Since Iceland is so geographically remote and lacking in a lot of natural resources they have been looking for ways to harness the power they do have. Two things that Iceland does have in abundance are ice and geothermal energy. Iceland has been making a major push into using hydrogen as a fuel and producing it locally with the heat energy from within the earth.

Quantum Technologies will be providing hydrogen-fueled hybrid Priuses for Iceland's SMART-H2 project. The hydrogen powered vehicles will be used by local energy companies and the local Hertz agency. If things work out, the program will be expanded in 2008-9.

[Source: Talk About Cars]

In a lengthy, two-part editorial, David Roberts, a staff writer at Grist, presents his position on unifying the green lobby around the flag of URGE²: Use Renewably Generated Electricity, Efficiently. He is expecting bumper stickers and t-shirts - here's why.

Mine negawatts: The cheapest source of new energy is not using it - increase efficiency and you can slash the growth in energy demand. See part two of the interview with Michael Brylawski of RMI for his related comments on how people don't want extra kilowatts, they want hot showers and cold beers.

A good example of where to find negawatts is right above you - replacing standard incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs as is being proposed here in Australia. Similarly, make a car lighter and you can make it more efficient, or faster, or both.

Electrify: It's easier to find clean, renewable sources of electricity than it is to find clean, renewable liquid fuels which leads to an obvious conclusion - shift almost all energy use to electricity. That's not to say that there isn't a lot of room for renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel in the mean time, but long term, the electricity grid is just more efficient.

Kill coal: "Coal is the enemy of the human race." Coal fired power stations are responsible for a huge percentage of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions. Coal also causes environmental damage where it is mined and air pollution where is burning. Cleaning up coal is likely to make it financially non-viable in comparison to green technologies such as wind.

Upgrade the grid: Focus on energy storage and decentralisation through renewable sources like wind, solar, geothermal, hydrokinetic, cogeneration and biomethane. Developing good power storage technology is important to even out the supply intermittency of renewable energy sources. Examples of storage Roberts mentions include battery technology (both lithium and nano), hydrogen fuel cells, pumped storage, molten-salt storage and ultracapacitors.

Analysis: As Michael Brylawski said, "if the ultimate efficiency is, say, 10 percent of turning coal into refrigeration for your beer, every unit of energy saved at the fridge saves ten times that in coal." I especially like the concept of mining negawatts - you can start today by using compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Related:

• GridWise sets aside four days in April to work on U.S. smart grid
• Wind and solar powered streetlights... I hope there're no solar red-light-photo cameras!
• Interview with Michael Brylawski of RMI part two - Hypercars and cold beers

[Source: David Roberts / TomPaine.com]

Thanks to the increased cost of crude oil in recent years, there have been moves to make big expansions in oil production in northern Alberta, Canada. Alberta has some of the largest known petroleum reserves in the world, but unfortunately much of it is locked up in tar sands that need processing to extract the crude. The oil separation process uses hot water, and heating the water, takes energy. Traditionally oil sands production burned natural gas, and lots of it to heat the water, which of course means lots of CO2 emissions.

Now a consortium of oil companies called GeoPower in the Oil Sands (GeoPOS) wants to try a different approach. Oil sands production accounts for one-third of all natural gas consumption in Alberta, and that will increase dramatically in the coming years as production is increased. GeoPOS will be drilling a test well to evaluate geothermal energy as means to heat the water. The nuclear industry had been hoping build reactors in the region to supply energy for heating the water. Geothermal could provide the same constant energy source, as nuclear and unlike solar and wind power. Compared to a coal fired power plant geothermal produces only 0.1 kilograms of carbon per megawatt hour of generated electricity, as opposed to 185 kilograms. Geothermal would also avoid the waste disposal issues of nuclear power. Follow the Read link to learn more.

[Source: Toronto Star]

Bloomberg compares in a lengthy article the current boom in venture capital funding for alternative energy companies with what we saw during the dot-com boom. Many of the venture capitalist firms in California are dangling millions of dollars in front of solar panel makers and biofuel companies, which are often money-losing companies hoping to harness the power of the sun or cooking up gasoline and diesel substitutes from a variety of crops. VC funds investments in renewable energy rose 36 percent in 2005, to a record $739 million. Silicon Valley pioneer Vinod Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems Inc. and helped finance Amazon.com, is worried the current boom is becoming like the dot-com bubble. The alternative-energy bulls believe a combination of outside pressures, the soaring prices of OPEC crude, the booming economy in China, and the growing concerns about global warming are about to usher in a new era of green power, and they hope to make some profit of this development. Where will they find this profit? It seems every single VC firm has a different answer. Khosla is betting on ethanol, Erik Straser, a partner at nearby Mohr Davido Ventures, believes solar power is the answer, while Lee Bailey, COO of US Renewables LLC, has spent $38 million for a stake in a geothermal plant.  Nancy Floyd, co-founder of Nth Power LLC is wagering on biodiesel, among other sources. While many of the alternative energy sources are clean, very few of them are currently cheap in comparison to the traditional sources, increasing concerns over the economics of some of the alternative energy companies. But the biggest risk for all the alternative energy companies, and the VC investments, is oil. While all VC's and stock market investors are betting that high-priced crude is here to stay, a drop in oil to $50 a barrel could make the alternative fuel bubble burst just like the dot-com bubble. With the spiraling demand for power worldwide, however, this is a very unlikely scenario.

[Source: Bloomberg]