Energy change subsidies that work......
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-31-2008
The Obama administration will do a good deal more than previous ones on installing more renewable energy generation.
Candidate Obama already said he would do so and has said so even more emphatically now that he is President-elect.
And, he has already suggested adding a massive energy conservation and weather stripping campaign for homes as a way to get people involved and to provide needed jobs right away.
Further, the Congress finally passed and President Bush signed an extension of the solar and wind energy incentives.
These steps will help us build more renewable energy sources. And, there is already some support for building large scale wind, solar thermal, and solar photovoltaic electricity generating plants in good locations and adding the new transmission lines needed to get this new electricity to the business and homes that will use it.
However, some thought needs to be given to making further subsidies help create self-sustaining renewable energy and energy efficiency businesses that do not need subsidies.
We close today’s post with some ideas on how to do that.
And, it is very important NOT to give subsidies to renewable energy methods that cause clearing of forests or taking over agricultural land or which require as much fossil fuel input as the renewable energy output achieved.
The subsidies for corn derived ethanol seem to have done all of the above—most unfortunately.
Subsidies WOULD make sense for research into biofuels that do the reverse of these things by using cellulosic ethanol from existing agricultural waste etc or by using algae tanks that can be located on land NOT used for farms & NOT on land which now has forest. And, funding for venture capital firms to help commercialize such efforts that turn out to work and be cost competitive.
(There ARE already companies and researchers working on such biofuels.)
By adding the biofuels from the successful efforts of this kind to some petroleum based fuels and some fuels made with pollution free conversion from coal while learning how to substitute electricity and/or energy efficiency for some fuel, we can continue having liquid fuels as needed while dramatically decreasing our oil use and eliminating the burning of coal to generate electricity.
Here’s how we can get to a renewable energy economy that is self-sustaining without the need for further subsidies.:
A. Renewable energy is already almost cost competitive or is so IF the capital cost of installing it can be covered and there are some current incentives in place we can make progress toward the massive installations of renewable energy we need.
We have the incentives in place. And, where needed they can be extended in the short term.
But some kind of Renewable Energy Funding group that could be set up (similar to that set up for FHA Real Estate financing to allow more people to become homeowners or like the SBA loan guarantees we have now that help businesses start or expand) that would act as a catalyst to homeowners, businesses, and utility companies installing new renewable energy sources.
This kind of financial entity for building the new transmission lines and for helping utilities add large scale renewable energy sources will be very important to do. Many states are already asking utilities to add such renewable energy generation and should require more. BUT, without the financing available, it won’t happen and cannot happen. So this government funding source is one kind of subsidy I think is critically important.
Also, a very critical policy is to require that all utility companies in the United States buy back renewable energy in excess of current demand by homeowners or businesses that are on its grid at market rates. In many areas now, you can zero out your utility bill in many months of the year if you have wind or solar generation; but your utility gets any excess renewable energy you produce beyond that free. This is a DIS-incentive to build and install renewable energy sources that should be immediately and permanently halted everywhere.
B. Then once we get started building more renewable energy it will gradually become clear how to incentivize the continued expansion of the renewable energy we need even more in ways that make sense. Providing capital to venture firms to expand renewable energy companies that are cost competitive with fossil fuels and profitable while continuing to catalyze the building of renewable energy with a federal financing arm for it will probably make sense.
C. We should begin to lightly tax all fossil fuels while their cost is temporarily low AND to give back the people and businesses taxed most of those funds to enable them to use less fossil fuels by taking energy efficiency steps or by building renewable energy sources as substitutes.
D. THEN, once all this is in place and there is an expanding base of energy efficiency actions and renewable energy sources, we should start adding restrictions and taxes on fossil fuels until their market cost is at least equal to the true overall lifetime cost of using them.
Roughly speaking that means that the delivered cost for natural gas would at least double; the delivered cost of fuels based on petroleum would go up four times; and the delivered cost of coal to be burned directly would go up ten times; and it would be gradually discontinued to be allowed at all.
The good news is that even in the initial stages, as the taxes increase the cost of fossil fuels and the new technologies and economies of scale begin to make renewable energy cheaper to use than fossil fuels, we will begin to get the massive expansion of renewable sources we need. The renewable sources will cost less and make the providers profits with no further subsidies needed.
Since we now rely on these fossil fuel sources for a huge amount of our transport, heating, and electricity generation and a huge part of our economy and existing jobs is connected to them, it’s also important that we may a huge and growing start with renewable sources and energy efficiency FIRST-- AND make these tax increases and restriction gradually to protect our economy.
That said, I think the process should be set up to be done in no more than 30 years. The taxes can be light until renewable energy costs less; and then moved gradually to very high as renewable replacements are brought online.
If all of the above steps or something very like them are taken, I think we can not only transition to an energy efficient and renewable energy economy and phase out of most use of fossil fuels but also do it with little harm our economy at first and a MUCH stronger and sustainable economy later.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Suggested ideas for Obama’s coal policy......
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-24-2008
The Obama administration will do a good deal more than previous ones on installing more renewable energy generation.
He’s already said he would do so and said so even more emphatically now that he is President-elect.
Both the Sierra Club and Al Gore’s group are lobbying to restrict or dramatically lessen the burning of coal for heating and electricity generation.
Burning coal for these reasons world wide is making global warming happen on steroids and producing world wide cuts in solar energy available for solar power and agriculture plus producing health harmful air pollution.
It’s extremely clear that such coal burning needs to be stopped as soon as it can be done safely. But it CANNOT be done safely or easily.
So, since the Sierra Club set up a way to email our support of their 4 policy ideas to the incoming Obama administration, I filled in their form and added my comments on my general support for those four points. And I added my ideas of how the process of winding down the direct burning of coal can safely be begun.
My ideas or something like them may help make achieving the goal of nor more direct burning of coal more economically and politically feasible.
And, I decided to make that my email my post here for today.:
“Please Adopt a Clean Energy Agenda
Dear President Obama, Weds, 12-24-2008
I voted for you because I thought you would and the other guy would not.
I like your other positions mostly but the different aspects of adding clean energy sources and taking energy efficiency steps while gradually turning off burning of fossil fuels was by FAR the MOST important issue.
1. Last week I posted some ideas I hope you can use at www.RenewableEnergyArrives.blogspot.com
"Fast progress on renewable energy jobs......
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-17-2008"
Please have your staff consider those ideas.
2. I'm an email member of your email list; & my wife Abigail & I are of the Sierra Club's.
I mostly support their four points but will add my comments.:
There are four decisions you can make on Day One of your administration, independently of Congress, that will have an immediate impact on cutting global warming pollution and spurring a clean energy economy.
Please use your Presidential power to:
1. Direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to grant a waiver that will allow California and over a dozen other states to limit global warming pollution from cars.
I expect you already plan to do this one; & it IS a good idea.
2. End the rush to build dirty coal plants by directing EPA to require all new and existing power plants limit their global warming emissions.
Their air pollution and global warming contribution are so bad, it's unfortunate we cannot just evaporate them all now. But we currently get about half our electricity from them and more in some important states -- plus many jobs in them and in coal mining are involved which affects some State's politics.
Here's my ideas on this one:
a) start immediately to begin to require 100 percent retrofitting to eliminate air pollutants such as the chemicals that cause acid rain and high levels of small sized particulates.
That will increase the cost of running coal fired plants and the electricity they provide to be sure. But it will also make clean energy more competitive and may save more health care costs overall than it costs. Then, lobby China to do the same thing!
b) start immediately to build the new clean energy sources and transmission lines to replace the electricity now generated by coal.
c) task the coal industry to begin planning to build pollution free plants to make cleaner burning and easier to transport methane, diesel, and gasoline which will help replace imported gas and oil.
d) task the coal industry to begin planning to build
pollution free plants to make what are now petrochemicals.
That way the coal industry will survive after we stop burning coal directly which is and should be our goal.
e) If they actually demonstrate cost competitive ways to burn coal in a way that produces ZERO air pollution and 100 % sequestration of CO2, fine. But let them know the time is coming when no other kind of direct burning of coal can be allowed.
Since as renewable sources come down in price, the cost competitive part of this will likely become impossible, suggest they concentrate 100 % on b, c, & d above.
3. Direct your EPA to end irresponsible mountaintop removal coal mining by stopping coal companies from dumping rock and waste into valleys and streams.
This will increase the costs to the mining companies but not drive them out of business plus eliminate the pollution this practice causes. Definitely do this one!
4. Restore America's international leadership in the fight to end global warming by publicly committing the U.S. to cut its CO2 emissions by at least 35% by 2020.
You already said you would. Good job!!
Warmest & Best Regards,
David Eller“
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-24-2008
The Obama administration will do a good deal more than previous ones on installing more renewable energy generation.
He’s already said he would do so and said so even more emphatically now that he is President-elect.
Both the Sierra Club and Al Gore’s group are lobbying to restrict or dramatically lessen the burning of coal for heating and electricity generation.
Burning coal for these reasons world wide is making global warming happen on steroids and producing world wide cuts in solar energy available for solar power and agriculture plus producing health harmful air pollution.
It’s extremely clear that such coal burning needs to be stopped as soon as it can be done safely. But it CANNOT be done safely or easily.
So, since the Sierra Club set up a way to email our support of their 4 policy ideas to the incoming Obama administration, I filled in their form and added my comments on my general support for those four points. And I added my ideas of how the process of winding down the direct burning of coal can safely be begun.
My ideas or something like them may help make achieving the goal of nor more direct burning of coal more economically and politically feasible.
And, I decided to make that my email my post here for today.:
“Please Adopt a Clean Energy Agenda
Dear President Obama, Weds, 12-24-2008
I voted for you because I thought you would and the other guy would not.
I like your other positions mostly but the different aspects of adding clean energy sources and taking energy efficiency steps while gradually turning off burning of fossil fuels was by FAR the MOST important issue.
1. Last week I posted some ideas I hope you can use at www.RenewableEnergyArrives.blogspot.com
"Fast progress on renewable energy jobs......
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-17-2008"
Please have your staff consider those ideas.
2. I'm an email member of your email list; & my wife Abigail & I are of the Sierra Club's.
I mostly support their four points but will add my comments.:
There are four decisions you can make on Day One of your administration, independently of Congress, that will have an immediate impact on cutting global warming pollution and spurring a clean energy economy.
Please use your Presidential power to:
1. Direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to grant a waiver that will allow California and over a dozen other states to limit global warming pollution from cars.
I expect you already plan to do this one; & it IS a good idea.
2. End the rush to build dirty coal plants by directing EPA to require all new and existing power plants limit their global warming emissions.
Their air pollution and global warming contribution are so bad, it's unfortunate we cannot just evaporate them all now. But we currently get about half our electricity from them and more in some important states -- plus many jobs in them and in coal mining are involved which affects some State's politics.
Here's my ideas on this one:
a) start immediately to begin to require 100 percent retrofitting to eliminate air pollutants such as the chemicals that cause acid rain and high levels of small sized particulates.
That will increase the cost of running coal fired plants and the electricity they provide to be sure. But it will also make clean energy more competitive and may save more health care costs overall than it costs. Then, lobby China to do the same thing!
b) start immediately to build the new clean energy sources and transmission lines to replace the electricity now generated by coal.
c) task the coal industry to begin planning to build pollution free plants to make cleaner burning and easier to transport methane, diesel, and gasoline which will help replace imported gas and oil.
d) task the coal industry to begin planning to build
pollution free plants to make what are now petrochemicals.
That way the coal industry will survive after we stop burning coal directly which is and should be our goal.
e) If they actually demonstrate cost competitive ways to burn coal in a way that produces ZERO air pollution and 100 % sequestration of CO2, fine. But let them know the time is coming when no other kind of direct burning of coal can be allowed.
Since as renewable sources come down in price, the cost competitive part of this will likely become impossible, suggest they concentrate 100 % on b, c, & d above.
3. Direct your EPA to end irresponsible mountaintop removal coal mining by stopping coal companies from dumping rock and waste into valleys and streams.
This will increase the costs to the mining companies but not drive them out of business plus eliminate the pollution this practice causes. Definitely do this one!
4. Restore America's international leadership in the fight to end global warming by publicly committing the U.S. to cut its CO2 emissions by at least 35% by 2020.
You already said you would. Good job!!
Warmest & Best Regards,
David Eller“
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Fast progress on renewable energy jobs......
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-17-2008
The Obama administration will do a good deal more than previous ones on installing more renewable energy generation.
The current website for the administration for participation by individuals is
http://change.gov/ under the agenda tab and then by clicking on Energy and Environment lists the goals they have now.
It begins with this:
“The Obama-Biden comprehensive New Energy for America plan will:
Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.”
It seems clear to me that the initial job program in an economic stimulus package is likely to include many jobs upgrading infrastructure across the country driven by projects that are needed in the part of the country that are represented by each of the members of congress. The votes need to come from somewhere; and the jobs created will be in the state or district represented or near it in a way that will benefit their constituents.
These jobs will also help improve the economy by increasing safety on our roads or by making our drinking water more reliable and safer to drink and avoiding or postponing expenses for the communities involved. New, safer, bridges will get built. Highways will be made smoother and safer that are in bad shape now. And, water systems will get upgraded so they will last longer, deliver cleaner water, and leak enough less of it to cut the need to in put water in half or more.
