Rolls Royce and British Airways Announce Joint Research Venture

[Originally posted at CleanTechnica] The aviation industry is facing unprecedented growth in fuel costs and growing pressure to curb emission levels. As a result, research programs, joint ventures, and public-private partnerships have all been launched to come up with new forms of jet fuel. Rolls-Royce and British Airways are the most recent companies to announce a research partnership to study the feasibility of dramatically expanding the use of the alternative fuels.

Jet fuel (kerosene) now ranks as the third-highest petroleum product in demand and its growth rate outpaces that of GDP. Kerosene is the current fuel of choice for jet fuel because It is widely available and can tolerate a wide range of temperatures. The demand for kerosene on the global market has caused its price to double in the last 12 months alone. Growth in demand for kerosene is being driven, in part, by a growing culture of mobility and its transportation fuels byproducts in the rapidly growing economies of Asia, but also because of the added pressure of American military fuel consumption in the Iraq war. As global energy consumption is predicted to grow 50 percent by 2050, the aviation industry is wising-up to the notion that fuel prices are not coming down any time soon. (More)

[Originally posted at CleanTechnica on 5.18.08]
For those of you who are bettin’ folks, traders on the Chicago Climate Exchange view the Democrats as more bullish on cap-and-trade systems. So if you’re betting on a Democratic victory, you’ll want to buy those contracts now, in anticipation of a price spike on Nov. 5 (Politico).

Toyota Prius sales have topped 1 million and dealers in most markets simply can’t keep them on the shelves. Toyota says domestic inventory is limited by production capacity in Japan, which is shared by the Asian and European markets. The U.S. supply is at its lowest level in two years (Wired).

Imagine a high-speed train that could get you from San Francisco to Los Angeles in two hours forty minutes. Well, that dream is now one step closer to reality as the California High Speed Rail Authority has cleared environmental impact assessments and is beginning construction of what will be the most substantial high-speed rail network in the U.S. But don’t make travel arrangements just yet. The project is not scheduled to be completed until 2030 (gas 2.0).

A joint biofuel effort was announced Thursday involving Air Bus, JetBlue, Honeywell, and Aero Engines that plans to study ways to make commercial aviation fuels out of second-generation feedstocks such as algae (Green Tech Blog).

A new wave of nuclear power plants in the U.S. is likely to cost $5 billion to $12 billion a plant, two to four times previous estimates, driving up electricity bills for consumers and inevitably reigniting public concerns about the costs and benefits of nuclear power (The Wall St. Journal).

Photo credits:

Karl Gunnarrsson via flickr Creative Commons License

compicpie via flickr Creative Commons License

Bistrosavage via flickr Creative Comons License

Maybe.

According to a report issued by KPMG (download pdf), a bubble may be developing globally in the renewable energy sector as bidders compete for assets and send prices up.

Oil and gas companies are buying in the hunt for cleaner fuels and financial buyers are searching for stable long-term cash flow - the overall effect has been to push valuations up to record levels. The report indicates that 50 % of respondents, and nearly two-thirds in Europe, agreed that there is a real risk of a bubble in the renewable energy sector.

The KPMG press release also reported:

While I agree that investors should be cautious, I think that is always good advice. Although the KPMG report has raised some important questions about supply chain bottlenecks, and uncertainty in government incentives, I would argue that the renewable energy and cleantech sectors are relatively robust, despite the fact that many companies have yet to turn a profit.

In the U.S., a lot depends on what (if anything) comes out of Capitol Hill to stabilize the incentive structure for investment in clean energy technologies. I will argue, as I have before, that even if this current Congress does not pass meaningful extensions this year, some sort of tax credit will be passed early next year, and there is a good chance they could extend it retroactively.

Photo: Limbo Poet via flickr under a Creative Commons License

There were a pair of articles in Sunday’s Denver Post about the synergy between the wind energy and heavy rail industries (I suppose you could also say there is a synergy between heavy rail and the energy industry, more broadly defined, as residents of the mountain west are all to familiar with the mile-long coal trains and natural gas filled tanks criss-crossing the landscape and creating delays).

When Vestas Wind Systems announced that they would locate their first North American blade plant in Windsor, Colorado, company officials said part of the reason for doing so was because of the site’s proximity to the regional rail network. Each blade being produced at the Windsor facility will be about 150 feet, and at full production capacity, Vestas expects to roll out about six of those blades per day, making rail transport quite attractive, to say the least.

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