MER - June, 2008

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

A National Energy Policy Is Essential Now More Than Ever

An open letter to the Presidential candidates

James A. Croce, CEO NextEnergy

Senator Obama and Senator McCain; I hope you read this.

With gasoline prices shooting up past $4 a gallon and the economy of our nation reacting to this energy cost disruption with unpredictable surges in the price of food and nearly all other goods and services, it’s quite apparent to me, and to many others, that our nation now needs a formal and far-reaching National Energy Policy which can guide our nation securely through the approaching decades of wildly fluctuating energy costs that are most assuredly headed our way.

Our national energy usage can no longer be a passive game of profit and politics. This is a war now. This is a war to protect our national economy from energy prices that are largely beyond our control. We certainly do not control the price of foreign oil.

Relying upon state leadership to fight this battle as individual governing bodies is as futile as asking individual states to declare war on Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan during World War II. Can you imagine California and Oregon independently battling Japan? Or Ohio waging war on Germany?

It is an absurd metaphor, but designed to make a point. Energy is a national issue. We, as a nation, are at war with high energy prices that are likely to go much, much higher than they are now … and we need a comprehensive, long-term, and non-politicized national policy to protect our population and to hold us together in this time of encroaching crisis.

We need the vision of a Lincoln or an FDR to slice through the Gordian knots of turf wars and state selfishness and pull our whole nation together to meet the energy challenges we are now beginning to face. Senator McCain and Senator Obama; we need your leadership on this issue.

We need a National Energy Policy that maximizes domestic resources fairly and economically throughout the United States. We need long range policy thinking that will outlast single party presidential administrations. We need federal strength that will not shy away from doing what is right and just in the face of threatening or intimidating business interests. We need uniform national automotive emissions standards and national renewable portfolio standards; not “here and there, now and then” standards that pit states against each other. We need to upgrade the alternative fuels mandate to include all clean domestic fuel sources. We need to revamp the electrical transmission regulatory structure to create “electron liquidity” between and among the vast number of electric utilities, independent power producers, and their customers. And we need a firm “floor” on oil prices so that gasoline cannot be manipulated back down to $2 a gallon again, thus undoing all the progress now being made with reducing the cost of alternative fuels, and throwing our nation into yet another oil crisis. It’s impossible to keep our economy stable with yo-yoing oil prices. We’ve been jerked around enough on that roller coaster and the chaos has to stop.

America needs a comprehensive and VERY long-term National Energy Policy, Mr. President-to-be. We need the best minds in the country to come together and deliver not just a roadmap, but a Constitution of National Energy Policy that will be no less permanent than the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence.

Our national energy policy is every bit as crucial to our national survival as any world war could be. We should treat this challenge with the same deference. And with the same fear.

Clean diesel tech advance at BorgWarner
Auburn Hills-based BorgWarner Inc. announced it had developed a diesel turbocharger that can meet the world's strictest emissions standards. The company expects to see the technology introduced in the United States in 2008 on diesel imports from two European automakers. One of the most effective ways to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions is through exhaust gas recirculation to the combustion chamber. Low-pressure EGR systems offer advantages in emissions reduction compared with high-pressure EGR systems. However, high thermal loads and metal fatigue due to damaging exhaust particles made it difficult to implement low-pressure EGR with reliability. But in a recent breakthrough, research and development engineers at BorgWarner have developed new materials and coatings for compressor wheels and housings that withstand the extreme temperatures generated by recirculated exhaust gas. In addition, the specialized coatings prevent uncombusted particles from depositing on the compressor, extending the lifetime of the turbocharger. More at www.borgwarner.com.

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New survey shows hybrids are hotter than ever
A new survey from the New York City-based research firm Synovate says consumers are considering hybrid electric vehicles in the highest numbers ever, and are also increasingly familiar with advanced propulsion systems like turbo gasoline direct injection and direct injection diesel. "We are fast approaching the 'perfect storm' facing our advanced technologies," says Tim Englehart, vice president of Synovate Motoresearch, the Royal Oak-based automotive research division of Synovate, and head of the study.

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Compact Power gets $12.9 million battery grant
The United States Advanced Battery Consortium announced the award of a $12.9 million plug-in hybrid electric battery technology development contract to Compact Power Inc. of Troy. USABC formally awarded the contract earlier this year, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, which previously announced the award, pending agreement on all terms and conditions. The 27-month cost-shared contract is for the development of battery cell, module and pack technology for plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle applications. More at www.uscar.org.

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Hybrid truck technology firm on the grow in Oak Park
The business cards at Azure Dynamics call the company "part of the solution." In an era of $4-a-gallon gasoline and $5-a-gallon diesel fuel, that's a legitimate claim, given the company's hybrid truck technology. Azure was founded early this decade as a spinout of hybrid technology developed at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Three years ago, it acquired Solectria, an electric vehicle technology company that was a spinout of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. And last year, the company decided to move its headquarters from suburban Toronto to the Detroit area to be closer to its target market and the auto industry. Today it has 15 headquarters employees in the cavernous, 30,000-square-foot former home of American Sunroof on 11 Mile Road in Oak Park. More at www.azuredynamics.com.