This is actually desirable and good for the economy as well as politically doable and even likely.
However, it also quite clear that we now ALSO need to have a huge effort to add jobs that actually make fast contributions to energy efficiency or to adding renewable energy capacity. And we need it immediately.
Here are some ideas on HOW to do this.:
As we posted last week:
A. “One of the backers of the CleanTech for Obama group has pointed out that many already cost effective steps to energy efficiency can be taken throughout the United States to lower our energy use without harming our economy.” I added that this includes such things “as adding insulation, heat proofing buildings with peaked roofs, and weather stripping windows all of which can be done by people in the United States needing jobs.”
In many parts of the United States houses already tend to be well insulated and weather-stripped; but even there it’s not 100 %. Why not help lower income homeowners and apartment owners in lower income areas to do this even if federal money &/or money from that state with add-on money from the federal government is needed to make that happen?
And, in many parts of the West and Southern United States, the need is far greater because for much of the year people can get by with no weather stripping and little or no insulation. But this causes a large use of wasted energy each winter. Why not add jobs in those communities to correct this?
These jobs will be somewhat temporary though this process might take10 year or more to be completed. But even a ten percent start almost immediately would put thousands of people to work all over the country.
In areas where people use air conditioners now, typically well over half and often as much as ninety percent of the energy used is wasted to remove heat from the building that could have been prevented from entering at a dramatically LOWER cost in energy.
Adding insulation and double pane windows will help do this.
Even more effective in houses and apartments with peaked roofs is adding well screened air access ports around the base of the roof and installing convection powered turbines toward the peak of the roof. Other than those areas so hot that a powered and thermostatically controlled extractor fan needs to be added, once these heat proofing methods are installed, they cut 50 to 95 % from the energy needed to cool the house or apartment building every summer and need ZERO energy to do this once they are installed.
So, once this is done, will cooling the house to slightly too cool temperatures first thing in the morning and then turning off the air conditioning until the temperature goes above 75 degrees. In a heat proofed building this will not even happen on most days. And at 75 degrees you can be decently comfortable if you have installed ceiling fans.
So, heat proofing is only moderately expensive and saves huge amounts of electricity every summer after it’s done.
Projects like these across the United States would provide a huge number of jobs if it were to be done in every community in the United States and to every building that now needs it.
We should definitely come as close to making that happen as possible in the next 4 to 8 years.
We need the jobs now. And, it will save more in energy costs than the money to do it will cost our economy. This is well known but has NOT been acted on yet.
This can also be accomplished by raising the money to replace and properly dispose of energy-inefficient refrigerators; and to give all our homes and businesses an energy management system that will safely power down TV’s, video game players, and other devices that now use energy while they are NOT in use.”
Doing this would also create jobs.
B. I also suggested this. “We need to set up national prizes and funds for the kind of venture capital that rolls out new technology that works; and we should do this to incentivize the development and rapid deployment of new energy technology generally.
This will create jobs here. And these companies can bring money here by selling these products to the rest of the world.
In particular, we need to do this for LED light bulbs that are available at the cost today of fluorescent light bulbs or less and which will fit all the sockets that have been used for incandescent bulbs. Such bulbs use even less electricity than fluorescent light bulbs, perhaps a full third as much in fact. And, they won’t poison our homes, businesses, and planet with mercury as using fluorescent light bulbs looks likely to do and very likely IS doing now.
GE is developing a kind of wallpaper that lights up walls and ceilings with an ideally dispersed light source that uses LED’s. That’s a superb idea.
But for now, the glaring need is for cost effective and readily available LED light bulbs to replace incandescent light bulbs and fluorescent light bulbs in the light bulb sockets people have NOW. (Pardon the pun.)
Again, this is an energy efficiency method that will save huge amounts of energy that both creates jobs and continues to give us the light we need.
It does NOT sacrifice our prosperity or quality of life like purposely living in dimly lit rooms to save energy would do.”
Many of these ideas can be put into place or initiated in the first 6 months of the Obama administration.
C. Solar thermal “farms” in just the appropriate parts of the United States has the capacity to generate all the electricity we currently use. (See
http://www.ausra.com/ .)
In addition, it efficiently stores the heated medium to allow electricity generation up to 16 hours a day.
The federal government could ask each utility within a reasonable distance from these areas and in them to create a plan to add close to 100 % of the thermal solar capacity available by 2030 and to find the best sites to do first that will add at least 10 % of this capacity in the next 4 years and calculate what dollar amounts this would cost and what new transmission lines would be needed.
Then the government could help pay for the transmission lines to be built and do some kind of loan guarantees or partial financing and fast tracking approvals to enable utilities to put these farms in place.
(Later it will make sense to extend this to building such solar farms in Mexico because jobs there will help solve the immigration problem here and because the solar thermal potential there is perhaps as much as THREE times the potential in the United States.)
There will be jobs created to build these plants and transmission lines soon if this is done. But the reliable and abundant electricity generated can also power plug-in hybrid cars and energy and cost efficient and partly automated new manufacturing facilities that will add even more jobs.
D. The administration could also offer some tax credits to businesses that: install solar photovoltaic panels on their building roofs;
& to those that add roof canopies over their parking lots and also install solar photovoltaic panels on them;
& to those that reduce waste of energy and add energy efficient devices to lower their energy needed & with a bonus to those companies that harvest enough solar electricity over a year’s time to exceed 50 % of their energy use by doing all three.
E. Germany has a fraction of the solar photovoltaic potential as the United States but has installed dramatically more solar photovoltaic capacity per capita than the United States. They do this because of the way the utilities there help pay for these installations through slightly increasing utility bills and by giving people who generate more electricity than they use a payment equal to the costs of the utility to generate it otherwise.
It would create jobs across the country if it became a country wide requirement for each utility here to adopt that policy by the end of 2009.
It’s been so effective there I cannot fathom why even the Bush administration didn’t do this already.
I think it is imperative that the Obama administration do everything it can to get this done country wide in 2009.
F. I think that the federal government should back the wind electricity generation and the added transmission lines part of the “Pickens Plan” in every part of the United States that has enough wind.
(I think plug in hybrids and all electric cars powered by renewable energy are a superior solution to using natural gas. So I think that the use of the natural gas not needed once the wind power is in place to generate electricity should not get extra funding. That said, it would replace gasoline now made from imported oil.
My hope is that we will be able to use plug-in hybrids and biofuels and liquid fuels made from coal instead. Here’s why: Natural gas is a superb fossil fuel for cooking and heating. To generate any electricity we still need besides what we get from renewable sources natural gas is dramatically cleaner than burning coal and far easier to transport. And, natural gas too is a finite resource that we should conserve.)
However, even without adding the costs of medical care caused by burning coal and the costs generated by doing so to fight the global warming effects this causes to its use to generate electricity with taxes or carbon cap & trade systems, wind power is already competitive with burning coal in cost. So, backing the nationwide implementation of the wind powered electricity generation and added transmission lines part of the Pickens plan is a way to add jobs and renewable energy that deserves an extremely high priority.
G. We can also add jobs and renewable energy by enabling every competent company now installing photovoltaic panels in homes and apartment buildings and small businesses to have some kind of subsidy that helps pay their installers.
And, we can see to it that every community college in the United States has an effective program that will train an installer in a year or less that the federal government helps to fund.
What’s the right answer to adding jobs
AND renewable energy at the same time?
I’m virtually certain there’s a list as long as this one of other ways that might work that I simply don’t know about yet. Many of them should also be used.
But I DO know ONE right answer likely to be adequate to get the job done already.
It’s to see to it that everything in this list of things here in this post that are already known to work be done as early as possible during the next four years.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-17-2008
The Obama administration will do a good deal more than previous ones on installing more renewable energy generation.
The current website for the administration for participation by individuals is
http://change.gov/ under the agenda tab and then by clicking on Energy and Environment lists the goals they have now.
It begins with this:
“The Obama-Biden comprehensive New Energy for America plan will:
Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.”
It seems clear to me that the initial job program in an economic stimulus package is likely to include many jobs upgrading infrastructure across the country driven by projects that are needed in the part of the country that are represented by each of the members of congress. The votes need to come from somewhere; and the jobs created will be in the state or district represented or near it in a way that will benefit their constituents.
These jobs will also help improve the economy by increasing safety on our roads or by making our drinking water more reliable and safer to drink and avoiding or postponing expenses for the communities involved. New, safer, bridges will get built. Highways will be made smoother and safer that are in bad shape now. And, water systems will get upgraded so they will last longer, deliver cleaner water, and leak enough less of it to cut the need to in put water in half or more.
This is actually desirable and good for the economy as well as politically doable and even likely.
However, it also quite clear that we now ALSO need to have a huge effort to add jobs that actually make fast contributions to energy efficiency or to adding renewable energy capacity. And we need it immediately.
Here are some ideas on HOW to do this.:
As we posted last week:
A. “One of the backers of the CleanTech for Obama group has pointed out that many already cost effective steps to energy efficiency can be taken throughout the United States to lower our energy use without harming our economy.” I added that this includes such things “as adding insulation, heat proofing buildings with peaked roofs, and weather stripping windows all of which can be done by people in the United States needing jobs.”
In many parts of the United States houses already tend to be well insulated and weather-stripped; but even there it’s not 100 %. Why not help lower income homeowners and apartment owners in lower income areas to do this even if federal money &/or money from that state with add-on money from the federal government is needed to make that happen?
And, in many parts of the West and Southern United States, the need is far greater because for much of the year people can get by with no weather stripping and little or no insulation. But this causes a large use of wasted energy each winter. Why not add jobs in those communities to correct this?
These jobs will be somewhat temporary though this process might take10 year or more to be completed. But even a ten percent start almost immediately would put thousands of people to work all over the country.
In areas where people use air conditioners now, typically well over half and often as much as ninety percent of the energy used is wasted to remove heat from the building that could have been prevented from entering at a dramatically LOWER cost in energy.
Adding insulation and double pane windows will help do this.
Even more effective in houses and apartments with peaked roofs is adding well screened air access ports around the base of the roof and installing convection powered turbines toward the peak of the roof. Other than those areas so hot that a powered and thermostatically controlled extractor fan needs to be added, once these heat proofing methods are installed, they cut 50 to 95 % from the energy needed to cool the house or apartment building every summer and need ZERO energy to do this once they are installed.
So, once this is done, will cooling the house to slightly too cool temperatures first thing in the morning and then turning off the air conditioning until the temperature goes above 75 degrees. In a heat proofed building this will not even happen on most days. And at 75 degrees you can be decently comfortable if you have installed ceiling fans.
So, heat proofing is only moderately expensive and saves huge amounts of electricity every summer after it’s done.
Projects like these across the United States would provide a huge number of jobs if it were to be done in every community in the United States and to every building that now needs it.
We should definitely come as close to making that happen as possible in the next 4 to 8 years.
We need the jobs now. And, it will save more in energy costs than the money to do it will cost our economy. This is well known but has NOT been acted on yet.
This can also be accomplished by raising the money to replace and properly dispose of energy-inefficient refrigerators; and to give all our homes and businesses an energy management system that will safely power down TV’s, video game players, and other devices that now use energy while they are NOT in use.”
Doing this would also create jobs.
B. I also suggested this. “We need to set up national prizes and funds for the kind of venture capital that rolls out new technology that works; and we should do this to incentivize the development and rapid deployment of new energy technology generally.
This will create jobs here. And these companies can bring money here by selling these products to the rest of the world.
In particular, we need to do this for LED light bulbs that are available at the cost today of fluorescent light bulbs or less and which will fit all the sockets that have been used for incandescent bulbs. Such bulbs use even less electricity than fluorescent light bulbs, perhaps a full third as much in fact. And, they won’t poison our homes, businesses, and planet with mercury as using fluorescent light bulbs looks likely to do and very likely IS doing now.
GE is developing a kind of wallpaper that lights up walls and ceilings with an ideally dispersed light source that uses LED’s. That’s a superb idea.
But for now, the glaring need is for cost effective and readily available LED light bulbs to replace incandescent light bulbs and fluorescent light bulbs in the light bulb sockets people have NOW. (Pardon the pun.)
Again, this is an energy efficiency method that will save huge amounts of energy that both creates jobs and continues to give us the light we need.
It does NOT sacrifice our prosperity or quality of life like purposely living in dimly lit rooms to save energy would do.”
Many of these ideas can be put into place or initiated in the first 6 months of the Obama administration.
C. Solar thermal “farms” in just the appropriate parts of the United States has the capacity to generate all the electricity we currently use. (See
http://www.ausra.com/ .)
In addition, it efficiently stores the heated medium to allow electricity generation up to 16 hours a day.
The federal government could ask each utility within a reasonable distance from these areas and in them to create a plan to add close to 100 % of the thermal solar capacity available by 2030 and to find the best sites to do first that will add at least 10 % of this capacity in the next 4 years and calculate what dollar amounts this would cost and what new transmission lines would be needed.
Then the government could help pay for the transmission lines to be built and do some kind of loan guarantees or partial financing and fast tracking approvals to enable utilities to put these farms in place.
