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Strengths of the New States
The International Mediaservice from Germany - Land of Ideas presents companies and researchers in the renewables sector in Berlin, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia excelling at innovative developments in biofuels, photovoltaics and carbon capture.
Berlin - The Car of the Future: Technologies for hydrogen-powered vehicles for everyday use The Clean Energy Partnership (CEP), an international project in Berlin, proves that the idea of
driving down the autobahn without gasoline and diesel fumes is no longer an utopian vision
by a few environmental nutcases. Eleven bigname companies have joined forces to develop
the car of the future – one that is powered by hydrogen and leaves nothing but water in its
wake. The group includes Aral, BMW, Berliner Transportation Association, DaimlerChrysler, The CEP was selected as one of the “365 Landmarks in the Land of Ideas” in 2007. “365 Landmarks in the Land of Ideas” is both a nationwide contest and Germany’s biggest event series. From more than 1,500 contestants in this nationwide competition, 365 ‘landmarks’ prevailed – including everything from museums to grassroots initiatives to businesses. Links
Brandenburg - A Bunker for CO2
Around a third of all carbon dioxide emissions caused by man come from burning fossil fuels to produce electricity. Many other industries, such as oil refineries, cement works and steel production also release large volumes of CO2. The changeover to climate-friendly energy supplies will take decades, as we are still reliant on fossil fuels. Yet emissions can be appreciably reduced, without any consequences for the production process, by carbon capture and storage. The basic idea is that CO2 is captured during the production process and then stored safely underground for a long period. Empty oil and gas reservoirs, coal seams and porous rock beds can be used for such storage, and the available capacity would be enough to hold all man-made CO2 emissions for up to 100 years. We have actually been pumping CO2 into the ground for decades – into depleted oil fields, and under the seabed. But if we intend to make large-scale use of this technology for climate protection purposes, we need to find out quickly whether long-term underground storage is safe and reliable. The GFZ Potsdam Research Centre for Geoscience spearheads a project called ‘CO2SINK’: along with 18 partners from nine European countries, it is investigating for the first time how to get CO2 into deep beds of porous rock and how to store it there. Drilling has now begun in Ketzin, a small town in the Havelland region west of Berlin, for Europe’s first experimental geological storage of carbon dioxide. The plan is to pump 60,000 tonnes of CO2 into the underground here over the next two years. For the first time in Europe and unlike most other projects, which are sited under the sea or in the desert, the Ketzin project examines storage in a populated district. The area will be constantly monitored throughout the two-year experiment: alongside the borehole for pumping in the CO2 are two observation boreholes fitted with high-technology sensors. The conditions in Ketzin are well suited for the experiment, and typical of large parts of Europe. 700 metres below the earth’s surface are bulging layers of porous sandstone. Its pores, filled with salt water, will hold the CO2. “Chemically, carbon dioxide behaves very differently from natural gas,” explains project leader Professor Dr. Frank Schilling from the GFZ. “Released in water, it forms carbonic acid, which can erode certain types of rock.” Gas could also escape as a result of disturbances in the substratum caused by drilling or CO2 injection. “The underground reservoir therefore has to be selected very carefully, as was done in Ketzin, in order to avoid any unduly large leaks,” stresses Schilling. Above ground, the project team will examine the spread of the gas using seismic methods, backed up by geochemical and physical measurements in the boreholes, plus analyses of rock samples, gases and liquids from the substratum. The aim is to find out precisely what processes are triggered by the CO2. The data will be incorporated into simulation models to allow for forecasts about the long-term safety of the CO2 storage. The Ketzin project will also look into issues of cost. According to an American study, prices for storage and long-term monitoring currently range between $0.60 and $8.00 (US) per tonne of carbon dioxide. Many times this sum can be added for isolating the gas at the power station. However, beyond cost, public acceptance will determine whether the concept of a CO2 sink catches on as an option for climate protection. Source: www.mediaservice.land-of-ideas.org Links
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern - Northern State has Head Start in Offshore Wind Power
