First Solar

Located in Riverside County about 200 miles east of Los Angeles, the Blythe plant is the largest thin film PV project in the United States and is five times the size of the next largest PV project in California. NRG estimates that at peak capacity, the project can supply the power needs of almost 17,000 homes while helping California meet its renewable energy goals. Approximately 175 people built Blythe during its three-month construction and installation period.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said;

“It is no surprise that America’s largest thin film solar project was built right here in California, where my Administration has successfully created a climate where green businesses can thrive. It is forward-thinking businesses such as First Solar that will help California reach its nation-leading greenhouse gas reduction and Renewable Portfolio Standard goals, as well as create the new green jobs that will help spur our economic recovery.”

“Solar is the great untapped resource in California, and we are pleased to be part of this significant milestone for solar development in our state,” said Marc Ulrich, SCE vice president, Renewables and Alternative Power. “Bringing this power to the grid helps SCE maintain its position as the nation’s leading utility for renewable energy.”

“California, as it has in many arenas, is leading the way in encouraging large-scale clean energy sources,” said David Crane, NRG Energy President and CEO. “NRG, through our association with pioneers like First Solar and forward-thinking companies like SCE, seeks to help clean our air while stocking our country’s clean energy economic growth through commercial implementation of solar technology.”

First Solar expanded its offerings in California in 2008. The Blythe plant is a model for First Solar’s future large-scale solar developments. “The development, project finance and construction of this solar plant demonstrate First Solar’s capabilities in utility scale projects,” said Bruce Sohn, president of First Solar. “With a three-month build-out, we are pleased to be bringing it online ahead of schedule.”

Using First Solar’s industry-leading thin film PV panels that convert sunlight directly into electricity with no water consumption during operation, the Blythe plant will generate over 45,000 megawatt-hours of clean, affordable, sustainable electricity per year. This solar generation will avoid approximately 12,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually – the equivalent of taking over 2,200 cars off the road. First Solar will provide operations and maintenance services at Blythe under a long-term contract with NRG.

Each Hub, to be funded at up to $122 million over five years, will bring together a multidisciplinary team of researchers in an effort to speed research and shorten the path from scientific discovery to technological development and commercial deployment of highly promising energy-related technologies.

 Secretary Chu said;

“Given the urgency of our challenges in both energy and climate, we need to do everything we can to mobilize our Nation’s scientific and technological talent to accelerate the pace of innovation. The DOE Energy Innovation Hubs represent a new, more proactive approach to managing and conducting research. We are taking a page from America’s great industrial laboratories in their heyday. Their achievements—from the transistor to the information theory that makes modern telecommunications possible—are evidence that we can build creative, highly-integrated research teams that can accomplish more, faster, than researchers working separately.”

This strategy includes three new initiatives which are designed to complement each other:

1.The first approach is the Energy Frontier Research Centers launched by the Department’s Office of Science to support multi-year, multi-investigator scientific collaborations focused on overcoming hurdles in basic science that block transformational discoveries.

2.The second approach is spearheaded by the Department’s recently-formed Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (“ARPA-E”), which uses a highly entrepreneurial funding model that supports America’s passionate energy innovators to explore high-risk, high-reward potentially transformative technologies that are too risky for industry to fund.

3.The third novel funding model, Energy Innovation Hubs, will establish larger, highly integrated teams ideally working under one roof, conducting high-risk, high-reward research and working to solve priority technology challenges that span work from basic research to engineering development to commercialization readiness.

The three DOE Energy Innovation Hubs will focus on:

•production of fuels directly from sunlight;

•improving energy-efficient building systems design; and

•computer modeling and simulation for the development of advanced nuclear reactors.

The Department will provide $22 million in the first year for the establishment of each Hub and up to $25 million per year for the following four years to support the operations of each Hub—for a total award of up to $122 million per Hub. Important information on the DOE’s Hub implementation plan and strategy for managing the Hubs can be found on the Energy Innovation Hubs website: http://hubs.energy.gov.

Heino Nitsche, head of the Heavy Element Nuclear and Radiochemistry Group in Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division (NSD) and a professor of chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, and Ken Gregorich, a senior staff scientist in NSD, led the team that independently confirmed the production of the new element, which was first published by the Dubna Gas Filled Recoil Separator group.

Using an instrument called the Berkeley Gas-filled Separator (BGS) at Berkeley Lab’s 88-Inch Cyclotron, the researchers were able to confirm the creation of two individual nuclei of element 114, each a separate isotope having 114 protons but different numbers of neutrons, and each decaying by a separate pathway.

“By verifying the production of element 114, we have removed any doubts about the validity of the Dubna group’s claims,” says Nitsche. “This proves that the most interesting superheavy elements can in fact be made in the laboratory.”