(Later it will make sense to extend this to building such solar farms in Mexico because jobs there will help solve the immigration problem here and because the solar thermal potential there is perhaps as much as THREE times the potential in the United States.)
There will be jobs created to build these plants and transmission lines soon if this is done. But the reliable and abundant electricity generated can also power plug-in hybrid cars and energy and cost efficient and partly automated new manufacturing facilities that will add even more jobs.
D. The administration could also offer some tax credits to businesses that: install solar photovoltaic panels on their building roofs;
& to those that add roof canopies over their parking lots and also install solar photovoltaic panels on them;
& to those that reduce waste of energy and add energy efficient devices to lower their energy needed & with a bonus to those companies that harvest enough solar electricity over a year’s time to exceed 50 % of their energy use by doing all three.
E. Germany has a fraction of the solar photovoltaic potential as the United States but has installed dramatically more solar photovoltaic capacity per capita than the United States. They do this because of the way the utilities there help pay for these installations through slightly increasing utility bills and by giving people who generate more electricity than they use a payment equal to the costs of the utility to generate it otherwise.
It would create jobs across the country if it became a country wide requirement for each utility here to adopt that policy by the end of 2009.
It’s been so effective there I cannot fathom why even the Bush administration didn’t do this already.
I think it is imperative that the Obama administration do everything it can to get this done country wide in 2009.
F. I think that the federal government should back the wind electricity generation and the added transmission lines part of the “Pickens Plan” in every part of the United States that has enough wind.
(I think plug in hybrids and all electric cars powered by renewable energy are a superior solution to using natural gas. So I think that the use of the natural gas not needed once the wind power is in place to generate electricity should not get extra funding. That said, it would replace gasoline now made from imported oil.
My hope is that we will be able to use plug-in hybrids and biofuels and liquid fuels made from coal instead. Here’s why: Natural gas is a superb fossil fuel for cooking and heating. To generate any electricity we still need besides what we get from renewable sources natural gas is dramatically cleaner than burning coal and far easier to transport. And, natural gas too is a finite resource that we should conserve.)
However, even without adding the costs of medical care caused by burning coal and the costs generated by doing so to fight the global warming effects this causes to its use to generate electricity with taxes or carbon cap & trade systems, wind power is already competitive with burning coal in cost. So, backing the nationwide implementation of the wind powered electricity generation and added transmission lines part of the Pickens plan is a way to add jobs and renewable energy that deserves an extremely high priority.
G. We can also add jobs and renewable energy by enabling every competent company now installing photovoltaic panels in homes and apartment buildings and small businesses to have some kind of subsidy that helps pay their installers.
And, we can see to it that every community college in the United States has an effective program that will train an installer in a year or less that the federal government helps to fund.
What’s the right answer to adding jobs
AND renewable energy at the same time?
I’m virtually certain there’s a list as long as this one of other ways that might work that I simply don’t know about yet. Many of them should also be used.
But I DO know ONE right answer likely to be adequate to get the job done already.
It’s to see to it that everything in this list of things here in this post that are already known to work be done as early as possible during the next four years.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Extra Effort on getting to Renewable Energy soon......
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-10-2008
Just a few weeks ago, Al Gore said we should move to 100 % renewable energy in 10 years or by 2018.
In a report called “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World”, various experts & analysts in the US Intelligence organizations and from other places state that renewable energy will NOT be commercially viable by 2025.
And, this report was supplied to President-elect, Obama recently a current news article said.
If we don’t take action, massive coordinated action on several fronts to come much closer to Al Gore’s goal than this new report suggests is likely, we are in very serious trouble. Costs from global warming will begin to destroy our economy while our economy starves for energy at reasonable costs. For example gasoline prices of more than $5 a gallon in today’s dollars will return as the world’s economy tries to recover from the current recession.
Given that we may already have more CO2 in our air than is safe, the status quo of simply drilling for more oil and building more coal fired plants world wide is extremely dangerous.
Yet, a prosperous economy needs more usable, effective, energy to achieve that prosperity and keep it – not less.
That’s why we need not just an effort comparable to the Manhattan Project; but an effort comparable to the entire United States effort to win World War II to start immediately to begin to tax coal and oil use commensurate with their real economic costs; & to regulate their use; AND to use the funds generated plus further investments to increase energy-efficiency and add renewable energy on a huge scale as quickly as we ramped up war production in World War II—or faster.
1. Wind power is already competitive in costs with fossil fuels.
That’s why T Boone Pickens’ plan, or at least the part that adds lots of wind powered electricity generation and new transmission lines to transport it needs to be immediately expanded and implemented in every place that has enough wind.
2. Large solar thermal farms are very close to being competitive with fossil fuels. And there are huge areas in the United States and even more in Mexico (and in other parts of the world) that work well to build them. Plus we also need to add the new transmission lines to these solar thermal farms to deliver their electricity.
We need to have the United States government act in some way to make immediate financing on favorable terms available to build these plants and the transmission lines.
And, we need to have every utility reachable by those lines be required to get perhaps as high as 60 % of their electricity from that source alone by 2030.
This is because the energy is there NOW on that large a scale to be harvested; and the heated media can be efficiently stored to deliver power for several hours after the sun heats it and sets.
3. We also need to increase the incentives enough and drive down the costs enough over the next few years to build both solar photovoltaic farms in favorable locations AND to add roof top solar to virtually every usable rooftop of every building standing AND to build roofs over most of our parking lots that also have solar photovoltaic cells on them.
4. We need to begin to scale up the successful experiments that produce usable biodiesel, ethanol, and jet fuel and chemical feedstocks from algae or other methods that do NOT compete with growing food so that most liquid fuels can be made from processes that remove CO2 in addition to adding it back to our air.
5. We need to stop burning coal for fuel and to convert the coal we have into cleaner burning liquid fuels and gas that can be added to biofuels or used to replace petroleum.
In the near term this will prevent the coal businesses in the United States from a collapse immediate enough to dislocate the economies of the communities where they now are. And, it will provide these fuels while biofuels are just beginning to ramp up.
6. We need to start planning to replace all the coal burning plants we have now with renewable sources such as wind or solar or with plants that burn biofuels and cleaner burning fuels made from coal.
(It may be possible to sequester the CO2 and other pollutants 100 % that burning coal releases. We should certainly research that.) But meanwhile we should be winding down our use of the kinds of coal burning plants we have now towards zero.
And, both here and in the rest of the world, we should act NOW to prevent new coal burning plants from being built and used.
It’s clear in China and everywhere immediately downwind from China that the air pollution alone from burning coal on a very large scale costs almost more in added medical costs than the value of the electricity it generates. And, adding lots more CO2 to our air instead of less makes ZERO sense. So absolutely NO new coal burning plants should be built anywhere.
7. One of the backers of the CleanTech for Obama group has pointed out that many already cost effective steps to energy efficiency can be taken throughout the United States to lower our energy use without harming our economy such as adding insulation, heat proofing buildings with peaked roofs, and weather stripping windows all of which can be done by people in the United States needing jobs.
This would provide a huge number of jobs if it were to be done in every community in the United States to every building that now needs it.
We should definitely come as close to making that happen as possible in the next 4 to 8 years.
We need the jobs now. And, it will save more in energy costs than the money to do it will cost our economy.
This can also be accomplished by raising the money to replace and properly dispose of energy-inefficient refrigerators; and to give all our homes and businesses an energy management system that will safely power down TV’s, video game players, and other devices that now use energy while they are NOT in use.
8. We need to set up national prizes and funds for the kind of venture capital that rolls out new technology that works; and we should do this to incentivize the development and rapid deployment of new energy technology generally.
This will create jobs here. And these companies can bring money here by selling these products to the rest of the world.
In particular, we need to do this for LED light bulbs that are available at the cost today of fluorescent light bulbs or less and which will fit all the sockets that have been used for incandescent bulbs. Such bulbs use even less electricity than fluorescent light bulbs, perhaps a full third as much in fact. And, they won’t poison our homes, businesses, and planet with mercury as using fluorescent light bulbs looks likely to do and very likely IS doing now.
GE is developing a kind of wallpaper that lights up walls and ceilings with an ideally dispersed light source that uses LED’s. That’s a superb idea. But for now, the glaring need is for cost effective and readily available LED light bulbs to replace incandescent light bulbs and fluorescent light bulbs in the light bulb sockets people have now. (Pardon the pun.)
Again, this is an energy efficiency method that will save huge amounts of energy that both creates jobs and continues to give us the light we need.
It does NOT sacrifice our prosperity or quality of life like purposely living in dimly lit rooms to save energy would do.
I believe each of these goals is doable by 2030. But they will only happen and make the intelligence community report look timid and incorrect if we take massive action to achieve them all.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-10-2008
Just a few weeks ago, Al Gore said we should move to 100 % renewable energy in 10 years or by 2018.
In a report called “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World”, various experts & analysts in the US Intelligence organizations and from other places state that renewable energy will NOT be commercially viable by 2025.
And, this report was supplied to President-elect, Obama recently a current news article said.
If we don’t take action, massive coordinated action on several fronts to come much closer to Al Gore’s goal than this new report suggests is likely, we are in very serious trouble. Costs from global warming will begin to destroy our economy while our economy starves for energy at reasonable costs. For example gasoline prices of more than $5 a gallon in today’s dollars will return as the world’s economy tries to recover from the current recession.
Given that we may already have more CO2 in our air than is safe, the status quo of simply drilling for more oil and building more coal fired plants world wide is extremely dangerous.
Yet, a prosperous economy needs more usable, effective, energy to achieve that prosperity and keep it – not less.
That’s why we need not just an effort comparable to the Manhattan Project; but an effort comparable to the entire United States effort to win World War II to start immediately to begin to tax coal and oil use commensurate with their real economic costs; & to regulate their use; AND to use the funds generated plus further investments to increase energy-efficiency and add renewable energy on a huge scale as quickly as we ramped up war production in World War II—or faster.
1. Wind power is already competitive in costs with fossil fuels.
That’s why T Boone Pickens’ plan, or at least the part that adds lots of wind powered electricity generation and new transmission lines to transport it needs to be immediately expanded and implemented in every place that has enough wind.
2. Large solar thermal farms are very close to being competitive with fossil fuels. And there are huge areas in the United States and even more in Mexico (and in other parts of the world) that work well to build them. Plus we also need to add the new transmission lines to these solar thermal farms to deliver their electricity.
We need to have the United States government act in some way to make immediate financing on favorable terms available to build these plants and the transmission lines.
And, we need to have every utility reachable by those lines be required to get perhaps as high as 60 % of their electricity from that source alone by 2030.
This is because the energy is there NOW on that large a scale to be harvested; and the heated media can be efficiently stored to deliver power for several hours after the sun heats it and sets.
3. We also need to increase the incentives enough and drive down the costs enough over the next few years to build both solar photovoltaic farms in favorable locations AND to add roof top solar to virtually every usable rooftop of every building standing AND to build roofs over most of our parking lots that also have solar photovoltaic cells on them.
4. We need to begin to scale up the successful experiments that produce usable biodiesel, ethanol, and jet fuel and chemical feedstocks from algae or other methods that do NOT compete with growing food so that most liquid fuels can be made from processes that remove CO2 in addition to adding it back to our air.
5. We need to stop burning coal for fuel and to convert the coal we have into cleaner burning liquid fuels and gas that can be added to biofuels or used to replace petroleum.
In the near term this will prevent the coal businesses in the United States from a collapse immediate enough to dislocate the economies of the communities where they now are. And, it will provide these fuels while biofuels are just beginning to ramp up.
6. We need to start planning to replace all the coal burning plants we have now with renewable sources such as wind or solar or with plants that burn biofuels and cleaner burning fuels made from coal.
(It may be possible to sequester the CO2 and other pollutants 100 % that burning coal releases. We should certainly research that.) But meanwhile we should be winding down our use of the kinds of coal burning plants we have now towards zero.
And, both here and in the rest of the world, we should act NOW to prevent new coal burning plants from being built and used.
It’s clear in China and everywhere immediately downwind from China that the air pollution alone from burning coal on a very large scale costs almost more in added medical costs than the value of the electricity it generates. And, adding lots more CO2 to our air instead of less makes ZERO sense. So absolutely NO new coal burning plants should be built anywhere.
7. One of the backers of the CleanTech for Obama group has pointed out that many already cost effective steps to energy efficiency can be taken throughout the United States to lower our energy use without harming our economy such as adding insulation, heat proofing buildings with peaked roofs, and weather stripping windows all of which can be done by people in the United States needing jobs.
This would provide a huge number of jobs if it were to be done in every community in the United States to every building that now needs it.
We should definitely come as close to making that happen as possible in the next 4 to 8 years.
We need the jobs now. And, it will save more in energy costs than the money to do it will cost our economy.
This can also be accomplished by raising the money to replace and properly dispose of energy-inefficient refrigerators; and to give all our homes and businesses an energy management system that will safely power down TV’s, video game players, and other devices that now use energy while they are NOT in use.
8. We need to set up national prizes and funds for the kind of venture capital that rolls out new technology that works; and we should do this to incentivize the development and rapid deployment of new energy technology generally.
This will create jobs here. And these companies can bring money here by selling these products to the rest of the world.
