Demand for electric cars remains steady, even in the face of slightly lower gas prices. That’s the view put forward by Nissan. The automaker says it is seeing unrelenting demand for its limited-production Leaf electric vehicle continuing for the foreseeable future, in spite of rumors that consumer fascination with battery-powered cars is waning.

 Through Oct. 31, Nissan sold 8,048 of its electric cars, giving the companies a bit of insight into the car’s appeal to customers. Brendan Jones, director of electric vehicle marketing and sales strategy at Nissan, reports that owners say that the car they bought as a second car is actually being used by drivers as their family’s number one vehicle. “They drive it primarily because it is fun to drive,” he said, but of course they wouldn’t have that option if the car’s driving range proved to be too short for practical use. It turns out that owners drive about 35 miles a day, the same distance as most surveys of American drivers report as the average distance for U.S. drivers.

The “range anxiety” of being stranded with a dead battery is overblown, asserted Jones. “Range anxiety is dead,” he stated, insisting that the real issue is driver unfamiliarity with something new. “That newness needs to be overcome with information.” Customers have embraced the optional fast-charging port, which enables specialized commercial-grade chargers to quick-charge the Leaf to 80 percent capacity in just 30 minutes. Enough customers were choosing that $700 option, despite a current shortage of suitable charging stations, that Nissan decided to make the quick-charging port standard equipment on the $940 uplevel SL trim package, Jones reported.

Nissan is continuing its nationwide rollout of Leaf availability, and the company anticipated delivering another 10,000 of the cars to consumers in 2012. Once Nissan’s Leaf battery plant opens in Smyrna, Tenn., the company will have the capacity to deliver 150,000 Leafs per year. But Jones says that Nissan is not concerned about potential difficulty finding that many customers for battery cars. ....by Dan Carney from MSNBC.com

Solar Energy Storage becoming a Reality Strategy

A common refrain about the limitations of solar power is that the technology only works when the sun is shining. That's certainly true of photovoltaic (PV) solar technology. Some consider the variable nature of PV (or wind power) a threat to the reliable operation of the electrical grid. Concentrating solar power (CSP), while more expensive upfront than PV technology, has an absolute advantage over PV -- the ability to store thermal energy long after the sun goes down. This ability improves CSP's capacity factor and dispatchability, and has the potential to improve CSP's levelized cost of energy (LCOE).

This week, BrightSource Energy announced that it has added storage capabilities to three of its power purchase agreements with Southern California Edison. BrightSource claims that adding storage allows utilities to "avoid the hidden costs associated with integrating intermittent resources that require fossil fuel back-up." The advantages of molten-salt storage are known and proven:

• Increased capacity factor
• Extended production of electricity into later parts of the day and after the sun sets
• Greater operational flexibility to shape production to meet changing utility customer demand
• Added balancing and shaping capabilities, as well as ancillary services to support a reliable grid

BrightSource’s power tower solar thermal system uses a field of software-controlled mirrors called heliostats to reflect the sun’s energy onto a boiler atop a tower to produce high temperature and high pressure steam. The steam is used to turn a conventional steam turbine to produce electricity. When paired with storage, the steam is directed to a heat exchanger, where molten salts are further heated to a higher temperature, storing the heat energy for future use. Later, when the energy in storage is needed, the heat stored in the molten salts is used to generate steam to run the steam turbine. ....by Eric Wesoff from Greentech Solar

Biomass Can Produce One Fifth of World's Energy without Impacting Food Supply

A new report released by the Technology and Policy Assessment function of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), which addresses key controversies in the energy field, suggests that up to one fifth of global energy could be provided by biomass (plants) without damaging food production. The report reviews more than 90 global studies.

A debate has been raging about the role biomass could play in the future energy system: some say it could play a major role in fueling the planet, others argue that it risks an environmental disaster. To get to the heart of the controversy, UKERC scientists at Imperial College London have undertaken a systematic review of the evidence base.

“If we make the best use of agricultural residues, energy crops and waste materials then getting one fifth of current global energy supply from biomass is a reasonable ambition,” says Dr. Raphael Slade, the report’s lead author and a Research Fellow at Imperial College London. The report finds that getting more than this is technically possible but requires assumptions about food production and changes in diets that look increasingly challenging, especially as people in Asia and Latin America begin to adopt a high meat western diet as incomes rise.

“The more bioenergy you want the harder it becomes to reconcile demand for food, energy and environmental protection,” says Slade. Replacing all fossil fuels with biomass would be equivalent to all of global agriculture and commercial forestry combined, and would only be possible if we can grow more food on less land. “Bioenergy may need to play a part in a future low carbon energy mix”, says Dr. Ausilio Bauen, Head of Bioenergy at Imperial College’s Centre for Energy Policy and Technology. “Ensuring bioenergy, food and forests don't compete for land won't be straightforward. But, if we use land more productively, and make better use of available plant material, we should be perfectly capable of producing bio-energy, feeding a growing population, and conserving the environment all at the same time.....by Lindsay Wright from UK Energy Research Centre