The realm of the superheavy

Elements heavier than uranium, element 92 – the atomic number refers to the number of protons in the nucleus – are radioactive and decay in a time shorter than the age of Earth; thus they are not found in nature (although traces of transient neptunium and plutonium can sometimes be found in uranium ore). Elements up to 111 and the recently confirmed 112 have been made artificially – those with lower atomic numbers in nuclear reactors and nuclear explosions, the higher ones in accelerators – and typically decay very rapidly, within a few seconds or fractions of a second.

Beginning in the late 1950s, scientists including Gertrude Scharff-Goldhaber at Brookhaven and theorist Wladyslaw Swiatecki, who had recently moved to Berkeley and is a retired member of Berkeley Lab’s NSD, calculated that superheavy elements with certain combinations of protons and neutrons arranged in shells in the nucleus would be relatively stable, eventually reaching an “Island of Stability” where their lifetimes could be measured in minutes or days – or even, some optimists think, in millions of years. Early models suggested that an element with 114 protons and 184 neutrons might be such a stable element. Longtime Berkeley Lab nuclear chemist Glenn Seaborg, then Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, encouraged searches for superheavy elements with the necessary “magic numbers” of nucleons.

“People have been dreaming of superheavy elements since the 1960s,” says Gregorich. “But it’s unusual for important results like the Dubna group’s claim to have produced 114 to go unconfirmed for so long. Scientists were beginning to wonder if superheavy elements were real.”

To create a superheavy nucleus requires shooting one kind of atom at a target made of another kind; the total protons in both projectile and target nuclei must at least equal that of the quarry. Confirming the Dubna results meant aiming a beam of 48Ca ions – calcium whose nuclei have 20 protons and 28 neutrons – at a target containing 242Pu, the plutonium isotope with 94 protons and 148 neutrons. The 88-Inch Cyclotron’s versatile Advanced Electron Cyclotron Resonance ion source readily created a beam of highly charged calcium ions, atoms lacking 11 electrons, which the 88-Inch Cyclotron then accelerated to the desired energy.

Four plutonium oxide target segments were mounted on a wheel 9.5 centimeters (about 4 inches) in diameter, which spun 12 to 14 times a second to dissipate heat under the bombardment of the cyclotron beam.

“Plutonium is notoriously difficult to manage,” says Nitsche, “and every group makes their targets differently, but long experience has given us at Berkeley a thorough understanding of the process.” (Experience is especially long at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley – not least because Glenn Seaborg discovered plutonium here early in 1941.)

When projectile and target nuclei interact in the target, many different kinds of nuclear reaction products fly out the back. Because nuclei of superheavy elements are rare and short-lived, both the Dubna group and the Berkeley group use gas-filled separators, in which dilute gas and tuned magnetic fields sweep the copious debris of beam-target collisions out of the way, ideally leaving only compound nuclei with the desired mass to reach the detector. The Berkeley Gas-filled Separator had to be modified for radioactive containment before radioactive targets could be used.

In sum, says Gregorich, “The high beam intensities from the 88-Inch Cyclotron, together with the efficient background suppression of the BGS, allow us to look for nuclear reaction products with very small cross-sections – that is, very low probabilities of being produced. In the case of element 114, that turned out to be just two nuclei in eight days of running the experiment almost continuously.”

Tracking the isotopes of 114

The researchers identified the two isotopes as 286114 (114 protons and 172 neutrons) and 287114 (114 protons and 173 neutrons). The former, 286114, decayed in about a tenth of a second by emitting an alpha particle (2 protons and 2 neutrons, a helium nucleus) – thus becoming a “daughter” nucleus of element 112 – which subsequently spontaneously fissioned into smaller nuclei. The latter,287114, decayed in about half a second by emitting an alpha particle to form 112, which also then emitted an alpha particle to form daughter element 110, before spontaneously fissioning into smaller nuclei.

The Berkeley Group’s success in finding these two 114 nuclei and tracking their decay depended on sophisticated methods of detection, data collection, and concurrent data analysis. After passing through the BGS, the candidate nucleus enters a detector chamber. If a candidate element 114 atom is detected, and is subsequently seen to decay by alpha-particle emission, the cyclotron beam instantly shuts off so further decay events can be recorded without background interference.

In addition to such automatic methods of enhancing data collection, the data was analyzed by completely independent software programs, one written by Gregorich and refined by team member Liv Stavsetra, another written by team member Jan Dvořák.

“One surprise was that the 114 nuclei had much smaller cross sections – were much less likely to form – than the Dubna group reported,” Nitsche says. “We expected to get about six in our eight-day experiment but only got two. Nevertheless, the decay modes, lifetimes, and energies were all consistent with the Dubna reports and amply confirm their achievement.”