In particular, we need to do this for LED light bulbs that are available at the cost today of fluorescent light bulbs or less and which will fit all the sockets that have been used for incandescent bulbs. Such bulbs use even less electricity than fluorescent light bulbs, perhaps a full third as much in fact. And, they won’t poison our homes, businesses, and planet with mercury as using fluorescent light bulbs looks likely to do and very likely IS doing now.
GE is developing a kind of wallpaper that lights up walls and ceilings with an ideally dispersed light source that uses LED’s. That’s a superb idea. But for now, the glaring need is for cost effective and readily available LED light bulbs to replace incandescent light bulbs and fluorescent light bulbs in the light bulb sockets people have now. (Pardon the pun.)
Again, this is an energy efficiency method that will save huge amounts of energy that both creates jobs and continues to give us the light we need.
It does NOT sacrifice our prosperity or quality of life like purposely living in dimly lit rooms to save energy would do.
I believe each of these goals is doable by 2030. But they will only happen and make the intelligence community report look timid and incorrect if we take massive action to achieve them all.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Help increase support for rapid increases in Renewable Energy......
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-3-2008
1. First, burning fossil fuels is already harming our economy, our health, and our entire world’s environment.
And, it will act as an increasingly worse brake on our economy the longer we continue to do it. So, developing abundant renewable energy to replace that will begin to remove that brake. This alone will improve our economy.
One analyst was recently quoted as saying most developed countries will need $50 billion or more each year to overcome the costs created by ongoing global warming.
The medical costs of the huge amounts of air pollution alone may begin to cost that much.
2. But the upside is MUCH better. We are beginning to develop the technologies & build the companies that clearly will allow us to build so much new renewable energy generation and add or retrofit so much energy efficiency into our economy that within 15 to 30 years we can double our current use of energy and increase by four times the usable or effective energy that we have AND do all that with just renewable energy alone.
Eventually this will result in a MUCH stronger economy that needs perhaps 10 percent or less of the fossil fuels we currently use. And this will keep declining in both percentage and total use each year after that until it approaches zero. (However, we will still use petroleum for petrochemicals as oilman J. Paul Getty long ago foresaw.)
Readers of this blog & other people who have been following the sources I have know this information. A dramatically stronger economy with more energy and much more effective energy that is nearly 100 % based on renewable sources IS possible.
BUT, as many as 50 or 60 percent of the people in the United States do NOT yet know or believe that the cumulative effects of these developments CAN be that large if we act now to begin putting them in place.
Even worse, many otherwise intelligent and educated people are in that very large group of people.
The problem is that they have NOT been following the kinds of developments that have been posted here and in the news elsewhere enough to realize that this CAN be done OR how bad things will get if we don’t.
Unfortunately, unless this group of people can be brought up to speed on these developments and how fast the different technologies are improving and what is already doable, they won’t give our new President and others who are taking action the support they need to do the job.
Today, you have an opportunity to help change this.
Al Gore is raising money to put coverage of this information on TV on the 60 Minutes TV program.
To be sure, many people don’t watch this program. BUT, the people who DO watch it are well educated and well informed. They make more money than the average person. And, the people who know them know and respect them for these being well informed.
This effect is multiplied by the fact that many journalists and other new professionals watch 60 Minutes, particularly for important new stories.
This means that when the people who see 60 Minutes see that truly HUGE gains in renewable energy ARE possible, they will be very influential in transmitting the information to other people.
So, I think this is a very good thing to do.
Here’s how you can help.:
Here’s the info I got by email from Al Gore’s group.
“Dear David, The incoming administration is deciding right now how ambitious they can be on climate and energy policy. We need to help build broad public understanding and strong support for the kind of deep, structural change needed to end the climate crisis and revive our economy.Our next series of ads paints portraits of Americans making this change happen. It launches nationwide this week, and we could really use your help getting out the word. If we can raise $121,000 by Thursday, we'll extend our airtime purchase to get the first new Repower America ad on 60 Minutes this weekend.See the first ad in this new series here, and please help if you can. I think you'll really like it. Just click here:http://www.repoweramerica.org/60minutesad
This series of ads is designed to make the opportunity real and concrete. Ranchers making money from wind. Electricians wiring old buildings to be energy efficient. Jobs, clean energy, a strong economy. The climate crisis averted. This is the future under a 'Repower'ed America'. Most people don't realize that the proven technologies needed already exist today. We have to show them. And we don't have much time.For years, the fossil fuel industry has worked overtime to brand renewable energy as a tree-hugger delusion. But exactly the opposite is true. For example, wind power is cheap and a mature technology. Wind turbines produce electricity for less cost than oil or natural gas plants, and are competitive with new coal plants, even today. And building the wind turbines to capture this energy will create good manufacturing and construction jobs here in America. Of course, once you build the turbines you don't have to pay for any expensive foreign oil or dirty coal. American workers making the tools to harness clean American energy -- that's what the Repower America plan is all about.This ad also depicts an electric pickup truck, which is particularly head turning. The oil companies have worked for years to make people think that electric cars can never rival internal combustion in power or performance, and that's just plain wrong. Hybrids are ready today, as you know. And cars build with electric motors are four times as efficient as today's cars with gasoline engines. That's why electric cars can run on less than $1.00 per gallon-equivalent, if you get your clean power from wind, for example. And electrics can deliver all the torque and power anyone could want. It's time for Detroit to begin building this new fleet of 21st century cars.Can you help us get this ad on the air? Just go to:http://www.repoweramerica.org/60minutesad
In their hearts, everyone knows that Al Gore is right. That our biggest problems are all intertwined. That "we're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet." And that "Every bit of that's got to change."Now it's time to start talking about what that change should look like. The oil and coal companies have thousands of lobbyists on Capitol Hill promoting their idea of change. Which is,of course, really more of the same. Together, we need to work to get out the truth. Because the future is bright, if we'll just build it.Thanks,Cathy ZoiCEOwww.RepowerAmerica.org “
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-3-2008
1. First, burning fossil fuels is already harming our economy, our health, and our entire world’s environment.
And, it will act as an increasingly worse brake on our economy the longer we continue to do it. So, developing abundant renewable energy to replace that will begin to remove that brake. This alone will improve our economy.
One analyst was recently quoted as saying most developed countries will need $50 billion or more each year to overcome the costs created by ongoing global warming.
The medical costs of the huge amounts of air pollution alone may begin to cost that much.
2. But the upside is MUCH better. We are beginning to develop the technologies & build the companies that clearly will allow us to build so much new renewable energy generation and add or retrofit so much energy efficiency into our economy that within 15 to 30 years we can double our current use of energy and increase by four times the usable or effective energy that we have AND do all that with just renewable energy alone.
Eventually this will result in a MUCH stronger economy that needs perhaps 10 percent or less of the fossil fuels we currently use. And this will keep declining in both percentage and total use each year after that until it approaches zero. (However, we will still use petroleum for petrochemicals as oilman J. Paul Getty long ago foresaw.)
Readers of this blog & other people who have been following the sources I have know this information. A dramatically stronger economy with more energy and much more effective energy that is nearly 100 % based on renewable sources IS possible.
BUT, as many as 50 or 60 percent of the people in the United States do NOT yet know or believe that the cumulative effects of these developments CAN be that large if we act now to begin putting them in place.
Even worse, many otherwise intelligent and educated people are in that very large group of people.
The problem is that they have NOT been following the kinds of developments that have been posted here and in the news elsewhere enough to realize that this CAN be done OR how bad things will get if we don’t.
Unfortunately, unless this group of people can be brought up to speed on these developments and how fast the different technologies are improving and what is already doable, they won’t give our new President and others who are taking action the support they need to do the job.
Today, you have an opportunity to help change this.
Al Gore is raising money to put coverage of this information on TV on the 60 Minutes TV program.
To be sure, many people don’t watch this program. BUT, the people who DO watch it are well educated and well informed. They make more money than the average person. And, the people who know them know and respect them for these being well informed.
This effect is multiplied by the fact that many journalists and other new professionals watch 60 Minutes, particularly for important new stories.
This means that when the people who see 60 Minutes see that truly HUGE gains in renewable energy ARE possible, they will be very influential in transmitting the information to other people.
So, I think this is a very good thing to do.
Here’s how you can help.:
Here’s the info I got by email from Al Gore’s group.
“Dear David, The incoming administration is deciding right now how ambitious they can be on climate and energy policy. We need to help build broad public understanding and strong support for the kind of deep, structural change needed to end the climate crisis and revive our economy.Our next series of ads paints portraits of Americans making this change happen. It launches nationwide this week, and we could really use your help getting out the word. If we can raise $121,000 by Thursday, we'll extend our airtime purchase to get the first new Repower America ad on 60 Minutes this weekend.See the first ad in this new series here, and please help if you can. I think you'll really like it. Just click here:http://www.repoweramerica.org/60minutesad
This series of ads is designed to make the opportunity real and concrete. Ranchers making money from wind. Electricians wiring old buildings to be energy efficient. Jobs, clean energy, a strong economy. The climate crisis averted. This is the future under a 'Repower'ed America'. Most people don't realize that the proven technologies needed already exist today. We have to show them. And we don't have much time.For years, the fossil fuel industry has worked overtime to brand renewable energy as a tree-hugger delusion. But exactly the opposite is true. For example, wind power is cheap and a mature technology. Wind turbines produce electricity for less cost than oil or natural gas plants, and are competitive with new coal plants, even today. And building the wind turbines to capture this energy will create good manufacturing and construction jobs here in America. Of course, once you build the turbines you don't have to pay for any expensive foreign oil or dirty coal. American workers making the tools to harness clean American energy -- that's what the Repower America plan is all about.This ad also depicts an electric pickup truck, which is particularly head turning. The oil companies have worked for years to make people think that electric cars can never rival internal combustion in power or performance, and that's just plain wrong. Hybrids are ready today, as you know. And cars build with electric motors are four times as efficient as today's cars with gasoline engines. That's why electric cars can run on less than $1.00 per gallon-equivalent, if you get your clean power from wind, for example. And electrics can deliver all the torque and power anyone could want. It's time for Detroit to begin building this new fleet of 21st century cars.Can you help us get this ad on the air? Just go to:http://www.repoweramerica.org/60minutesad
In their hearts, everyone knows that Al Gore is right. That our biggest problems are all intertwined. That "we're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet." And that "Every bit of that's got to change."Now it's time to start talking about what that change should look like. The oil and coal companies have thousands of lobbyists on Capitol Hill promoting their idea of change. Which is,of course, really more of the same. Together, we need to work to get out the truth. Because the future is bright, if we'll just build it.Thanks,Cathy ZoiCEOwww.RepowerAmerica.org “
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Renewable energy can IMPROVE our economy...
Today’s post: Wednesday, 11-26-2008
1. First, burning fossil fuels is already harming our economy, our health, and our entire world’s environment.
And, it will act as an increasingly worse brake on our economy the longer we continue to do it. So, developing abundant renewable energy to replace that will begin to remove that brake. This alone will improve our economy.
Thanks to Al Gore’s groups email with the heads-up & opportunity to make public comment on the issue, I just send the following message to the EPA.:
“Dear Administrator Johnson and EPA staff:
I urge you to take immediate action and rule that carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants clearly "endanger the public health and welfare" and thus should be regulated under the Clean Air Act. Carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution is the primary cause of the climate crisis.
The future costs of overcoming the effects for CO2-driven global warming threaten our economy. This includes huge & increased costs for continuing our food production. The repeat, likely when the current economic slowdown ends, of worldwide bidding up the cost of fossil fuels threatens our economy. The potential for economic collapse when oil runs out looks very real.
Burning coal for generating electricity has now reached such a large size that it threatens the agricultural production and health of about half the earth already!
Meanwhile, it's clearly possible to build solar photovoltaic and solar thermal and wind generation of electric power to 200 % of the world's total current energy use by about 30 years from now.
However, fossil fuels do NOT yet have the real cost of their economic & environmental costs added to their cost to use for fuel. This makes the renewable sources it has become imperative we switch to, close to 100 % less competitive than they already should be.
These facts mean that it is also imperative to regulate the burning of carbon base fuels and the emission of carbon dioxide that results.
(It's also clear than carbon fuels should soon be taxed in some fashion for these same reasons.)
Please rule that carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants clearly "endanger the public health and welfare" and thus should be regulated under the Clean Air Act. And, vigorously regulate these pollutants. Start slow if you need to do so. But act now to create the authority to do so.”
2. If we increase the amount of solar photovoltaics on every building with an appropriate roof and on a roof over most parking lots; AND we build solar photovoltaic farms in locations throughout the United States and the world; we also build solar thermal farms in locations throughout the United States and the world; we install nearly that much more wind generation of electricity; & we install the new electricity distribution grid to support getting that electricity to where it will be used, we can easily generate 200 % of our current energy use from these renewable sources within 30 years.
If we also become dramatically more energy efficient, particularly in the United States, we will have close to three times the usable energy we do now from these renewable sources.
Yes, that will create jobs in building and installing this new energy source. And it will also enable us to cut our use of fossil fuels to near zero, particularly when we also get cost effective biofuels to replace most of the remaining uses of gas & liquid fuels.
