EERE Network News
November 24, 2004
News and Events
The United States is one of 14 countries that have joined together to form the Methane to Markets Partnership, an international effort to capture methane emissions and convert them into energy. In the United States, the effort focuses mainly on capturing and coverting landfill gas emissions.
Would you buy solar hot water if someone else owned and installed the system and billed you for the hot water at a discount? Would more utilities install solar hot water if they were able to sell renewable energy credits for their system? Companies and utilities are now testing these concepts.
The amount of solar energy used for heating water and buildings has long been underestimated, according to the recent work of the International Energy Agency and major solar energy trade associations. The groups found the world's solar collector capacity to be 70 thermal gigawatts in 2001.
With wind power projects now under development throughout the country, a wind manufacturer in Vermont and a fabrication plant in Utah are already benefiting. The growth in wind power will also bring a new fabrication plant to Wisconsin and promises to bring a manufacturer to Nevada.
Since October, construction has begun on new ethanol fuel plants in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and Minnesota, as well as the first-ever ethanol plant in Texas, while plants in Iowa and Wisconsin are expanding. Meanwhile, an ethanol producer claims to have developed a new energy-saving process.
Eight chemical companies have won a total of 19 awards from the American Chemistry Council (ACC) for energy efficiency improvements made in 2003. According to ACC, the total annual energy savings represented by the 19 awards amounts to 4.9 trillion Btu.
As the United States looks to its future supplies of natural gas, energy companies are continuing to pursue new LNG terminals in such places as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Pascagoula, Mississippi; in Long Island Sound; in the Gulf of Mexico; and off the coasts of California and Baja California.