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Search for next NextEnergy boss under way
The search for a new CEO of the NextEnergy Center is "not yet closed by any means," the board chairman of Michigan's renewable energy industry accelerator said this month. "We've had a lot of good interest and people sending in their resumes from both in-state and outside the state," said Chris Rizik, who is also a co-founder and board member of Ann Arbor-based Ardesta LLC, a provider of venture capital for nanotech, microtech and MEMS companies. "We're still getting new names coming in, so the process is not closed by an means. It's just a matter of the Compass Group, an Oakland County based search firm, and the search committee at NextEnergy working through the names and setting up first interviews."

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Detroit automakers get federal grants for plug-in hybrid research
The United States Department of Energy has awarded up to $30 million in funding for three cost-shared plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle demonstration and development projects led by General Motors, Ford and General Electric, which is working with Chrysler. AutoTech Daily reported that the three-year projects are the first to be announced under DOE’s PHEV Technology Acceleration and Deployment Activity initiative. Additional selections will be announced in a month. The projects aim to accelerate the development of PHEVs capable of traveling up to 40 miles without recharging, which DOE says covers 70 percent of average daily commutes in the U.S. Other objectives include identifying and overcoming potential hurdles to achieving DOE’s goal of making PHEVs cost-competitive by 2014 and ready for commercialization by 2016.

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Solar energy installation begins at Ann Arbor Farmers' Market
The City of Ann Arbor launched its most substantial solar energy project to date with installation in progress of 156 solar panels at the Ann Arbor Farmers’ Market at 315 Detroit St. The 10-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system on the market’s northerly shed structure will be capable of powering the entire market -- the equivalent of five homes. The project is funded by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority and is targeted for completion in July. For additional details on the city’s numerous solar and other energy-related initiatives, visit the city’s Energy Office Web site at www.a2gov.org/energy.

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GM may buy Orion battery supplier
General Motors Corp. has been negotiating to buy troubled battery supplier Cobasys LLC for several months, according to a report in Automotive News. Citing several unnamed industry sources, the newspaper says a deal is nearing and that GM has hired BBK Ltd., a Southfield-based consulting firm that specializes in turnarounds, to conduct a financial audit. Cobasys LLC, an Orion Township-based joint venture between Chevron Corp. and Rochester Hills-based Energy Conversion Devices Inc., supplies nickel-metal-hydride batteries to GM for use in mild-hybrid versions of the company’s Saturn Aura, Vue Green Line and Chevrolet Malibu vehicles. Battery problems triggered a recall of these vehicles late last year that also has slowed production of new hybrid models. AN says GM also plans to source batteries for some other hybrid models from Cobasys, which is also developing next-generation lithium-ion technology.

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Bosch opens hydraulic hybrid plant in Rochester Hills
Bosch Rexroth this month celebrated the grand opening of its Tech Center East in Rochester Hills. The plant is involved in the development of the hydraulic hybrid systems, which are being tested to conserve energy and reduce the environmental impact of vehicles. It houses 120 employees, combining technical personnel from the company's hydraulics, pneumatics, electric drives, and linear motion and assembly technologies groups. At an open house event on June 2, the company displayed state-of-the-art drive, motion and control concepts and systems developed at the center, including hydraulic hybrid technology and automotive industry applications. More at www.boschrexroth-us.com.

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Hemlock Semiconductor begins production at expanded plant
Hemlock Semiconductor Corp. has begun production at its new polysilicon plant. The new plant, part of a $1.5 billion expansion announced last year, will produce about 9,000 metric tons of polysilicon a year, nearly doubling the plant's capacity to 19,000 metric tons a year by the end of 2008. The plant will serve the needs of the semiconductor and fast-growing solar energy industries. It will also be the largest single polysilicon plant in the world. Hemlock Semiconductor expects to complete an additional expansion with operations and supply beginning in 2010. This expansion will increase the total capacity from the Hemlock site to 36,000 tons by the end of 2011.

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Marquette to get biomass production plant
Cleveland-based Renewafuel LLC, a subsidiary of Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., said it will build a biomass fuel production plant at the Telkite Technology Park in Marquette. Projected to begin operations in the first quarter of 2009, the plant will produce 150,000 tons a year of high-energy, low-emission biofuel cubes from a sustainable composite of collected wood and agricultural feedstocks, including wood byproducts, corn stalks, grasses and energy crops.

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United Solar to add 400 jobs in Greenville
United Solar Ovonic LLC, a subsidiary of Rochester Hills-based Energy Conversion Devices Inc., announced it will add 400 jobs at its new solar panel manufacturing plant in Greenville, 35 miles northeast of Grand Rapids. The new jobs are required by United Solar's plan to add 120 megawatts a year of manufacturing capacity at the Greenville plant. With this expansion, United Solar's Greenville employment will reach about 800. The company will expand to about 300 megawatts a year of manufacturing by the end of its 2010 fiscal year.

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