But the very large and sustainable INCREASE in renewable energy and effective energy use well above today’s levels won’t just be a safe substitute for fossil fuels and a near term job creator, it will power a very real prosperity.
It’s not widely known; but the amount of effective energy use in an economy is very close to being 100 % the same as the real size of that economy. So this achievable increase in our effective use of energy and energy generation will indeed create prosperity, not just avoid economic disaster.
3. Now is the time to take action to begin to make fossil fuels too restricted and expensive to use AND to create this massive increase in renewable energy.
Many scientists say we must start now or inherit disaster because we did not.
Right no the current economic crisis has slowed the burning of fossil fuels which gives us a bit more time; and makes the new jobs needed soon a real opportunity to create new jobs in renewable energy as a badly needed solution to our current downturn.
Last week, I wrote this in that week’s post.:
“It does help some that overcoming the financial crisis and creating new jobs are now so important because of the faltering economy – because, jobs in energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy can help to solve this problem. Enthusiastic people working on worthwhile new projects that then begin to work well creates prosperity. This process now may happen enough in renewable and clean energy to lift the entire economy.
One thing I do think Obama’s new administration needs to do is to provide extremely strong positive incentives for switching to or creating renewable energy first; have cap and trade tried in a state or two, and have a plan B and a plan C ready to go if in that state or states energy costs increase at rates that cause economic problems or problems with energy supply develop.
It IS totally clear that adding the REAL environmental costs of burning fossil fuels needs to be forced into the market price of burning those fuels by governments world-wide over the next few decades. Simply put, it’s imperative that we do this enough to power the switch to clean renewables as fast as we possibly can. We need to make renewables MORE affordable and turn off using the damaging burning of fossil fuels for energy as fast as we can without damaging the overall economy while making the transition.
But, the simulation I read about of an operating model of a Cap & Trade system ran up energy costs too fast for the economy to adapt to because of people gaming the system for short term financial gains. So, although a version of Cap & Trade may work eventually, we need to be very careful of trying Cap & Trade systems without the mechanism set up in advance to tweak them or replace them with direct taxes that ramp up in a more controlled, albeit rapid, fashion.
Something very like this happened recently in California where I live when the deregulation of the production and sale of electric power generation was tried. We had utilities going bankrupt; rolling blackouts; a sharp increase in the costs of producing electricity; and some unethical types getting rich by gaming the system.
When the whole US economy is at stake, and given the impact of the US economy on the world economy and the current downturn, I think we need to try some smaller experimental Cap & Trade systems before we try it nation-wide.
This is an area of the switch to renewable energy that will be challenging to do well. And, I hope the Obama Administration handles it well.”
If we add dramatically more renewable energy AND gradually make burning fossil fuels a much more expensive and inconvenient alternative, the changes we need and the sustainable prosperity we all want will happen.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 11-26-2008
1. First, burning fossil fuels is already harming our economy, our health, and our entire world’s environment.
And, it will act as an increasingly worse brake on our economy the longer we continue to do it. So, developing abundant renewable energy to replace that will begin to remove that brake. This alone will improve our economy.
Thanks to Al Gore’s groups email with the heads-up & opportunity to make public comment on the issue, I just send the following message to the EPA.:
“Dear Administrator Johnson and EPA staff:
I urge you to take immediate action and rule that carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants clearly "endanger the public health and welfare" and thus should be regulated under the Clean Air Act. Carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution is the primary cause of the climate crisis.
The future costs of overcoming the effects for CO2-driven global warming threaten our economy. This includes huge & increased costs for continuing our food production. The repeat, likely when the current economic slowdown ends, of worldwide bidding up the cost of fossil fuels threatens our economy. The potential for economic collapse when oil runs out looks very real.
Burning coal for generating electricity has now reached such a large size that it threatens the agricultural production and health of about half the earth already!
Meanwhile, it's clearly possible to build solar photovoltaic and solar thermal and wind generation of electric power to 200 % of the world's total current energy use by about 30 years from now.
However, fossil fuels do NOT yet have the real cost of their economic & environmental costs added to their cost to use for fuel. This makes the renewable sources it has become imperative we switch to, close to 100 % less competitive than they already should be.
These facts mean that it is also imperative to regulate the burning of carbon base fuels and the emission of carbon dioxide that results.
(It's also clear than carbon fuels should soon be taxed in some fashion for these same reasons.)
Please rule that carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants clearly "endanger the public health and welfare" and thus should be regulated under the Clean Air Act. And, vigorously regulate these pollutants. Start slow if you need to do so. But act now to create the authority to do so.”
2. If we increase the amount of solar photovoltaics on every building with an appropriate roof and on a roof over most parking lots; AND we build solar photovoltaic farms in locations throughout the United States and the world; we also build solar thermal farms in locations throughout the United States and the world; we install nearly that much more wind generation of electricity; & we install the new electricity distribution grid to support getting that electricity to where it will be used, we can easily generate 200 % of our current energy use from these renewable sources within 30 years.
If we also become dramatically more energy efficient, particularly in the United States, we will have close to three times the usable energy we do now from these renewable sources.
Yes, that will create jobs in building and installing this new energy source. And it will also enable us to cut our use of fossil fuels to near zero, particularly when we also get cost effective biofuels to replace most of the remaining uses of gas & liquid fuels.
But the very large and sustainable INCREASE in renewable energy and effective energy use well above today’s levels won’t just be a safe substitute for fossil fuels and a near term job creator, it will power a very real prosperity.
It’s not widely known; but the amount of effective energy use in an economy is very close to being 100 % the same as the real size of that economy. So this achievable increase in our effective use of energy and energy generation will indeed create prosperity, not just avoid economic disaster.
3. Now is the time to take action to begin to make fossil fuels too restricted and expensive to use AND to create this massive increase in renewable energy.
Many scientists say we must start now or inherit disaster because we did not.
Right no the current economic crisis has slowed the burning of fossil fuels which gives us a bit more time; and makes the new jobs needed soon a real opportunity to create new jobs in renewable energy as a badly needed solution to our current downturn.
Last week, I wrote this in that week’s post.:
“It does help some that overcoming the financial crisis and creating new jobs are now so important because of the faltering economy – because, jobs in energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy can help to solve this problem. Enthusiastic people working on worthwhile new projects that then begin to work well creates prosperity. This process now may happen enough in renewable and clean energy to lift the entire economy.
One thing I do think Obama’s new administration needs to do is to provide extremely strong positive incentives for switching to or creating renewable energy first; have cap and trade tried in a state or two, and have a plan B and a plan C ready to go if in that state or states energy costs increase at rates that cause economic problems or problems with energy supply develop.
It IS totally clear that adding the REAL environmental costs of burning fossil fuels needs to be forced into the market price of burning those fuels by governments world-wide over the next few decades. Simply put, it’s imperative that we do this enough to power the switch to clean renewables as fast as we possibly can. We need to make renewables MORE affordable and turn off using the damaging burning of fossil fuels for energy as fast as we can without damaging the overall economy while making the transition.
But, the simulation I read about of an operating model of a Cap & Trade system ran up energy costs too fast for the economy to adapt to because of people gaming the system for short term financial gains. So, although a version of Cap & Trade may work eventually, we need to be very careful of trying Cap & Trade systems without the mechanism set up in advance to tweak them or replace them with direct taxes that ramp up in a more controlled, albeit rapid, fashion.
Something very like this happened recently in California where I live when the deregulation of the production and sale of electric power generation was tried. We had utilities going bankrupt; rolling blackouts; a sharp increase in the costs of producing electricity; and some unethical types getting rich by gaming the system.
When the whole US economy is at stake, and given the impact of the US economy on the world economy and the current downturn, I think we need to try some smaller experimental Cap & Trade systems before we try it nation-wide.
This is an area of the switch to renewable energy that will be challenging to do well. And, I hope the Obama Administration handles it well.”
If we add dramatically more renewable energy AND gradually make burning fossil fuels a much more expensive and inconvenient alternative, the changes we need and the sustainable prosperity we all want will happen.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Our next President gets it on renewable energy...
Today’s post: Wednesday, 11-19-2008
I am a socially liberal, mostly pro business, Republican.
And I told everyone I could to vote for Barack Obama & voted for him myself.
The reason is that the most important issue for our next president and therefore was in the campaign is to help the United States become a world leader in making a massively large and fast start on switching our energy production and entire economy to run on nearly 100 percent renewable energy and to rapidly stop the global warming and pollution that burning fossil fuels has caused and still is causing. Doing nothing on this issue or close to nothing as our previous administration did will result in our (& the world’s) economic collapse or even a massive die-off of humans planet wide. No jobs, no food, and unbreathable air would be NO fun at all.
Barack Obama clearly understands that while John McCain showed every indication of making 90 % of his efforts on energy just drilling for more oil if he would have been elected.
However, I was a bit disappointed that Obama and his team did not play this up very well in their campaign either in the Democratic primary or in the general election. I think they could have won by an even larger margin than they did had they done a really good job of doing that.
I’m much reassured now though.
Yesterday Barack Obama appeared, by using a video he made, with California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger at summit meeting of governors on the theme of climate change and global warming.:
Here are two news stories about it I found online.:
“LOS ANGELES (AFP) Tuesday, 11-18-2008
US president-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed he would "engage vigorously" in global climate change talks and that denial was no longer an acceptable response to global warming.
Obama said in a surprise video message to a summit of US state governors on climate change here that he would show new leadership on the issue as soon as he takes office in January.
The president-elect also addressed his message directly to delegates at United Nations climate change talks in Poland next month.
"While I won't be president at the time of your meeting, and while the United States has only one president at a time, I've asked members of Congress who are attending the conference as observers to report back to me on what they learn there.
"And once I take office, you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations, and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change.
"Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences, too serious." “
“AP Tuesday, 11-18-2008
He reiterated his support for cutting greenhouse gas emissions using a cap-and-trade system, an approach also favored by Schwarzenegger. Obama said he would establish annual targets to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them another 80 percent by 2050.
Obama also promoted anew his proposal to invest $15 billion each year to support private-sector efforts toward clean energy. He said tackling climate change can create millions of new jobs as the U.S. invests in technologies to promote solar and wind power, biofuels and cleaner coal-fired plants.
"I promise you this: When I am president, any governor who's willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House," Obama told the participants. "Any company that's willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that's willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America."
Scientists say the kind of ambitious goals set by Schwarzenegger and Obama must be reached to minimize the consequences of rising global temperatures.”
I’ll repeat some key Obama quotes from this report.:
"While I won't be president at the time of your meeting, and while the United States has only one president at a time, I've asked members of Congress who are attending the conference as observers to report back to me on what they learn there.
"And once I take office, you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations, and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change.
"Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences, too serious." “
"I promise you this: When I am president, any governor who's willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House," Obama told the participants. "Any company that's willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that's willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America."
X* X* X* X* X* X*X* X*
There is even evidence that Obama is beginning to take action to make this happen.
Google and its founders have made it clear they understand that we need to switch to renewable energy and stop polluting our world by burning coal. They have a motto, “Renewable energy cheaper than coal.”
So, when I read that Obama was considering Google’s energy programs director, Dan Reicher, as a candidate to become Energy Secretary, that sounded promising. But I was concerned that Reicher might not have the Washington experience that someone like Bill Richardson of New Mexico has. No Problem. Reicher not only does have such experience from when he worked in the Energy Department during the Clinton administration, his specialty then was renewable energy and energy efficiency.
So, he may be the exactly right, best person for the post.
(It does sound as if Reicher may need some other people in the administration and the Energy Department who know how to deal well with the existing energy companies. But this time, that’s not the most important part of the job. However, it does need to be done well. So that’s why such people will become important. If Bill Richardson winds up in the Administration as he very well might, he might fill this role well. As Governor of New Mexico and a Clinton Administration veteran, he does know that area well.)
There are many articles on what shape the Obama Administration will take.
All this is a VERY promising sign that Barack Obama DOES get it on renewable energy.
So my faith in him has been upheld so far.
Events often cause US Presidents to have new priorities after they take office that tend to derail their other priorities. But it looks as if Obama knows that the renewable energy priority needs to stay one of his highest priorities no matter what other events occur.
It does help some that overcoming the financial crisis and creating new jobs are now so important because of the faltering economy – because, jobs in energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy can help to solve this problem. Enthusiastic people working on worthwhile new projects that then begin to work well creates prosperity. This process now may happen enough in renewable and clean energy to lift the entire economy.
One thing I do think Obama’s new administration needs to do is to provide extremely strong positive incentives for switching to or creating renewable energy first; have cap and trade tried in a state or two, and have a plan B and a plan C ready to go if in that state or states energy costs increase at rates that cause economic problems or problems with energy supply develop.
It IS totally clear that adding the REAL environmental costs of burning fossil fuels needs to be forced into the market price of burning those fuels by governments world-wide over the next few decades. Simply put, it’s imperative that we do this enough to power the switch to clean renewables as fast as we possibly can. We need to make renewables MORE affordable and turn off using the damaging burning of fossil fuels for energy as fast as we can without damaging the overall economy while making the transition.