Says Gregorich, “Based on the ideas of the 1960s, we thought when we got to element 114 we would have reached the Island of Stability. More recent theories suggest enhanced stability at other proton numbers, perhaps 120, perhaps 126. The work we’re doing now will help us decide which theories are correct and how we should modify our models.”

Nitsche adds, “During the last 20 years, many relatively stable isotopes have been discovered that lie between the known heavy element isotopes and the Island of Stability – essentially they can be considered as ‘stepping stones’ to this island. The question is, how far does the Island extend – from 114 to perhaps 120 or 126? And how high does it rise out the Sea of Instability.”

The accumulated expertise in Berkeley Lab’s Nuclear Science Division; the recently upgraded Berkeley Gas-filled Separator that can use radioactive targets; the more powerful and versatile VENUS ion source that will soon come online under the direction of operations program head Daniela Leitner – all add up to Berkeley Lab’s 88-Inch Cyclotron remaining highly competitive in the ongoing search for a stable island in the sea of nuclear instability.

Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research for DOE’s Office of Science and is managed by the University of California. Visit our website at http://www.lbl.gov.

The Dokie project would represent GE Energy Financial Services’ and Plutonic’s first wind energy investment in Canada and an expansion of their relationship from hydroelectric power development into wind energy.

The Dokie project consists of the fully permitted and partially built 144-megawatt Dokie Phase 1 project and the rights to expand to 300 megawatts. As partners, GE and Plutonic or their affiliates would jointly provide equity and seek project debt financing to complete construction and operate the project. The estimated construction cost of the project is C$225 million. Other financial details are being finalized.

EarthFirst has reported that the 144-megawatt Dokie project, once completed, would generate 340 gigawatt-hours annually; enough electricity to meet the annual needs of 34,000 homes and avoid more than 229,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions from a coal plant — the equivalent of taking 44,000 cars off the road.

EarthFirst obtained court-ordered protection from its creditors under Canada’s Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, and yesterday the Dokie partners informed the Court of Queens Bench of Alberta, Judicial Centre of Calgary of their waiver of initial due diligence conditions. GE Energy Financial Services and Plutonic plan to complete the acquisition of the Dokie project in early November, with completion of construction estimated in early 2011.

A GE affiliate will hold 49 percent and a Plutonic affiliate will hold 51 percent of the Dokie partnership, which has signed and put into escrow an amended and restated electricity purchase agreement with BC Hydro. Among other conditions, the transaction is subject to the BC Utilities Commission’s acceptance of the electricity purchase agreement, an agreement to obtain renewable energy incentives in Canada’s ecoENERGY program and arrangement of debt financing. In keeping with its commitment to good community citizenship, the partnership has received consents for the assignment of EarthFirst’s memorandums of understanding with the West Moberly, Halfway River and McLeod Lake First Nations. The partnership has signed a letter of understanding with the Saulteau First Nation and looks forward to working with all First Nations.

In addition to the Dokie project, GE Energy Financial Services and Plutonic are partnering on three hydroelectric projects in British Columbia: the 196-megawatt East Toba River Montrose Creek project—under construction since July 2007—the proposed 166-megawatt Upper Toba Valley Project and the proposed 1027-megawatt Bute Inlet Project. The companies bid Upper Toba Valley and Bute into BC Hydro’s 2008 Call for Power issued in November 2008.

Accepting the shipments was purchaser PSE&G, the state’s largest utility. PSE&G and Petra Solar recently entered into a contract, valued at $200 million, which requires Petra Solar to deliver approximately 200,000 SunWave™ intelligent PV solar units for installation by PSE&G plans for installation on poles in its service territory, which includes the state’s six largest cities and some 300 rural and suburban communities.

“Petra Solar’s solar photovoltaic solutions enable utilities to maximize the value of their existing resources in innovative ways,” said Petra Solar President and CEO Shihab Kuran. “With Petra Solar’s SunWave technology, they use existing utility poles to host solar units, creating a distributed system of power generation throughout their service area.”

He noted that the SunWave systems not only turn the poles into solar generators but can also communicate with the electric grid and can offer smart grid capabilities. The systems can improve grid reliability through real-time communications between solar generators in the field and the utility control center. In addition, the Petra systems can enhance electric distribution grid reliability through a host of capabilities such as voltage and frequency monitoring and reactive power compensation.

Petra Solar will ship 150 solar units this week, following an initial delivery of 50 units last week. It continues to gear up to fulfill its contract, which calls for shipments to increase to 1,500 units per month by the end of the year.

In addition to securing the PSE&G contract last month, Petra Solar became the first business awarded funding under New Jersey’s Clean Energy Manufacturing Fund in July, and the U.S. Department of Energy awarded it the prestigious multi-million SEGIS contract to develop power management and control technologies that will enable a higher penetration of distributed solar in the electric grid.

