In the four years or so I have been writing this blog, I have written several promising innovations in alternative energy.

I wondered, whatever happened to those ideas? This post looks back at my reports from 2012 and earlier.

Some of the technologies I reported on have proved to be successful. Unfortunately, they have not been scaled up to the point where they have started to make a significant difference in our use of energy.

Other innovations are still in the research and development stage. They may or may not prove practical. They face both technological and economic obstacles before they can become economically viable.

A few ideas that seemed to hold great promise turn out to be impractical for one reason or another.

So I offer this post as a progress report on the three and a half most successful technologies, but real progress to date is not impressive. Reexamination of technologies not proved viable will come later.

Biodiesel

Biodiesel doesn’t actually count as an innovation. Rudolf Diesel reported as early as 1912 that vegetable oil might become as important an energy source as petroleum. As I reported in The Return of Biodiesel, the first industrial-scale manufacturing facility did not open until 1989 (in South Africa.)

Already in 2011, when I wrote about it, biodiesel had completed all of the testing required by the Clean Air Act. So far as I know, it still remains the only alternative fuel that has done so.

Biodiesel is scary successful to oil companies. It has its own trade organization, the National Biodiesel Board, and has attracted a lawsuit against the EPA from the American Petroleum Institute. I wish oil, gas, and electric companies would decide that they’re in the energy business and not the drilling or generating business.

We desperately need to get away from fossil fuels. And genuine energy companies could work with a variety of fuel sources instead of protecting their turf from newcomers.

Waste from plastic

It is also possible to make new crude oil from waste plastic. That is an especially exciting prospect, because it tackles two problems at once. Plastic becomes a resource instead of a waste.

I reported on a company called Agylix. According to its web page, it has all of three customers. Recent press releases announce only that company representatives will attend trade fairs.

I also notice that the company names Richard Bronson among their investors. They must have sufficient financial resources to acquire new customers and expand their influence.

Fortunately, Agylix is not the only company in the waste plastic to crude oil business. PK Clean, a company owned by woman in Salt Lake City, Utah named  Priyanka Bakaya, operates a commercial-scale facility with her own proprietary technology.

In Akron, Ohio, RES Polyflow has patented a variation of pyrolysis (already used in some places as a waste treatment alternative to landfills or incinerators). Its conversion vessels can turn 60 tons of shredded plastic and rubber into 288 barrels of crude oil every day.

RES Polyflow does not yet have any customers, but it only finished its trial work in August 2013. Waste Management, on the other hand, is a giant company operating a plastic to oil plant in Portland, Oregon. And I found reference to other projects I don’t have space to mention.

Converting plastic to crude oil has become a proven technology. Any plastic can serve as feedstock, including anything at all that’s unsuitable for conventional recycling. It is both cheaper and easier to refine gasoline, diesel fuel, or kerosene from waste plastic than from oil from the ground.

So far as I know, it has not yet attracted lawsuits from the American Petroleum Industry. But it seems like an equal to biodiesel as a formidable alternative fuel.

Geothermal heating and cooling

Geothermal energy using the heat differential between fresh water pipes and sewage pipes can heat and cool high rise buildings.  In an odd reversal of the normal flow of intellectual property, an American company named NovaThermal Energy licensed technology from a Chinese firm called JinDaDi.

When I revisited this concept, I find that NovaThermal has an exclusive license to use the technology anywhere outside of China. That might be good business for the company, but it will necessarily slow progress in getting it up and running in very many places.

NovaThermal has the same pilot project in a single Philadelphia building that it had before. It has at least consulted with Dallas and Baltimore to determine that its projects will require no special municipal licensing. It’s “developed projects” page mentions only four buildings in China.

The fact that the technology successfully operates in four high-rise buildings proves the viability of the technology. It is successful, but unlikely to gain much practical significance as long as only one small company can use the technology.

Maybe, as with waste to plastic, other companies will design their own technology. After all, every high-rise building has fresh water pipes and sewage pipes. Installing equipment to heat and cool them with the temperature differential can potentially replace lots of fossil fuels.

Electric delivery vehicles

In 2009, Smith Electric of Kansas City was formed as a licensee of British company of the same name to sell electric delivery vehicles. The British Smith Electric long ago started making electric milk trucks for the sake of quiet pre-dawn deliveries.

My first article noted that the Kansas City firm had some customers, but also some cash flow problems. When I recently looked at their website, it looked like a thriving company.

Unfortunately, it suspended operations at the end of last year according to a Kansas City newspaper article that disappeared from the web with alarming speed.

I have to count the concept of electric delivery vehicles as successful even though Smith Electric didn’t make it. Its customers included Coca-Cola, Staples, and Frito Lay. It appears that it pre-sold more vans than it could afford to make. Here is an example of a small company biting off more than it could chew.

The logic remains. Electric cars will only take a large share of the market when convenient ways exist to recharge them on long trips. Electric delivery vehicles don’t make long trips. According to a study by the Georgia Institute of Technology, they outperform diesel trucks in urban areas. The advantage is less clear cut in suburban areas. [The link to the study no longer works.]

All of the large manufacturers make delivery vehicles and electric cars. They just don’t make electric delivery vehicles. Companies that wanted to get a delivery fleet from Smith would be just as happy buying from Ford or some other established company as soon as one of them decides to target that market.

Photo credits.
Biodiesel vehicle. Some rights reserved by Paul Swansen. Link to Flickr no longer works
Biodiesel fuel pump. Some rights reserved by The Master Shake Signal.
Recycle plastic to oil graphic. Source unknown.
Electric van. Some rights reserved by greentechmedia.