But, the simulation I read about of an operating model of a Cap & Trade system ran up energy costs too fast for the economy to adapt to because of people gaming the system for short term financial gains. So, although a version of Cap & Trade may work eventually, we need to be very careful of trying Cap & Trade systems without the mechanism set up in advance to tweak them or replace them with direct taxes that ramp up in a more controlled, albeit rapid, fashion.
Something very like this happened recently in California where I live when the deregulation of the production and sale of electric power generation was tried. We had utilities going bankrupt; rolling blackouts; a sharp increase in the costs of producing electricity; and some unethical types getting rich by gaming the system.
When the whole US economy is at stake, and given the impact of the US economy on the world economy and the current downturn, I think we need to try some smaller experimental Cap & Trade systems before we try it nation-wide.
This is an area of the switch to renewable energy that will be challenging to do well. And, I hope the Obama Administration handles it well.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 11-19-2008
I am a socially liberal, mostly pro business, Republican.
And I told everyone I could to vote for Barack Obama & voted for him myself.
The reason is that the most important issue for our next president and therefore was in the campaign is to help the United States become a world leader in making a massively large and fast start on switching our energy production and entire economy to run on nearly 100 percent renewable energy and to rapidly stop the global warming and pollution that burning fossil fuels has caused and still is causing. Doing nothing on this issue or close to nothing as our previous administration did will result in our (& the world’s) economic collapse or even a massive die-off of humans planet wide. No jobs, no food, and unbreathable air would be NO fun at all.
Barack Obama clearly understands that while John McCain showed every indication of making 90 % of his efforts on energy just drilling for more oil if he would have been elected.
However, I was a bit disappointed that Obama and his team did not play this up very well in their campaign either in the Democratic primary or in the general election. I think they could have won by an even larger margin than they did had they done a really good job of doing that.
I’m much reassured now though.
Yesterday Barack Obama appeared, by using a video he made, with California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger at summit meeting of governors on the theme of climate change and global warming.:
Here are two news stories about it I found online.:
“LOS ANGELES (AFP) Tuesday, 11-18-2008
US president-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed he would "engage vigorously" in global climate change talks and that denial was no longer an acceptable response to global warming.
Obama said in a surprise video message to a summit of US state governors on climate change here that he would show new leadership on the issue as soon as he takes office in January.
The president-elect also addressed his message directly to delegates at United Nations climate change talks in Poland next month.
"While I won't be president at the time of your meeting, and while the United States has only one president at a time, I've asked members of Congress who are attending the conference as observers to report back to me on what they learn there.
"And once I take office, you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations, and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change.
"Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences, too serious." “
“AP Tuesday, 11-18-2008
He reiterated his support for cutting greenhouse gas emissions using a cap-and-trade system, an approach also favored by Schwarzenegger. Obama said he would establish annual targets to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them another 80 percent by 2050.
Obama also promoted anew his proposal to invest $15 billion each year to support private-sector efforts toward clean energy. He said tackling climate change can create millions of new jobs as the U.S. invests in technologies to promote solar and wind power, biofuels and cleaner coal-fired plants.
"I promise you this: When I am president, any governor who's willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House," Obama told the participants. "Any company that's willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that's willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America."
Scientists say the kind of ambitious goals set by Schwarzenegger and Obama must be reached to minimize the consequences of rising global temperatures.”
I’ll repeat some key Obama quotes from this report.:
"While I won't be president at the time of your meeting, and while the United States has only one president at a time, I've asked members of Congress who are attending the conference as observers to report back to me on what they learn there.
"And once I take office, you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations, and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change.
"Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences, too serious." “
"I promise you this: When I am president, any governor who's willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House," Obama told the participants. "Any company that's willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that's willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America."
X* X* X* X* X* X*X* X*
There is even evidence that Obama is beginning to take action to make this happen.
Google and its founders have made it clear they understand that we need to switch to renewable energy and stop polluting our world by burning coal. They have a motto, “Renewable energy cheaper than coal.”
So, when I read that Obama was considering Google’s energy programs director, Dan Reicher, as a candidate to become Energy Secretary, that sounded promising. But I was concerned that Reicher might not have the Washington experience that someone like Bill Richardson of New Mexico has. No Problem. Reicher not only does have such experience from when he worked in the Energy Department during the Clinton administration, his specialty then was renewable energy and energy efficiency.
So, he may be the exactly right, best person for the post.
(It does sound as if Reicher may need some other people in the administration and the Energy Department who know how to deal well with the existing energy companies. But this time, that’s not the most important part of the job. However, it does need to be done well. So that’s why such people will become important. If Bill Richardson winds up in the Administration as he very well might, he might fill this role well. As Governor of New Mexico and a Clinton Administration veteran, he does know that area well.)
There are many articles on what shape the Obama Administration will take.
All this is a VERY promising sign that Barack Obama DOES get it on renewable energy.
So my faith in him has been upheld so far.
Events often cause US Presidents to have new priorities after they take office that tend to derail their other priorities. But it looks as if Obama knows that the renewable energy priority needs to stay one of his highest priorities no matter what other events occur.
It does help some that overcoming the financial crisis and creating new jobs are now so important because of the faltering economy – because, jobs in energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy can help to solve this problem. Enthusiastic people working on worthwhile new projects that then begin to work well creates prosperity. This process now may happen enough in renewable and clean energy to lift the entire economy.
One thing I do think Obama’s new administration needs to do is to provide extremely strong positive incentives for switching to or creating renewable energy first; have cap and trade tried in a state or two, and have a plan B and a plan C ready to go if in that state or states energy costs increase at rates that cause economic problems or problems with energy supply develop.
It IS totally clear that adding the REAL environmental costs of burning fossil fuels needs to be forced into the market price of burning those fuels by governments world-wide over the next few decades. Simply put, it’s imperative that we do this enough to power the switch to clean renewables as fast as we possibly can. We need to make renewables MORE affordable and turn off using the damaging burning of fossil fuels for energy as fast as we can without damaging the overall economy while making the transition.
But, the simulation I read about of an operating model of a Cap & Trade system ran up energy costs too fast for the economy to adapt to because of people gaming the system for short term financial gains. So, although a version of Cap & Trade may work eventually, we need to be very careful of trying Cap & Trade systems without the mechanism set up in advance to tweak them or replace them with direct taxes that ramp up in a more controlled, albeit rapid, fashion.
Something very like this happened recently in California where I live when the deregulation of the production and sale of electric power generation was tried. We had utilities going bankrupt; rolling blackouts; a sharp increase in the costs of producing electricity; and some unethical types getting rich by gaming the system.
When the whole US economy is at stake, and given the impact of the US economy on the world economy and the current downturn, I think we need to try some smaller experimental Cap & Trade systems before we try it nation-wide.
This is an area of the switch to renewable energy that will be challenging to do well. And, I hope the Obama Administration handles it well.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Tesla, an important renewable energy company...
Today’s post: Wednesday, 11-12-2008
Why all electric cars are now so incredibly important:
1. Electricity can be generated by solar thermal, solar photovoltaics, wind, (& nuclear power to some extent, albeit with serious safety concerns.) None of these ways to generate electricity burn fossil fuels or release carbon dioxide or directly produce other air pollution while in normal operation. None of them burn petroleum, coal, or natural gas.
2. Even with today’s technology which itself is rapidly being improved, we can harvest more power for transport per unit area with photovoltaics than we can by growing biofuels.
(Source, http://www.nanosolar.com/blog3/
Going All-Electric August 7, 2008 By Martin Roscheisen, CEO
The following is one of my favorite charts: How far a car can drive based on either of the following forms of energy, each produced from 100m x 100m (2.5 acres) of land:
No biofuel listed was at or over 100,000 km in that chart. Photovoltaics plus a plug-in hybrid was 3,250,000 km. So, even if that 3,250,000 km is overstated by ten to one, photovoltaics can drive cars more than three times, or closer to five times farther per unit area of land used than biofuels. And, if it’s NOT ten to one overstated, that’s about 30 to 50 times farther using photovoltaics.)
3. So, if most cars and a majority of trucks soon become all electric or plug-in hybrids, we can begin to come close to running all our transport on electricity from renewable sources and sources that produce no CO2 or other air pollution. This will drive DOWN the cost of the remaining fossil liquid fuels still in use and delay the day we run out of petroleum entirely. It will also reduce the amount of vehicles running on liquid fuels enough to make switching them to mostly liquid biofuels much more doable because the size of the job will get much smaller. (We will likely need some kind of carbon tax and relatively long term subsidy for biofuels due to the dropping cost of gasoline and diesel from petroleum that will also cut the price the biofuels will be able to charge.)
Since our economy and our life support system on earth will collapse unless we do these things according to the information I’ve seen, I think we will wake up and do just that.
(Lack of breathable air may take a good bit longer.
But part of our current economic problems was already caused by the big jumps in fuel prices for transport.
And, if we run out of enough fuel to run our economy; make our weather enough nastier we have to pay extra for extra damage repair; it becomes three times less productive to grow food; and we submerge some of our most productive and most populated coastal cities all over the world – and all of these events happen at the same time – which we are currently headed towards, economic collapse is certain.)
The switch to renewable sources of electricity and to all electric cars and plug-in hybrids will be constrained somewhat in the short term by the need to provide liquid fossil fuels and liquid biofuels to existing cars and trucks. And, it will be constrained long term by the need to use liquid fuels in some applications and the dollar costs for all those batteries and solar collectors.
But it seems clear to me that our economy is and should be rapidly evolving towards a transport system world wide based mostly on renewable sources of electricity and all electric cars and plug-in hybrids.
So, that means that a competent maker of all electric cars is now an extremely important company.
And, with the car companies that make the cars that still run on gasoline all currently running virtually out of money, for smaller companies that are decently well financed that also make all electric cars, that goes at least double.
(The car companies that make the cars that still run on gasoline are finally beginning to build hybrids and will soon build plug-in hybrids. But most people could easily do half or more of their driving in an all electric car.)
This is where Tesla comes in.
People who like good performance or who simply need cars that will go fast enough to drive safely on the freeway or local highway, will NOT voluntarily buy cars that are modified electric golf carts, have marginally responsive controls, are ugly, and won’t go over 30 or 40 miles an hour.
Tesla’s first car, the Roadster, is a sports car and costs about $100,000. But it will accelerate to 60 miles an hour in under 4 seconds -- and likely, though I’ve not seen the test numbers, will accelerate to 100 miles an hour at times competitive, as it’s zero to 60 times are, with the other expensive sports cars that cost that much and more such as the newest, fastest Corvette or a Lamborghini.
So, that makes a high end all electric 4 door sedan made by Tesla doubly desirable. First, it will be an all electric car you can actually do normal driving in. And, it will be a car you’ll be proud to own similar to a Lexus or Mercedes.
Even though the recent credit crunch has slowed their plans to build their sedan, Tesla has recently raised $40 million; got its manufacturing plant approved in San Jose, California in the Silicon Valley near its initial location just North of there; and will get a large infusion of low cost Federal financing in about 8 to 10 months. In addition, it’s taking steps to control its costs and make its other sales profitable to ensure it can proceed with its plans to make the sedan.
Tesla was scheduled to begin production in of the sedan in its new manufacturing plant in 2010; and that’s been pushed back at least 6 months. So it sounds like it may be 2011 before you can drive one. But as 2008 only has a few more weeks to go, 2011 is only a bit two over two years away, or by perhaps three years from today, Tesla will be delivering its sedan to buyers.
Meanwhile, if you can afford an inexpensive to run, high performance sports car for about $100,000, you can get a Tesla now!
Today’s post: Wednesday, 11-12-2008
Why all electric cars are now so incredibly important:
1. Electricity can be generated by solar thermal, solar photovoltaics, wind, (& nuclear power to some extent, albeit with serious safety concerns.) None of these ways to generate electricity burn fossil fuels or release carbon dioxide or directly produce other air pollution while in normal operation. None of them burn petroleum, coal, or natural gas.
2. Even with today’s technology which itself is rapidly being improved, we can harvest more power for transport per unit area with photovoltaics than we can by growing biofuels.
(Source, http://www.nanosolar.com/blog3/
Going All-Electric August 7, 2008 By Martin Roscheisen, CEO
The following is one of my favorite charts: How far a car can drive based on either of the following forms of energy, each produced from 100m x 100m (2.5 acres) of land:
No biofuel listed was at or over 100,000 km in that chart. Photovoltaics plus a plug-in hybrid was 3,250,000 km. So, even if that 3,250,000 km is overstated by ten to one, photovoltaics can drive cars more than three times, or closer to five times farther per unit area of land used than biofuels. And, if it’s NOT ten to one overstated, that’s about 30 to 50 times farther using photovoltaics.)
3. So, if most cars and a majority of trucks soon become all electric or plug-in hybrids, we can begin to come close to running all our transport on electricity from renewable sources and sources that produce no CO2 or other air pollution. This will drive DOWN the cost of the remaining fossil liquid fuels still in use and delay the day we run out of petroleum entirely. It will also reduce the amount of vehicles running on liquid fuels enough to make switching them to mostly liquid biofuels much more doable because the size of the job will get much smaller. (We will likely need some kind of carbon tax and relatively long term subsidy for biofuels due to the dropping cost of gasoline and diesel from petroleum that will also cut the price the biofuels will be able to charge.)
