utility is more "formidable?"

I had a chat with a knowledgeable industry source recently and he said there will be a rising tide of M&A for a simple reason. Most utilities' revenues - from industrial, commercial and residential customers - are off. Part is because of the recession. Part is the result of a paradigm shift. Everyone is trying to use less energy. So utilities will try to turn to M&A to generate value there for investors.

But issuing more stock to pay for a deal - all things being equal - is dilutive. Assuming more debt, when there are no new antcipated revenue streams or savings - that is bad.

I refer you to a story in late February that appeared in the NY Times: FOR BUYOUT KINGPINS, THE TXU UTILITY DEAL GETS TRICKY. Why? The big boys in that $48 billion 2007 buyout - the hugest private equity deal - gambled to a large extent on the price of natural gas - and lost. Now they face a $20 billion balloon payment in four years.

Someone please explain to me how the guys at Energy Future Holdings - the "winners" in the TXU sweepstakes - are willing to inflate such a large balloon and not be trembling about the noise it will make when it goes pop. Or why PPL is enamored of a deal that creates no savings - but burdens to come.

Are they - like others - betting they are becoming too big to fail? Or, like our society's run-away debt train - are they willing to let others down the road sort out the mess when things get derailed?

Or, maybe I am missing something, and bigger will be better as the energy industry tackles an unknown future?

Why do I keep getting the notion that some kids in a garage will define our energy future and lumbering dinosaurs have to do much more than scramble to the alter if they intend to remain in the game.

Footnote: PPL is acquiring coal-powered generation plants in the deal. Coal plants - you know - the kind that no one wants to build these days.

Intriguing.

EARTH DAY - Startling New Energy Sparklers

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:30:00 -0600

In honor of Earth Day I am posting my weekly Friday blog on Thursday.

The day provides a good point for reflection on all that i have seen and learned since the sun was last in roughly the same point in space in relation to the earth - i.e. one year ago.

I visited the Schwarze-Pumpe facility close to the German-Polish frontier, where Vattenfall is successfully extracting a stream of carbon dioxide from a coal-burning power generation plant. I mugged around with some fellow journalists near a great big hose, ready to dispatch the CO2 to trucks for eventual storage. It is all being done with existing technology. But it is small scale. The challenge remains ramping it up significantly, and solving the conundrum of where to keep oceans of the gas safely stored underground.

I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Don Sadoway, a materials chemistry genius at MIT, speak about what can eventually be achieved in the field of energy storage. Picture a huge storage facility - an array of batteries - as large as a power plant itself. That may be coming - soon. And it will jet-start ever more reliance on what now are intermittent sources of renewable power - wind and solar. Don this week agreed to take part in a discussion about renewables in the next EnergyBiz Leadership Series webcast noon EDT on May 20. Click here to learn more and reserve a seat.

I spent some time in Oregon checking out solar panels installed along Interstate 5 to help light a stretch of freeways - one of the first efforts of its kind. And I descended into the bowels of a Depression era turbine at Bonneville Dam to learn more about new designs to boost output and efficiency while preserved the treasured salmon of the Columbia River.

I have heard government officials of high rank, captains of our largest energy companies, scientists and experts. The culture they reflect is vastly different than the era that spawned Earth Day - an age when rivers were so polluted they caught fire and smokestacks emitted nasty stuff that would land an emitter in jail today.

The culture, the business imperative, the force of our politics all seems pointed in one broad direction. There may be skirmishes on the fringes about global warming. But there is broad agreement that tapping clean and inexhaustible energy resources within our own borders is the thing to do. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who represents Kansas City in Congress and is its former mayor, made clear the sweep of the revolution when he gave an inspiring talk in the closing hours of this years EnergyBiz Leadership Forum in Washington last month. [CLICK HERE and go to Session 3 Panel D for more. ] He wants to take a section of blighted urban core and renew the housing stock with renewables and energy efficiency, creating jobs for chronically unemployed folks. It is the smart grid in real time. And it is happening right here, close to the geographic and population center of the United States.

This being the hometown of Hallmark, I call Cleaver's Green Impact Zone effort an Earth Day greetings card to the rest of the world.

FOLLOW THE NUMBERS - Inescapable Energy Truths

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 01:08:00 -0600

If you like to stay ahead of emerging energy trends, you should keep a close eye on the data developed by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The stuff is gold.

Recently, I have been studying a report they have put out called PRIMARY ENERGY CONSUMPTION BY SOURCE. It tracks the obvious - that in the recession our energy use has fallen - last year down 4.6 percent from 2008 and 6.6 percent from 2007.

The amount of our energy consumption tied to coal last year was at the lowest level since at least 1995 - 14 years back. That is what the numbers say. Aging coal plants are being retired - particularly those that are decades old and could give their owners financial fits if Congress ever enacts a carbon emissions abatement regime. Also, you have heard that construction of coal-burning generation plants is, so to speak, on a back-burner. That tells the story as well.

What about natural gas? True our energy consumption tied to natural gas is down slightly the last year or two. But last year it was at a level that about equalled or exceded the figures posted for most of the 1995-2006 timeframe.

And renewables - were responsible for churning out a scant 8.2 percent of our consumed energy last year. But the march is upward. In fact, the amount of our consumed energy coming from renewables last year was up 15.2 percent from 2007. And remember, our overall energy use during that time frame went south - declining 6.6 percent.

Iasked the good folks at US EIA to give me their projections and they quickly pointed me to a table that is set all the way out to 2035 - a neat 25 years from now.

Our overall energy consumption between 2007 and 2035 will grow at an annual average rate of about 0.5 percent. Natural gas and coal - will account for a slightly larger amount of energy consumed than today.

Can that be true? I wonder what the government pencil pushers are assuming about the political forces behind a global warming abatement campaign, the charge of the renewables light brigade and the nuclear power plant proponents... the preachers or efficiency...

Could it be that the more things will change, the more they will stay the same?

Or will there be game-changers? Any one know how many plug-in electric vehicles will be tooling around in 2035?