From Popular Mechanics:

Super Soaker Inventor Aims to Cut Solar Costs in Half

Solar energy technology is enjoying its day in the sun with the advent of innovations from flexible photovoltaic (PV) materials to thermal power plants that concentrate the sun’s heat to drive turbines. But even the best system converts only about 30 percent of received solar energy into electricity—making solar more expensive than burning coal or oil. That will change if Lonnie Johnson’s invention works. The Atlanta-based independent inventor of the Super Soaker squirt gun (a true technological milestone) says he can achieve a conversion efficiency rate that tops 60 percent with a new solid-state heat engine. It represents a breakthrough new way to turn heat into power.

Johnson, a nuclear engineer who holds more than 100 patents, calls his invention the Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Conversion System, or JTEC for short. This is not PV technology, in which semiconducting silicon converts light into electricity. And unlike a Stirling engine, in which pistons are powered by the expansion and compression of a contained gas, there are no moving parts in the JTEC. It’s sort of like a fuel cell: JTEC circulates hydrogen between two membrane-electrode assemblies (MEA). Unlike a fuel cell, however, JTEC is a closed system. No external hydrogen source. No oxygen input. No wastewater output. Other than a jolt of electricity that acts like the ignition spark in an internal-combustion engine, the only input is heat.

Here’s how it works: One MEA stack is coupled to a high- temperature heat source (such as solar heat concentrated by mirrors), and the other to a low-temperature heat sink (ambient air). The low-temperature stack acts as the compressor stage while the high-temperature stack functions as the power stage. Once the cycle is started by the electrical jolt, the resulting pressure differential produces voltage across each of the MEA stacks. The higher voltage at the high-temperature stack forces the low-temperature stack to pump hydrogen from low pressure to high pressure, maintaining the pressure differential. Meanwhile hydrogen passing through the high-temperature stack generates power.

“It’s like a conventional heat engine,” explains Paul Werbos, program director at the National Science Foundation, which has provided funding for JTEC. “It still uses temperature differences to create pressure gradients. Only instead of using those pressure gradients to move an axle or wheel, he’s using them to force ions through a membrane. It’s a totally new way of generating electricity from heat.”

The bigger the temperature differential, the higher the efficiency. With the help of Heshmat Aglan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Alabama’s Tuskegee University, Johnson hopes to have a low-temperature prototype (200-degree centigrade) completed within a year’s time. The pair is experimenting with high-temperature membranes made of a novel ceramic material of micron-scale thickness. Johnson envisions a first-generation system capable of handling temperatures up to 600 degrees. (Currently, solar concentration using parabolic mirrors tops 800 degrees centigrade.) Based on the theoretical Carnot thermodynamic cycle, at 600 degrees efficiency rates approach 60 percent, twice those of today’s solar Stirling engines.

This engine, Johnson says, can operate on tiny scales, or generate megawatts of power. If it proves feasible, drastically reducing the cost of solar power would only be a start. JTEC could potentially harvest waste heat from internal combustion engines and combustion turbines, perhaps even the human body. And no moving parts means no friction and fewer mechanical failures.

As an engineer, Johnson says he has always been interested in energy conversion. In fact, it was while working on an idea for an environmentally friendly heat pump (one that would not require Freon) that he came up with the Super Soaker, which earned him millions of dollars in royalties. That money allowed Johnson to quit NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (where he worked on the Galileo Mission, among other projects) and go independent. His toy profits have funded his research in advanced battery technology, specifically thin-film lithium-ion conductive membranes. And that work sparked the idea for JTEC. Besides, he jokes, “All inventors have to have an engine. It’s like a rite of passage.”

They're not mad about the content of the Energy Bill-- the billions of dollars being wasted in tax breaks to oil companies that are making $40 Billion a year, the minimal investment in renewable energy R&D, the lack of a renewable energy mandate...  They're mad at the kind of car that the bill rode in. 

That's right-- two Congress members who voted against the Energy Bill because it actually included the first increases in fuel economy since the Arab Oil Embargo of the 70's, are now upset that the car that delivered the Energy Bill to the White House for Bush's signature was a Japanese Hybrid. 

Prius’ role in energy bill angers lawmakers

Paperwork was transported by Japanese-built hybrid to the White House

updated 5:12 p.m. PT, Thurs., Dec. 20, 2007

WASHINGTON - When Congress sent an energy bill to President Bush for his signature, it arrived in a Japanese-built Toyota Prius hybrid — a move that rubbed two Michigan Republicans the wrong way.

"It is a huge slap in the face, calculated I believe, just to demonstrate their complete disregard for the domestic auto industry," said Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich.

To Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., it was a "slap in the face of every American auto worker."

They said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., could have provided the same symbolism by sending the bill Wednesday in a U.S.-built hybrid made by Ford Motor Co. or General Motors Corp.

Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Pelosi, said the Republicans were "merely attempting to distract from the success of the Democratic energy security legislation" and noted that 95 House Republicans supported the bill. He said the bill would encourage the development of hybrids and alternative vehicles.

Hammill said the Prius was owned by an employee with the Office of the Clerk, which sends bills to the White House.

The bill requires that automakers increase fuel efficiency by 40 percent to an industry average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

The Prius, the most popular gas-electric hybrid in the United States, gets a combined 46 mpg in city and highway driving. The Prius and the 2008 Honda Civic hybrid, which gets a combined 42 mpg, are the only two hybrids sold in the United States today that would meet the new mileage requirements set for 2020.

Vice-President and War Criminal Dick Cheney once again shows who is really setting policy in Washington.

From Think Progress:

Dick Cheney is like an bizarro-world super hero. 

Wherever there is a fossil fuel-related industry to protect, he'll be there.  Wherever there is a nationalized commodity market in need of western capital access, he'll be there.  Wherever there is a downtrodden multi-billion dollar corporation in need of defense against the will of citizens and state governments, he'll be there.  He is... "The Dick".

Unbelievable.  Republicans once again put the interests of the most profitable corporations first, and Democrats cower and bow to their demands. 

Senate Republicans block energy bill

Senate Republicans Block Energy Bill, Opposing Taxes on Oil Companies

H. JOSEF HEBERT
AP News

Dec 13, 2007 10:40 EST

Senate Republicans blocked a broad energy bill Thursday because it included billions of dollars in new taxes on the biggest oil companies.

Democratic leaders fell one vote short, 59-40, in getting the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster. Democrats said they would strip the taxes from the legislation to move the bill forward.

Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said he hoped to get the revised energy package approved later in the day, including the first increase in automobile fuel efficiency in three decades and massive increases in the use of ethanol as a motor fuel.

He said we will "eliminate the tax title."

Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky predicted the revised bill would be approved with wide bipartisan support.

The legislation, if passed by the Senate, would have to be voted on by the House, which a week ago approved legislation that included the $21 billion tax increases with revenues marked for promoting renewable fuels and energy efficiency.

But Senate Republicans stood firm on opposing the tax increases, which they said would guarantee a veto by President Bush.

McConnell chided Democrats for pushing a "massive tax increase" that he said "they knew would never be signed into law" because of the president's opposition.

Reid countered that the Senate shouldn't back away from the needed tax measures "just because the president doesn't like it."

"We must begin to break our country's addiction to oil," Reid said.

Last week i noted how Senate Republicans (together with a handful of Democrats) had yet again used the threat of a filibuster to block crucial legislation on behalf of their deep-pocketed campaign contributors and to the detriment of this nation's best interests.  The victim this time was the energy bill, which although receiving 53 votes in favor, was blocked because it rolled back the billions of dollars in tax breaks going to the most profitable industry in the world, and because it didn't explicitly prohibit the EPA from setting auto emissions standards.

Now i read this in Bloomberg:

Southern Co., American Electric Power Co. and other producers hired top Washington lobbyists, including Rudy Giuliani's firm, to help defeat a measure that would force them to boost electricity generated by wind, solar and other forms of renewable energy to 15 percent of the U.S. total by 2020.

[...]

Southern Co. has spent $7.26 million this year lobbying Congress, more than Exxon Mobil Corp. or General Motors Corp., according to the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics. It hired such firms as Bracewell & Giuliani LLP, where Republican presidential front-runner Giuliani is a partner.

Mr. 9/11 was on Meet the Press yesterday and-- in the midst of a dishonest, deceptive, and generally disastrous performance (more on that later)-- was asked, in the context of energy bill's provisions, what sort of energy policies he supports:

RUSSERT:  Congress—the House has passed an energy bill which would mandate 35 miles per gallon per automobiles by the year 2020.  Would you support that?

RUDY:  That isn’t the way I think it should be done.  I think what we should be doing is developing the alternatives so it’s possible to accomplish that as opposed to just setting mandates and not having the support there for expansion of hybrid vehicles, expansion of biofuels, including ethanol.  Expansion...

RUSSERT:  But you’re against increasing miles per gallon.

RUDY:  I would not do it that way, yes.  I would do it with heavy expansion of hybrid vehicles, which move some of the sources over to electricity, then deal with clean coal, nuclear power, hybrid vehicles, expansion of hydroelectric power, more oil refineries, more domestic oil.  All of those things are the things that we should be supporting.  And we should be selling that to the, to the rest of the world, because if, if—no matter what we do, if China and India and these other countries that are developing don’t start to get control on this, it’s going to wipe out any good that we do.  So the real emphasis here should be on developing energy independence and creating these alternative industries.

So Giuliani’s firm is being paid millions of dollars by huge energy companies like Southern Co. to fight renewable electricity standards in pending legislation, and now candidate Giuliani has come out against those standards as well. 