Since our economy and our life support system on earth will collapse unless we do these things according to the information I’ve seen, I think we will wake up and do just that.
(Lack of breathable air may take a good bit longer.
But part of our current economic problems was already caused by the big jumps in fuel prices for transport.
And, if we run out of enough fuel to run our economy; make our weather enough nastier we have to pay extra for extra damage repair; it becomes three times less productive to grow food; and we submerge some of our most productive and most populated coastal cities all over the world – and all of these events happen at the same time – which we are currently headed towards, economic collapse is certain.)
The switch to renewable sources of electricity and to all electric cars and plug-in hybrids will be constrained somewhat in the short term by the need to provide liquid fossil fuels and liquid biofuels to existing cars and trucks. And, it will be constrained long term by the need to use liquid fuels in some applications and the dollar costs for all those batteries and solar collectors.
But it seems clear to me that our economy is and should be rapidly evolving towards a transport system world wide based mostly on renewable sources of electricity and all electric cars and plug-in hybrids.
So, that means that a competent maker of all electric cars is now an extremely important company.
And, with the car companies that make the cars that still run on gasoline all currently running virtually out of money, for smaller companies that are decently well financed that also make all electric cars, that goes at least double.
(The car companies that make the cars that still run on gasoline are finally beginning to build hybrids and will soon build plug-in hybrids. But most people could easily do half or more of their driving in an all electric car.)
This is where Tesla comes in.
People who like good performance or who simply need cars that will go fast enough to drive safely on the freeway or local highway, will NOT voluntarily buy cars that are modified electric golf carts, have marginally responsive controls, are ugly, and won’t go over 30 or 40 miles an hour.
Tesla’s first car, the Roadster, is a sports car and costs about $100,000. But it will accelerate to 60 miles an hour in under 4 seconds -- and likely, though I’ve not seen the test numbers, will accelerate to 100 miles an hour at times competitive, as it’s zero to 60 times are, with the other expensive sports cars that cost that much and more such as the newest, fastest Corvette or a Lamborghini.
So, that makes a high end all electric 4 door sedan made by Tesla doubly desirable. First, it will be an all electric car you can actually do normal driving in. And, it will be a car you’ll be proud to own similar to a Lexus or Mercedes.
Even though the recent credit crunch has slowed their plans to build their sedan, Tesla has recently raised $40 million; got its manufacturing plant approved in San Jose, California in the Silicon Valley near its initial location just North of there; and will get a large infusion of low cost Federal financing in about 8 to 10 months. In addition, it’s taking steps to control its costs and make its other sales profitable to ensure it can proceed with its plans to make the sedan.
Tesla was scheduled to begin production in of the sedan in its new manufacturing plant in 2010; and that’s been pushed back at least 6 months. So it sounds like it may be 2011 before you can drive one. But as 2008 only has a few more weeks to go, 2011 is only a bit two over two years away, or by perhaps three years from today, Tesla will be delivering its sedan to buyers.
Meanwhile, if you can afford an inexpensive to run, high performance sports car for about $100,000, you can get a Tesla now!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Mexico can grow & prosper with solar energy!...
Today’s post: Wednesday, 11-5-2008
As I’ve already posted about in this blog before, the Southwestern United States including parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and the Western part of Texas have very large potential for generating solar energy -- including the solar thermal farms built by companies such as Ausra that I posted on last week.
And, since this area borders all of Northern Mexico, particularly including Baja California and many U.S. companies already have built manufacturing facilities in that part of Mexico, it’s quite clear to me that building solar generation of electricity in that part of Mexico has equal solar energy potential to the Southwest part of the United States. In fact, being closer to the equator, I already knew it might be an even better area in which to build solar thermal farms.
Further, such a large development of such solar generation, I believe, will happen that it will add thousands of jobs in this part of Mexico. That addition of jobs will be so large in fact I think it will largely solve the problem of people from Mexico going to the United States illegally for jobs.
But a few days ago, I found out I was wrong!
It seems I was WAY too CONSERVATIVE. The solar potential of Mexico is about SEVEN times as large as that!
In 30 years or so Mexico may be one of the most prosperous countries in the world because of its solar energy just like Saudi Arabia or Kuwait are now from their oil money.
The high potential solar part of Mexico is NOT confined to the far Northern part. Virtually ALL of Mexico has that much potential.
You can see for yourself at 3Tier’s solar potential map of the Western Hemisphere
at htttp://www.3tiergroup.com/ .
The story of this website and some related work on solar potential by Google Earth and Google Maps was in the online news and in the Mercury News in San Jose California two days ago on Monday, 11-3-2008. The Mercury News published a color picture of the North American part of the map in their printed newspaper.
A new map just released by 3Tier, a Seattle company, shows a detailed picture of how much the sun shines at any spot in the Western Hemisphere. Apparently 3Tier can also provide detailed information on solar potential of sites as small as specific houses in any city or town as well.
(That map of the solar potential in the Western Hemisphere & in North America is apparently based on an entire year. As a result, it very much understates the solar potential of California and its Central Valley because it averages the rainy part of the year with the part of the year where there is virtually no rain in California. So, since the largest electricity use is now from air conditioning which is needed in the summer, California has a good bit more solar potential than this map of the entire year would lead you to conclude.)
However, if you once see 3Tier’s solar potential map of the Northern Hemisphere, you can easily see at a glance that the solar potential of Mexico is about THREE times as large as that of the entire United States. That fact certainly jumped right out at me!
Needless to say, that means the economic potential of Mexico is at least equal to the United States, once the economy of the United States and of the world overall switches mostly to renewable energy.
X* X* X* X* X* X*
Interesting but less important points that this solar map of the Western Hemisphere also shows:
1. Utah and Colorado in the United States also have strong solar potential.
&
2. The West Coasts of Peru and Chile also have very large solar potential.
I personally know little about Peru; but Chile may well develop solar energy and then help Peru develop solar energy after that. Chile is already one of the stronger economies in South America.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 11-5-2008
As I’ve already posted about in this blog before, the Southwestern United States including parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and the Western part of Texas have very large potential for generating solar energy -- including the solar thermal farms built by companies such as Ausra that I posted on last week.
And, since this area borders all of Northern Mexico, particularly including Baja California and many U.S. companies already have built manufacturing facilities in that part of Mexico, it’s quite clear to me that building solar generation of electricity in that part of Mexico has equal solar energy potential to the Southwest part of the United States. In fact, being closer to the equator, I already knew it might be an even better area in which to build solar thermal farms.
Further, such a large development of such solar generation, I believe, will happen that it will add thousands of jobs in this part of Mexico. That addition of jobs will be so large in fact I think it will largely solve the problem of people from Mexico going to the United States illegally for jobs.
But a few days ago, I found out I was wrong!
It seems I was WAY too CONSERVATIVE. The solar potential of Mexico is about SEVEN times as large as that!
In 30 years or so Mexico may be one of the most prosperous countries in the world because of its solar energy just like Saudi Arabia or Kuwait are now from their oil money.
The high potential solar part of Mexico is NOT confined to the far Northern part. Virtually ALL of Mexico has that much potential.
You can see for yourself at 3Tier’s solar potential map of the Western Hemisphere
at htttp://www.3tiergroup.com/ .
The story of this website and some related work on solar potential by Google Earth and Google Maps was in the online news and in the Mercury News in San Jose California two days ago on Monday, 11-3-2008. The Mercury News published a color picture of the North American part of the map in their printed newspaper.
A new map just released by 3Tier, a Seattle company, shows a detailed picture of how much the sun shines at any spot in the Western Hemisphere. Apparently 3Tier can also provide detailed information on solar potential of sites as small as specific houses in any city or town as well.
(That map of the solar potential in the Western Hemisphere & in North America is apparently based on an entire year. As a result, it very much understates the solar potential of California and its Central Valley because it averages the rainy part of the year with the part of the year where there is virtually no rain in California. So, since the largest electricity use is now from air conditioning which is needed in the summer, California has a good bit more solar potential than this map of the entire year would lead you to conclude.)
However, if you once see 3Tier’s solar potential map of the Northern Hemisphere, you can easily see at a glance that the solar potential of Mexico is about THREE times as large as that of the entire United States. That fact certainly jumped right out at me!
Needless to say, that means the economic potential of Mexico is at least equal to the United States, once the economy of the United States and of the world overall switches mostly to renewable energy.
X* X* X* X* X* X*
Interesting but less important points that this solar map of the Western Hemisphere also shows:
1. Utah and Colorado in the United States also have strong solar potential.
&
2. The West Coasts of Peru and Chile also have very large solar potential.
I personally know little about Peru; but Chile may well develop solar energy and then help Peru develop solar energy after that. Chile is already one of the stronger economies in South America.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Solar Thermal arrives from Ausra....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 10-29-2008
As I’ve already posted about in this blog before, I was lucky enough to see a presentation made by one of the founding executives of Ausra, a California company that builds solar thermal “farms’ to make electricity from solar heat in hot sunny places.
Ausra’s recent opening of a 5 megawatt solar farm built by Ausra in Bakersfield in Southern California made our local newspapers.
But both stories left out the three most critical facts that explain why this event was so incredibly important. It was so important that California’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger was there. But the news stories did NOT say WHY this event was so important.
That’s the subject of today’s post. We list the 3 key reasons this event was so important.
(The quotes below are from Ausra’s Press releases on its website www.ausra.com .)
Here are those 3 points.
1. Solar thermal farms make a 100 % renewable economy a real possibility.
“PALO ALTO, Calif.—March 6, 2008—Ausra Inc., the developer of utility-scale solar thermal power technology, has published a peer-reviewed study showing that over 90 percent of the U.S. electric grid and auto fleet's energy needs could be met by solar thermal power.”
I’ll add that this means that very nearly all the electricity needed to run plug-in hybrids and electric cars can come from this one renewable source.
And, when you add increasing the energy efficiency of our lights and devices that use electricity and the very nearly as large or larger potential of solar photovoltaics in all of the United States, Canada, & Mexico plus any geothermal and hydropower that proves cost effective, this means that 100 % of our electricity use now PLUS robust economic growth throughout North America AND supplying our cars can all be generated from renewable energy.
And, as you can see, solar thermal companies such as Ausra move this possibility from maybe to for sure doable.
The next point clinches that one.
2. The Ausra founding executive I heard speak explained that unlike solar photovoltaic produced electricity that is only most available at certain times of day, because the recapture of energy from the solar heated media is or approaches 96 %, solar thermal power can provide electric power about 16 hours a day.
I’ll also add that since the band of appropriate parts of North America in the Southwest United States and Northern Mexico goes from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, that means by installing solar thermal farms in each part of this region that spans three time zones and adding the appropriate transmission lines, solar thermal farms can approach supplying electricity 18 to 19 hours a day.
3. We already are using about twice our planet’s capacity to remove CO2 by our current burning of fossil fuels. And the scientists who have studied this extensively say that unless we completely turn to sources of electricity and energy that do NOT burn fossil fuels in the next 10 to perhaps 25 years, the human race and its economy may become very burned toast. Worse, the scientists say the process likely will then be irreversible.
It’s totally definite that it borders on the irresponsible to do things that increase our use of oil and coal for energy. Yet that process is still continuing in both the United States and China.
The thing that’s exciting about solar thermal power is that its potential is so huge and so realizable, adding solar thermal to the mix provides us with a viable alternative. We CAN power robust economic growth AND wean our economy away from petroleum and coal.
Even better, despite the Ausra solar thermal farm that just opened in Bakersfield being over twice as large as the Applied Materials installation that we posted about as showing the very large potential of solar parking lots, the 5 megawatt Bakersfield solar farm is only about a 35th of the 177 megawatt solar farm that Ausra will launch soon.
When you realize that it’s completely possible to open 1000 solar farms THAT size, you begin to see the real potential of solar thermal.
“In November 2007, Ausra and California utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced a power purchase agreement for the 177-megawatt power plant in central California. When completed, Ausra's Carrizo facility will generate enough electricity to power more than 120,000 homes.”
X* X* X* X* X*
Here are the press releases of interest on Ausra’s website.:
“10.23.2008 Solar Power Company Ausra Launches First Solar Thermal Plant in California in Nearly 20 Years
10.01.2008 Ausra Secures $60.6 Million in Funding
06.30.2008 Ausra Opens First U.S. Solar Thermal Power Factory
03.06.2008 Study: Solar Thermal Power Could Supply Over 90 percent of U.S. Grid Plus Auto Fleet”
There are several other press releases listed that you might find of interest.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 10-29-2008
As I’ve already posted about in this blog before, I was lucky enough to see a presentation made by one of the founding executives of Ausra, a California company that builds solar thermal “farms’ to make electricity from solar heat in hot sunny places.
Ausra’s recent opening of a 5 megawatt solar farm built by Ausra in Bakersfield in Southern California made our local newspapers.
But both stories left out the three most critical facts that explain why this event was so incredibly important. It was so important that California’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger was there. But the news stories did NOT say WHY this event was so important.
That’s the subject of today’s post. We list the 3 key reasons this event was so important.
(The quotes below are from Ausra’s Press releases on its website www.ausra.com .)
Here are those 3 points.