“We are very gratified that our business interests line up directly with the public’s interest in producing clean energy and green jobs,” said Kuran, noting that the company will triple its workforce in the next year.

More information about Petra Solar can be found at http://www.petrasolar.com/petra-solar-corporate-overview.php

“This Recovery Act program is an example of a true federal partnership with the private sector,” said Treasury Secretary Geithner. “Not only are our Recovery dollars meeting an immediate funding need among innovative companies, they are also jumpstarting private sector investment in communities across the country – with benefits for the renewable energy industry and our economy alike.”

Said Secretary Chu: “These investments are crucial to ensuring America can compete and win in the race for the clean energy jobs of the future. With American workers and American innovation, we can and must lead the world when it comes to the new Industrial Revolution in clean energy.”

Created under Section 1603 of the Recovery Act, the program provides cash assistance to energy producers in place of tax credits. The payments improve project viability, enabling companies to create and retain jobs, and establish sufficient financing bases for projects that may otherwise not be possible, dramatically expanding and accelerating the development of renewable energy projects throughout the country. Under this program, the federal government provides a cash payment in lieu of a tax credit totaling 30 percent of the qualifying cost of the project; for each federal dollar spent in payments, more than two dollars are spent in private sector investments.

Today the Treasury Department will make the second round of awards, all of which will be made in half the statutorily mandated turnaround time of 60 days. The first round of awards totaling $502 million was announced on September 1, 2009. Today’s announcement provides an additional $550 million. The 1603 program is having an immediate effect on the renewable energy industry by significantly increasing the availability and liquidity of project capital in three ways:

•Recycling grants into new projects. Project developers are able to begin construction of additional projects thanks to the extra capital from the grants they are receiving.

•Increasing the flow of capital. By reversing the drop in availability of equity investment available, the 1603 program brings significant private capital off the sidelines to finance more renewables projects.

•Attracting investment for domestic projects. Large project developers allocate capital across many countries, and the 1603 program is attracting billions of dollars of additional capital towards projects in the US.

Project developers receiving awards through this program participated in today’s meeting, including Ameresco, First Wind, Horizon Wind, and Sun Edison. Also participating were several renewables manufacturers who supply these developers, including Cardinal Fastener, GE Energy, Gamesa, Solyndra, and Vestas Americas.

•At a site in Pittsburgh, CA, Ameresco is using a landfill to provide power to the City of Palo Alto. Payments awarded because of this project will allow Ameresco to accelerate its development of renewable energy projects by a minimum of four more domestic projects a year.

•Solyndra is helping to provide energy to a building in downtown Denver, CO through solar panels on the roof, a project that would not have been possible without Recovery Act payments.

•Vestas Americas has made a significant investment in developing renewable energy in the United States. The company has allocated $1 billion for new manufacturing facilities throughout the country, and the 1603 program will allow these facilities to be fully operational by 2011.

The following is a chart of the 25 projects that qualified for awards as part of today’s announcement.

STATE PROJECT/SUBSIDIARY LOCATION AMOUNT

• CA Bob’s Big Boy LLC Burbank, CA $53,648
• CA Ameresco Half Moon Bay LLC Half Moon Bay, CA $6,641,747
• CA Ameresco Keller Canyon LLC Pittsburgh, CA $2,796,377
• CA BioFuel Oasis Cooperative, Inc Berkely, CA $16,858
• CO 5135 Company Denver, CO $23,130
• FL Conditioned Air Corporation of Naples Naples, FL $50,250
• HI Two Daughters Kihei, HI $15,150
• IA Barton Wind Farm Kinsett, IA $93,419,883
• MN BI Minneapolis, MN $25,649
• MN Spruce Tree Centre St. Paul, MN $107,764
• MO Farmers City Wind Farm Tarkio, MO $84,959,857
• MO Ameresco Jefferson City LLC Jefferson City, MO $2,300,244
• NC Solar Billboard Property Bolivia, NC $5,850
• NJ Meadowlands Exposition Center Secaucus, NJ $767,937
• NJ EHT Leasing LLC Egg Harbor Township, NJ $118,560
• NJ OC Kearny Kearny, NJ $992,006
• NV Enel Salt Wells, LLC Fallon, NV $21,196,478
• NV Enel Stillwater, LLC Fallon, NV $40,324,394
• NY OP 110 E. 59th St. CHP New York, NY $415,774
• SD Impervious Energy Systems, LLC Whitewood, SD $31,511
• TX Barton Chapel Wind Farm Jacksboro, TX $72,573,627
• TX Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers, Inc. Santa Rosa, TX $10,232,261
• TX Bull Creek Wind LLC O’Donnell, TX $91,390,497
• TX Pyron Wind Farm, LLC Roscoe, TX $121,903,306
• VT Wheeler Brook Apartments Warren, VT $19,155

Total : $550,381,913