That would be all well and good if this was just a case of shared policy values rather than shared financial values.

Even though Rudy stepped down as head of his law firm, he continues to “retain his equity stake in the company.” That equity stake earned him $4 million last year.  Additionally, partners and employees of Bracewell have donated $89,000 to his Presidential campaign.  According to the New York Times, Giuliani’s campaign has collected more than $400,000 from employees of companies in the oil, gas, and energy industries.

Do we really need another coal and petroleum industry shill (literally-- he's actually being paid!) occupying America's highest office? 

Ari Berman wrote a great piece in October for The Nation magazine detailing Rudy's long friendship with energy companies.  It's a fascinating read, but i found this nugget especially relevant:

On the campaign trail, Rudy now includes the requisite language about curbing global warming and weaning America from its dependence on foreign oil. One of his campaign’s “twelve commitments” is to “lead America towards energy independence.” At a diner in Waterloo, Iowa, this past summer, he was asked how he’d accomplish that goal, given his clients in the oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy industries. “Law firms aren’t political,” Giuliani responded, “so this is kind of a silly way in which people attack each other on politics. It has no relationships to your political position. As a lawyer, or a law firm…you don’t make determinations of who you represent on your political philosophy.”

Bullshit just oozes from this guy's pores.

Senate Republicans used the cloture rule this morning to again block critical legislation that had already passed the House of Representatives and had the support of the majority of Senators.

Voting for "cloture" basically means voting to "cut off debate", which under the rules of the Senate requires 60 votes.  Republicans-- who were apoplectic when the minority Democrats used the rule to block the appointment of a handful of Bush's judicial appointments-- have used the cloture rule to block nearly every piece of substantive legislation the Democrats have put forward since the 110 Congress began.

This time it was the energy bill, and unlike the 2005 Energy Bill-- which not only continued the fossil fuel status quo but made it worse, giving billions of dollars in tax breaks to oil companies-- this version attempts to actually solve some of the country's long-term energy problems and starts the process of weaning ourselves off of our petroleum addiction.

Among other things, the bill:

• Required auto manufacturers' vehicle fleets to average 35 miles per gallon by 2020 (a 40 percent increase over current standards). Fuel efficiency standards have not been raised since they were first created in 1975.
  
• Required that 15 percent of the electricity generated by the nation's utilities would have to come from renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, as well as biomass, by 2020.
• Provided tax incentives to bring about a fivefold increase in the use of ethanol as a motor fuel by 2022, requiring 36 billion gallons of it would be on the market each year.  Two-thirds of those gallons would have to be "cellulosic" -- derived from feedstock such as prairie grass and wood chips, or other non-corn-based biofuels.
  
• Included appliance and light-bulb standards that would effectively phase out, by the middle of the next decade, the traditional low-efficiency incandescent bulb.
• Financed tax incentives for hybrid cars, ethanol production and renewable-energy development, primarily by rolling back the $13.5 billion in tax breaks for the five largest oil companies (which results in a $21 billion increase in treasury revenue.)
  

What a horrible bill right?

Glorious Leader Bush threaten to veto the bill all the way back in October, specifically because of the elimination of tax breaks to the oil industry.  The White House National Economic Council Director Allan Hubbard wrote a letter to Speaker Pelosi saying that the energy legislation shouldn't "raise taxes nor use the tax code to single out specific industries.''  

Why would companies that are hauling in $10 billion dollars a quarter in profit need tax breaks?  Why would they need our tax dollars on top of the $3.50 per gallon we give them now?

The President also opposes what's not in the bill-- a desired clause that would limit the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to set standards for emissions from vehicle tailpipes.  In April, the Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide is a pollutant subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act.  The EPA must now issue regulations.  California is currently trying to set its own emissions standards, and has applied for a waiver from the EPA to do so.

The Bush Administration, the automakers, and their Congressional toadies want to make sure that the EPA does not issue more demanding fuel-efficiency regulations.  The want the Transportation Department, which traditionally has been more sympathetic to automakers than has the EPA, to have jurisdiction over fuel efficiency standards.

The final Senate vote was 53-42 in favor of closing debate.  Democratic Senators Bayh (IN), Byrd (WV) and Landrieu (LA) voted against cloture.  I suppose i can see why Landrieu (oil) and Byrd (coal) voted against it, but Bayh?  I would've thought that the ethanol requirements would be a boon to Indiana. (Maybe it was the two-thirds cellulosic clause?) Five Republicans voted for cloture: Thune (R-SD); Coleman (R-MN); Collins (R-ME); Smith (R-OR), and; Snowe (R-ME).  Coleman, Smith, and Collins are all up for reelection in 2008, and hail from states that trend Democratic.  Maine, Minnesota, and Oregon all voted against Bush in 2004-- and that was before Bush became Mr. 30%. 

Full roll call here.