The environment in the news

Applause from Calif.

While fuel cells designed for vehicles use hydrogen derived from natural gas, the DFCs can use an array of different fuels, including coal gas, ethanol and waste biogas, in addition to natural gas.

FuelCell Energy said the company performs all of its manufacturing and research and development in Connecticut, but when an order comes in, a team is sent to the site to install the power plants themselves.

California's strict air emissions standards have played out favorably for FuelCell Energy, making the state the company's second-largest market. Because fuel cells do not use combustion and do not produce particulate matter or smog-contributing gases, the California Air Resources Board categorized FuelCell Energy's DFC power plants as an ultraclean technology. This exempted the power plants from air pollution control or air quality permitting requirements.

California's Self-Generation Incentive Program also provides financial incentives for certain fuel cell projects with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Andrew Schwartz, a chief energy adviser for the California Public Utilities Commission, attended the USEA workshop to discuss his state's interest in the technology.

Orders from South Korea

FuelCell Energy installed 32.8 megawatts in the fiscal year that ended Oct. 31, 2009, according to the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. "[W]e installed 23 MW of our MW-class power plants in South Korea," the filing read. "Half our current worldwide installed base."

South Korea feeds nearly 97 percent of its fuel requirements with imports, said Tae-Hyoung Kim, a strategic planning and marketing manager with South Korea's largest independent power company, POSCO Power Inc. The 14th-largest economy in the world, South Korea is also the world's ninth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Energy. And in 2007, little more than 1 percent of the country's electricity generation came from renewable sources.

Despite its great dependence on fossil fuels, South Korea was decidedly absent while other developed economies pushed for renewable energy, Kim said. Europeans have cornered the market on wind energy, while China and Japan have a significant presence in the solar industry. South Korea, he said, hopes to become a major energy innovator through fuel cell technology.

The South Korean government has also turned its attention towards renewable energy in a substantial way.

Recent national legislation aims to bring electricity generated by "new and renewable sources" to 4 percent by 2015 and 11 percent by 2030. The South Korean government has also provided clean and renewable energy subsidies and feed-in tariffs that would allow excess energy to be sold to the electricity grid.

Kim explained how fuel cells reached the top of POSCO's energy list: South Korea is too mountainous to reasonably install additional solar panels or wind turbines and the accompanying transmission lines, he said, and the coastline is too deep to set up wave energy technology. So the next best way to pivot the energy economy was to find new ways to maximize efficiency.

A strong partner focused on the Asian market

The two companies may be joined at the hip for quite some time. Late last year, POSCO purchased 13 percent of FuelCell Energy's common stock.

Given FuelCell Energy's small customer base, the SEC filing said, the company has made itself somewhat vulnerable. POSCO's stock ownership, FuelCell Energy said, "could make it difficult for a third party to acquire our common stock."

Sales to POSCO, DOE and other government agencies accounted for 80 percent of FuelCell Energy's total revenue in its most recent fiscal year, a figure up from 62 percent the year before.

FuelCell Energy also remarked on the combination of POSCO's purchase of company stock and its position as a license holder on the fuel cell technology as well as a major purchaser of its products, saying "it may be in their interests to possess substantial influence over matters concerning our overall strategy and technological and commercial development."

There are 55 operating FuelCell Energy power plants, according to company records. Installations include wastewater treatment plants in California, a Pepperidge Farm factory in Connecticut and a power plant that uses waste digestive gases emanating from Kirin Brewery Co. in Tokyo.

FuelCell Energy also partnered with Enbridge Inc., a major North American natural gas pipeline company based in Ontario, to develop a 2.2-megawatt fuel cell power plant, enough to power 1,700 homes in the Toronto area.

The biggest challenges facing the fuel cell industry, FuelCell Energy Vice President Frank Wolak told workshop attendees, are pushing an entrenched utility industry to do something new, and, as with any new technology, the cost.

ClimateWire, 24 June 2010, By Lauren Morello

SAN DIEGO -- Tell us what you don't know.

That's the message military and national security experts gathered here want to send to climate scientists.

While political leaders on Capitol Hill seek definitive answers about how quickly the world's climate will change, military and national security experts say they're used to making decisions with limited information.

But as they turn their attention to the geopolitical implications of climate change, they're pressing scientists to help them understand the risk and uncertainty inherent in forecasts of future environmental shifts.

"Are we going to wait for perfect data? No. Not only the Department of Defense but any successful organization doesn't wait for perfection," said Rear Adm. David Titley, who heads the Navy's Task Force Climate Change. "But we need to understand, how certain are you? And what does that mean?"

"We have to know what's plausible," said retired Army Maj. Gen. Richard Engel, who headed a recent National Intelligence Council assessment of the national security risks posed by climate change.

Titley and Engel were among the military, national security and climate experts who met this week at a conference organized by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography's new Center for Environment and National Security to discuss the kinds what kinds of forecasts will be needed for foreign policy planning.

Much of the discussion centered on the difference between risk and uncertainty.