Mecklenburg-West Pomerania is tops in Germany, at least when it comes to offshore wind power. The largely agricultural northeastern state has a head start in developing and establishing the new industry. "We've got the first two fully approved wind parks in Germany," said Andree Ifflaender from the engineering and project planning company Offshore Ostsee Wind AG in Boergerende. While other planned wind parks in the North and Baltic seas have received only partial approval, the wind parks Baltic I off the Fischland-Darss-Zingst peninsula and Kriegers Flak off the island of Ruegen have been "totally approved" - from the wind turbines to the power-grid connection in Bentwisch near Rostock, Ifflaender said. The April 2006 installation of Germany's first German offshore wind turbine, in the Breitling estuary near the Baltic seaport of Rostock, was a big step forward. "The project was important because we gained experience for facilities planned out in the Baltic Sea," said Ralf Peters of Rostock-based Nordex AG, which built the wind turbine. Every phase of installation had to be done by ship. According to Peters, the Breitling turbine has supplied about 1,800 households with electricity, which is not much compared with the wind parks that are planned. When they both go into operation, wind power will meet half of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's energy needs. The Baltic I pilot facility, which carries a price tag of some 100 million euros, will comprise 21 wind turbines with outputs of 2 to 5 megawatts each. Construction is to begin in 2007. Starting in 2008, it is expected to supply some 57,000 households with electricity. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's offshore strategy depends on the success of Baltic I since the wind park Kriegers Flak, which is four times larger and costs 700 million euros, is set for construction off Ruegen in the coming years. It is to provide electricity for more than 220,000 households. Kriegers Flak is far more complicated because of the greater distance to the mainland, the depth of the water and state of the seabed. All parties involved have expressed confidence in securing the necessary financing and meeting deadlines for construction and operation. The recently adopted Infrastructure Planning Acceleration Act plays a key role here. It requires energy suppliers to pay for offshore wind farms' grid connections. "This substantially improves conditions," noted Christian Schnibbe of Bremen-based WPD, which specializes in capital investments in wind parks. The resulting 20- to 25-percent reduction in project costs could cushion the sharp rise in some prices for facilities and raw materials. The new law could also compensate, at least partly, for the relatively low surcharge that German producers of offshore wind energy can add to the electricity they feed into the grid: just over 9 cents per kilowatt hour, compared with 15 cents in Britain and the Netherlands. Wind power from the Baltic Sea will not simply burnish Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's eco-image. "Building and operating the facilities will create thousands of jobs," pointed out Matthias Hochstaetter, spokesman for the German Wind Energy Association (BWE). He estimates the Baltic's wind-power potential to be about 2 gigawatts, which he said would attract about 5 billion euros in investment. "A gigantic boost for the economy," he noted. Source: www.mediaservice.land-of-ideas.org Links
Automobile traffic around the world not only pollutes the environment, but is also a significant contributor to CO2 emissions and hence to climate change. Biofuels produced from sugarcane, grain, corn or rapeseed offer solutions to this problem. The consumption of these fuels emits scarcely any more carbon dioxide into the air than the plants previously absorbed as they grew. Therefore, their CO2 balance is practically neutral and, unlike oil, they are renewable. CHOREN Industries GmbH, based in Freiberg, Saxony, is one step further along the road: at the end of 2007, the company will begin operating the world’s first facility to produce "second-generation" biofuel on an industrial scale. Using its patented Carbo-V® process, the company recycles not only agricultural crops, but also solid biomass of any sort – including plant waste, timber offcuts, sawdust, straw and grass. The biomass is processed into a completely tar-free combustible gas, from which both electricity and heat can be produced, as well as a form of biofuel with a wide range of possible uses. CHOREN Industries GmbH uses this procedure, known as the biomass-to-liquid process, to produce SunDiesel, a fuel with impressive qualities: it is efficient, completely free of aromatic compounds and sulphur and practically CO2-neutral. Due to its higher cetane number, SunDiesel combusts more readily than fossil diesel and thus produces more power. This biofuel requires neither new engines nor special filling stations. Nor does it have to be transported or stored in any special way. It can thus replace fossil fuels without any great effort or expense. ”Tests have shown that SunDiesel is ideally suited to the low-emission, economical combustion engines of the next generation of cars currently being developed by the motor industry,” says CHOREN’s chief executive Thomas Blades. The company, which employs a workforce of 200 at its base in Saxony, has already recruited several new partners for its concept. The energy group Shell, for instance, bought into the company in 2005 in order to take on the marketing of SunDiesel. In the future, Shell aims to add SunDiesel to its range of conventional fuels and to sell it via its network of filling stations. CHOREN has also signed up carmakers DaimlerChrysler and Volkswagen as cooperation partners. CHOREN is currently testing out commercial production of SunDiesel in Freiberg. The plan is for the plant to be producing 15,000 tonnes of the fuel per year from 2008, which would cover the annual consumption of 15,000 to 20,000 cars. The company is also planning another five plants in Germany, each producing 200,000 tonnes a year. Raw materials are in ample supply: some 40 millions tonnes of straw are produced in German fields each year and over half of it is simply ploughed back into the land. This alone would be enough to produce eight million tonnes of SunDiesel – equivalent to around 28 percent of all German diesel consumption. By 2020, around a quarter of the fuel needed in Germany could already be produced from biomass. Source: www.mediaservice.land-of-ideas.org Links
