On October 19, the “Sustain OC Eighth Annual Conference & Expo” featured Orange County energy entrepreneurs and multiple transformative technologies. Scott Kitcher, Sustain OC president & CEO; Jam Attari, chairman, Sustain OC and CEO of BayWa r.e. Solar Projects North America, and Kris Murray, member of the Anaheim City Council and chairperson, OC Council of Governments, welcomed attendees.
In the keynote address, “Clean, Safe, Abundant Fusion Energy: Made in Orange County, Getting Ready for the World,” Michl Binderbauer, Ph.D., president and CTO of Lake Forest-based TAE Technologies, described the company’s progress in developing fusion as a source of cheap, plentiful energy without lasting toxic waste.
According to Binderbauer, fusion – the process that creates and powers the universe – has the highest energy potential of all fuels. Most government-sponsored fusion research will not have viable economic results. However, TAE’s approach to creating clean, safe fusion will not produce long term nuclear waste, greenhouse gases or proliferation concerns.
TAE’s current installation is named “Norman,” after former UCI Professor Norman Rostoker, who originated TAE’s process. By 2019, TAE will build a machine called “Copernicus,” capable of next-generation lean fusion. Anticipated startup is 2025. Binderbauer mentioned that, historically, fusion power was always 30 years into the future ─ TAE has now condensed the wait to 15 years.
But developing fusion power still has ongoing technical and economic challenges. “We don’t have massive amounts of gravity to hold massive fusion reactors together, so we use magnetic fields to hold the superheated plasma together,” Binderbauer said. “Think of this problem as an oozy jello of stuff we want to hold in midair.”
TAE still has to solve how to get enough power needed to conduct a fusion reaction. Norman is power-hungry, consuming about 700 million megawatts, equivalent to the output of the San Onofre nuclear reactor.
TAE is now spinning off its core technologies — from medicine to isotope production and chemical processing ─ into new companies including TAE Life Sciences for the treatment of diffuse and difficult cancers, as well as TAE Inspection, TAE Power Management and TAE Security.
The day’s sessions included an overview of energy investment opportunities by Dipinder Saluja, partner of Capricorn Investment Group, as well as representatives from California Edison who described their initiatives for more effective energy distribution and for creating an advanced energy community in Huntington Beach.
In the Renewable Energy session moderated by Jeff Arbour, section manager, Waste Management Operations, OC Waste & Recycling; Daniel Sullivan, CEO, Sullivan Solar Power; Jam Attari, CEO, BayWa r.e; and Clarke Pauley, VP, Organics & Biogas Division, CR&R Environmental Services discussed the business side of deriving energy from waste.
OC Waste and Recycling (OCW&R) operates three landfills in Orange County and extracts the methane produced by the landfills for energy. Since their first demonstration project in the mid-1970s, in which they lit up a Christmas tree using energy from waste methane, OCW&R now taps methane from multiple landfills: the Olinda Alpha Landfill energy project which powers 17,000 homes using a combined cycle gas turbine plant; the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill energy project powering 14,700 homes; the Prima Deshecha Landfill engine plant which will close in five years for redevelopment; and the Coyote Canyon Landfill currently being revived for future development.
A privately held integrated waste management company based in Orange County, CR&R Environmental has 50 municipal contracts and over three million customers in five counties. Pauley projects that the future of landfill gas extraction will include innovations in transportation such as natural gas-powered trucks with zero diesel particulate matter emissions, compressed natural gas/renewable natural gas filling stations and pipeline injections.
In the session, “California Energy Commission: Paving an Innovation Path,” Laurie ten Hope, deputy director of the CEC Energy Research and Development Division, described how CEC invests $140 million annually in innovation. “California is committed to energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction,” ten Hope said. Goals for 2030 include the state using 50% renewable energy, a 50% reduction of petroleum use in vehicles, improving sequestration of carbon in natural and working lands and reducing pollutants. “California needs to address climate risk, resiliency, safety, costs and aging infrastructure,” ten Hope said. “We really need to be able to electrify our transportation. We’ve been able to do technology innovation without a hit on the economy.”
Other goals include introducing two-way power flow into the distribution system and better forecasting and predicting weather impact on the grid. CEC is also interested in developing a strategy for smart charging of fleets, affordable zero-net energy buildings, creating a market for energy storage and bringing energy research projects to disadvantaged, low income families. Ten Hope recommended that engineers check resources such as LACI www.laincubator.org; the Cal Seed Fund www.calseedfund.org; and the CEC website’s lists of funding solicitations www.energy.ca.gov/contracts.
In the session, “Announcing! – Energize California: The CEC L.A. Regional Energy Innovation Cluster”, Amanda Sabicer, VP, Energize California of LACI, a cleantech incubator, reviewed opportunities for energy entrepreneurs.
Energize California is a five-year project funded by the CEC that connects and supports clean energy entrepreneurs and researchers in Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles and Orange Counties. More information can be found on its website www.energize-ca.org.