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August 22, 2007
U.S. Congressman Zach Wamp said Tuesday the Tennessee Valley will lead the nation toward energy independence and its reliance on foreign oil.
He said Cleveland is in the middle of the Tennessee Technology Corridor that runs between Oak Ridge National Laboratories and Virginia Tech to the north to Huntsville, Ala., to the south.
“We are right in the middle of a center of alternative energy for our nation today,” he told members of the Rotary Club of Cleveland.
The U.S. Department of Energy named three centers of excellence in the nation five weeks ago for biofuels and alternative fuels. One of them was Oak Ridge.
“This is the industrial complex for alternative fuels in our country,” he said.
The term industrial complex does not include the three-year $125 million research grant to determine the genetic and genomic characteristics of cellulose-based ethanol.
“Meaning, tell us about switch grass. How it’s grown? Can it work? What about poplar? What about kudzu?
“That sounds crazy, but there is a company in Cleveland right now that is turning kudzu into ethanol and alcohol for hot rods, high performance automobiles and ultimately could become a real center for alternative fuels right here in this county.”
He said the hottest new program at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville is in the the school of agriculture where students are learning about plant-based ethanol, biofuels and switch grass.
“Some people abuse the system of congressional earmarks but I don’t mind telling you that four years ago, I put a couple million dollars in a congressional earmark to the University of Tennessee to demonstrate that we could grow switch grass in the South,” he said.
Switch grass was a native plant that was eradicated. Gov. Phil Bredesen wants an ethanol plant within 50 miles of each location switch grass is grown and distilled into E85 (15 percent ethanol) within the next four to six years.
“The quickest bridge to energy independence from foreign oil is fuel,” Wamp said. “We may end up with other technologies and fuel cells, but while that is developing, the shortest distance is fuel.”
Brazil converted every fueling station in the country to E85 within five years using sugar cane as feed stock. They drive flex fuel cars and have a choice of using ethanol or gasoline.
Market forces of alternative fuels will drive down the cost of petroleum products.
“Brazil thumbs their nose at Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez,” he said. “It is a competitve market force that we haven’t had in this nation.”
Wamp said a Chattanooga-based company recently began testing a 100 kilowatt stationary solid oxide fuel cell. It is a kind of battery that will fit into a parking spot. It will be a stand alone power supply that requires no grid system, no transmission lines and no hookups. There will be a 5 kilowatt cell for homes and 100 kilowatt cell for industry. The test battery runs off natural gas, but it can also use ethanol, biomass, geothermal, wind or any other renewable energy source.
“It has to have one feed stock coming in,” Wamp said. “It can heat and cool the air and water and completely supply the electricity of a 30,000 sqaure-foot office building.”
The solid oxide fuel cells produce hydrogen which could be used to fuelautomobiles powered by hydrogen fuel cells.
Wamp said global warming is the second biggest debate in Washington behind Iraq. While he is not completely sold on the science of man’s contribution to global warming, he is sold on the idea that it is an economic opportunity for the United States to lead the world in energy technology and manufacturing to remove carbon emissions.
“It is a worthy goal, but let’s not regulate our country into a noncompetitive situation,” he said. “With the use of solid oxide fuel cells, you could close down every coal-fired TVA plant over 40 years and replace them with these solid oxide cells throughout the Tennessee Valley and transform the environmental consequences of TVAs power generation program.”
The TVA nuclear program is the most reliable, efficient and cost effective of all nuclear programs in the nation.
“Nuclear is safe and reliable,”Wamp said. “The one issue with nuclear power is waste.”
He said waste depositories are not the answer. Eighty percent of commercial power in France is generated by nuclear power. They have 53 reactors and the United States has 106.
“They have one spot where they take all of their waste and turn 80 percent of it back into energy,” Wamp said. “They are not afraid of nuclear and we run from it.”
TVA is going to demonstrate a closed fuel cycle to process spent fuel without it ever leaving the site.
“We are going to demonstrate and lead on energy here in the Tennessee Valley. This is the Bill Gates of the future. What he did in information in the last 20 years is going to happen in energy,” he said. “It is going to be led right out of the heart of where we live.”
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