Saxany-Anhalt - "Dirty" Solar Cells
The photovoltaic industry is booming: The market is growing by over 30 percent a year, with no end in sight. And yet it will still be a while before solar electricity is available nationwide and in sufficient quantities. Cost is the greatest obstacle: solar power plants are expensive. One reason is that the price for the essential base material, silicon, keeps soaring to new heights. Silicon itself is available in abundance, but to date the material must be ultrapure to be usable, and processing it is an elaborate and expensive procedure. All over the world, researchers and businesses are searching for a solution. They plan to make metallurgical-grade silicon – i.e. silicon contaminated with traces of mostly metallic particles – usable in the production of solar cells. One promising idea comes from a German-Norwegian partnership: as of 2008, Q-Cells AG based in Thalheim (Saxony-Anhalt) will be the world’s first company to place a new generation of solar cells using "dirty silicon" on the market. Elkem Solar, a company based in Oslo, produces the raw material using only 15 percent of the energy usually required. Q-Cells’ researchers have come up with a process that uses this material to produce solar cells that are just as effective as the cells using expensive, ultrapure silicon. High costs would no longer be an impediment to the expansion of solar energy. “Sixty percent of the cost of solar cell production can be traced to the expense of processing silicon," says Q-Cells AG CEO Anton Milner. "The market launch of the first solar cells using ‘dirty silicon’ will make solar electricity much less expensive in the medium term. This is a tremendous leap forward for photovoltaics.” In fact Q-Cells’ new dirty solar cells are produced using a blend of the new silicon and the traditional ultrapure material. However, the researchers at Q-Cells have already made additional improvements to the process, so that a new generation of solar cells made entirely from the dirty material will become available in the foreseeable future. Solar cells made from metallurgical-grade silicon point to ways to lastingly overcome silicon scarcity, and considerably reduce the production costs of solar cells. So there is nothing to stand in the way of an across-the-board expansion of solar power plants. Links
Thuringia - A Light-Driven Vehicle
The idea comes from nature, specifically the power generation seen in green plants. In photosynthesis, sunlight is converted to chemical energy inside every leaf. Researchers have been trying to replicate this complicated natural process for years. Now, scientists at Jena University’s Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry have achieved a breakthrough. Using a process similar to photosynthesis, they were able to produce the energy provider hydrogen in molecular form. The molecular hydrogen has been produced in the lab at a globally unsurpassed high yield: 56 molecules of hydrogen per individual catalyst molecule. Inside a fuel cell, the hydrogen gained in this way could in future power a car. Propulsion by photosynthesis! In nature, the organic chlorophyll and carotenoid pigments fulfil the function of a light antenna. They absorb light energy, triggering the reactions required to ultimately obtain glucose from carbon dioxide and water. Light is captured in the laboratory by a special metal complex using ruthenium. The ruthenium then gives off an electron, which is taken along a transport chain to the centre of the reaction, the core of which is formed by a palladium atom. It is here that the hydrogen is ultimately produced. The singular feature of the Jena University team’s process is that the reaction takes place within a single molecule. This is crucial to the efficiency of the process. “This is what enables us to fine-tune the reaction further and achieve the greatest possible energy yield,” says Dr. Sven Rau, the project leader at Jena. In fact some electrons still go astray. They are not crossing over from the ruthenium to the palladium centre – and are thus lost to the reaction. Things are different in nature, where photosynthesis proceeds with perfect precision. The Jena chemists are hoping to get closer to this with cooperation from the University’s Institute for Physical High Technology, Jena. “Using spectroscopy, we will observe this process very closely,” says Rau. “We will then systematically build up barriers so that the electrons no longer stray from the correct path, but all end up at the palladium.” At the moment, the reactions still take place in laboratory tanks containing liquids from which the hydrogen is removed by pump. However, the Jena scientists are working on modifying the catalyst so that the reaction can, for example, occur within windowpanes. They also have to make it possible to use water - as in photosynthesis - as the source of the electrons. This would be a real leap forward away from fossil and nuclear fuels to the direct utilisation of the natural sources of energy – sunlight and water. Source: www.mediaservice.land-of-ideas.org Links
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