1. Solar thermal farms make a 100 % renewable economy a real possibility.
“PALO ALTO, Calif.—March 6, 2008—Ausra Inc., the developer of utility-scale solar thermal power technology, has published a peer-reviewed study showing that over 90 percent of the U.S. electric grid and auto fleet's energy needs could be met by solar thermal power.”
I’ll add that this means that very nearly all the electricity needed to run plug-in hybrids and electric cars can come from this one renewable source.
And, when you add increasing the energy efficiency of our lights and devices that use electricity and the very nearly as large or larger potential of solar photovoltaics in all of the United States, Canada, & Mexico plus any geothermal and hydropower that proves cost effective, this means that 100 % of our electricity use now PLUS robust economic growth throughout North America AND supplying our cars can all be generated from renewable energy.
And, as you can see, solar thermal companies such as Ausra move this possibility from maybe to for sure doable.
The next point clinches that one.
2. The Ausra founding executive I heard speak explained that unlike solar photovoltaic produced electricity that is only most available at certain times of day, because the recapture of energy from the solar heated media is or approaches 96 %, solar thermal power can provide electric power about 16 hours a day.
I’ll also add that since the band of appropriate parts of North America in the Southwest United States and Northern Mexico goes from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, that means by installing solar thermal farms in each part of this region that spans three time zones and adding the appropriate transmission lines, solar thermal farms can approach supplying electricity 18 to 19 hours a day.
3. We already are using about twice our planet’s capacity to remove CO2 by our current burning of fossil fuels. And the scientists who have studied this extensively say that unless we completely turn to sources of electricity and energy that do NOT burn fossil fuels in the next 10 to perhaps 25 years, the human race and its economy may become very burned toast. Worse, the scientists say the process likely will then be irreversible.
It’s totally definite that it borders on the irresponsible to do things that increase our use of oil and coal for energy. Yet that process is still continuing in both the United States and China.
The thing that’s exciting about solar thermal power is that its potential is so huge and so realizable, adding solar thermal to the mix provides us with a viable alternative. We CAN power robust economic growth AND wean our economy away from petroleum and coal.
Even better, despite the Ausra solar thermal farm that just opened in Bakersfield being over twice as large as the Applied Materials installation that we posted about as showing the very large potential of solar parking lots, the 5 megawatt Bakersfield solar farm is only about a 35th of the 177 megawatt solar farm that Ausra will launch soon.
When you realize that it’s completely possible to open 1000 solar farms THAT size, you begin to see the real potential of solar thermal.
“In November 2007, Ausra and California utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced a power purchase agreement for the 177-megawatt power plant in central California. When completed, Ausra's Carrizo facility will generate enough electricity to power more than 120,000 homes.”
X* X* X* X* X*
Here are the press releases of interest on Ausra’s website.:
“10.23.2008 Solar Power Company Ausra Launches First Solar Thermal Plant in California in Nearly 20 Years
10.01.2008 Ausra Secures $60.6 Million in Funding
06.30.2008 Ausra Opens First U.S. Solar Thermal Power Factory
03.06.2008 Study: Solar Thermal Power Could Supply Over 90 percent of U.S. Grid Plus Auto Fleet”
There are several other press releases listed that you might find of interest.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Two new breakthroughs for solar power....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 10-22-2008
Here’s a story I found online by searching all news for “solar energy” on Yahoo news last Monday. (I’d also seen a different story earlier than that about this breakthrough.)
“New solar cell material achieves almost 100% efficiency,
could solve world-wide energy problems “
“TG Daily - Oct 20 12:01 PM Trendwatch By Rick C. Hodgin Monday, October 20, 2008 13:32 Columbus (OH) -
Researchers at Ohio State University have accidentally discovered a new solar cell material capable of absorbing all of the sun's visible light energy. The material is comprised of a hybrid of plastics, molybdenum and titanium.”
The story is technical but goes on to explain that in solar photovoltaic cells, the sun’s light knocks some electrons loose that are available to be harvested as electricity and that are available for that purpose a very short time.
Someone at Ohio State found or realized that there might be a way to make more electrons available for a longer period of time in some kind of solar cell material. The researchers there then developed a material that does knock more electrons loose; but of even more importance it makes them available to be harvested over 7 million times longer than before. This material that they found by doing research on materials on a supercomputer apparently absorbs light from all the spectrum of light instead of just part of it and then delivers nearly 100 % of the energy absorbed as generated electricity.
It has yet to be found if this material can be made at low enough cost to be cost competitive with current technology. And, if they have made progress on solving this problem or on developing technology to do so, it wasn’t mentioned in the article.
Also, given the huge size of the potential uses of such efficient solar panels, the availability of the molybdenum and titanium used in such huge quantities at reasonable cost may be a constraint.
That said, there will be applications right away where high electricity generation from such photovoltaic panels in a limited area for the panels will be valuable.
For example, a company that wants or needs to generate all the electricity it needs onsite, may be able by using solar photovoltaic panels with this technology and installing them both on the roofs and over the parking lots for their company, they may be able to do so while this is not possible today.
And, as with the first material for incandescent light filaments led to new ones, it may be that there are less expensive ways to generate this effect and which will be discovered.
2. Mankind now has two important problems.
One is that we use electricity 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Solar light and the electricity we can harvest from it are available only during the day and the amount of light solar panels receive during the day varies with the time of day and the weather.
Second, we are using up the reserves of fresh water in some areas of the world and in others, there is now less rainfall than before, likely because of global warming. These things are jeopardizing our supply of drinking water and water to grow our food crops.
MIT researchers may have found a solution to both these problems, particularly when combined with the first breakthrough described above. They have worked out a way to use solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. By then storing the hydrogen and oxygen and running them through a very efficient fuel cell when you want or need electricity when the sun is not shining or you are getting less sunshine, you can make solar photovoltaic generated electricity available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
And, it may be possible to also use this same technology to desalt sea water to provide a new supply of fresh water for drinking and for crops. (The bonus is that when you turn the hydrogen and oxygen into fresh water, you get to re-harvest the energy as electricity.)
The constraints on using this technology to store solar photovoltaic generated electricity are in making the overall process cost effective, in particular by making the fuel cells to retrieve the electricity at reasonable costs. That may well require technology we do not have yet.
But these two breakthroughs are of particular interest and potential value. So I wanted to use this blog to get the word out that they exist.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 10-22-2008
Here’s a story I found online by searching all news for “solar energy” on Yahoo news last Monday. (I’d also seen a different story earlier than that about this breakthrough.)
“New solar cell material achieves almost 100% efficiency,
could solve world-wide energy problems “
“TG Daily - Oct 20 12:01 PM Trendwatch By Rick C. Hodgin Monday, October 20, 2008 13:32 Columbus (OH) -
Researchers at Ohio State University have accidentally discovered a new solar cell material capable of absorbing all of the sun's visible light energy. The material is comprised of a hybrid of plastics, molybdenum and titanium.”
The story is technical but goes on to explain that in solar photovoltaic cells, the sun’s light knocks some electrons loose that are available to be harvested as electricity and that are available for that purpose a very short time.
Someone at Ohio State found or realized that there might be a way to make more electrons available for a longer period of time in some kind of solar cell material. The researchers there then developed a material that does knock more electrons loose; but of even more importance it makes them available to be harvested over 7 million times longer than before. This material that they found by doing research on materials on a supercomputer apparently absorbs light from all the spectrum of light instead of just part of it and then delivers nearly 100 % of the energy absorbed as generated electricity.
It has yet to be found if this material can be made at low enough cost to be cost competitive with current technology. And, if they have made progress on solving this problem or on developing technology to do so, it wasn’t mentioned in the article.
Also, given the huge size of the potential uses of such efficient solar panels, the availability of the molybdenum and titanium used in such huge quantities at reasonable cost may be a constraint.
That said, there will be applications right away where high electricity generation from such photovoltaic panels in a limited area for the panels will be valuable.
For example, a company that wants or needs to generate all the electricity it needs onsite, may be able by using solar photovoltaic panels with this technology and installing them both on the roofs and over the parking lots for their company, they may be able to do so while this is not possible today.
And, as with the first material for incandescent light filaments led to new ones, it may be that there are less expensive ways to generate this effect and which will be discovered.
2. Mankind now has two important problems.
One is that we use electricity 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Solar light and the electricity we can harvest from it are available only during the day and the amount of light solar panels receive during the day varies with the time of day and the weather.
Second, we are using up the reserves of fresh water in some areas of the world and in others, there is now less rainfall than before, likely because of global warming. These things are jeopardizing our supply of drinking water and water to grow our food crops.
MIT researchers may have found a solution to both these problems, particularly when combined with the first breakthrough described above. They have worked out a way to use solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. By then storing the hydrogen and oxygen and running them through a very efficient fuel cell when you want or need electricity when the sun is not shining or you are getting less sunshine, you can make solar photovoltaic generated electricity available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
And, it may be possible to also use this same technology to desalt sea water to provide a new supply of fresh water for drinking and for crops. (The bonus is that when you turn the hydrogen and oxygen into fresh water, you get to re-harvest the energy as electricity.)
The constraints on using this technology to store solar photovoltaic generated electricity are in making the overall process cost effective, in particular by making the fuel cells to retrieve the electricity at reasonable costs. That may well require technology we do not have yet.
But these two breakthroughs are of particular interest and potential value. So I wanted to use this blog to get the word out that they exist.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Good news for renewable energy....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 10-15-2008
1. 3600 likely large sites, mostly solar, in & around California can generate over 6 times all the current electrical generation capacity that exists now in California.
Since many of these sites can be solar thermal, the electricity can be provided from 16 to 17 hours a day.
And, by adding the much greater photovoltaic installations possible on homes, businesses, and other buildings--& on covered parking lots, that’s an enormous potential. And, by adding all of these in the other states in the South Western United States from California to West Texas and the Rocky Mountain states and North Western Mexico -- and adding wind power and transmission lines, this part of North America can come close to providing all the electricity needed by all of North America including the future increased electricity needed over the next several decades. (The link to the report is below.)
This data suggests that Al Gore’s 100 % renewable goal is achievable or very close to it. And, from just this part of North America.
2. The new Solar company, Solyndra, may make photovoltaic solar for covered parking lots and flat roofs of commercial buildings and business facilities faster to install, more efficient, and less expensive. (See their press release below.)
3. Rolls of LED’s make may make walls & ceilings & even window shades the light source for rooms at reasonable cost & with much less electricity use than incandescent or compact fluorescent light bulbs in lamps and ceiling fixtures. And, it sounds like it may cost a good bit less than LED bulbs in lamps and ceiling fixtures. (The AP story about this GE advance is referenced below.)
1. The 3600 site info comes from a study done by the engineering firm, Black & Veatch. (The heads up was in the Bottom Line column in the business section of the San Francisco Chronicle.)
See http://links.sfgate.com/ZEZW
or http://www.energy.ca.gov/reti/documents/2008-08-16_PHASE_1B_DRAFT_RESOURCE_REPORT.PDF .
2. Solyndra’s press release:
FREMONT, Calif., October 7, 2008 — Solyndra, Inc. today announced a new solar photovoltaic (PV) system for the commercial rooftop market. Solyndra's PV system is designed to generate significantly more solar electricity on an annual basis from typical low-slope commercial rooftops with lower installation costs than conventional PV flat panel technologies. Commercial rooftops represent a vast, underutilized resource and huge opportunity for generating solar electricity. Since its founding in 2005, Solyndra has been developing technology and ramping manufacturing capacity to produce its proprietary CIGS-based thin film PV system. Solyndra is currently shipping its systems, comprised of panels and mounting hardware, to fulfill more than $1.2 billion of multi-year contracts with customers in Europe and the United States.
THE NEW SHAPE OF SOLAR
Solyndra's panels employ cylindrical modules which capture sunlight across a 360-degree photovoltaic surface capable of converting direct, diffuse and reflected sunlight into electricity. This self-tracking design allows Solyndra's PV systems to capture significantly more sunlight than traditional flat-surfaced solar panels, which require costly tilted mounting devices to improve the capture of direct light, offer poor collection of diffuse light and fail to collect reflected light from rooftops or other installation surfaces.
Conventional flat PV panels must be mounted at an angle and spaced apart for optimum energy production. The sunlight striking the spaces between the panels is not collected and thus is wasted. Solyndra's panels perform optimally when mounted horizontally and packed closely together, thereby covering significantly more of the available roof area and producing more electricity per rooftop on an annual basis than a conventional panel installation.
COST-EFFECTIVE INSTALLATION
To meet rooftop wind loading requirements, conventional flat solar panels must be anchored to commercial roofs with either ballast or rooftop penetrations, which are inherently problematic. Together with the need for tilting, the resulting complex mounting systems require significant investment in labor, materials and engineering. Conversely, because wind blows through Solyndra panels, no rooftop anchoring is required. Further, the low weight of the Solyndra system enables the installation of PV on a broader range of rooftops.
For typical conventional PV installations, a solar panel is only half the cost of a complete installation; the other half includes additional expenses such as installation, cables, and inverters. The horizontal mounting and unique air-flow properties of Solyndra's solar panel design substantially simplify the installation process for Solyndra's PV systems. The ease of installation and simpler mounting hardware of Solyndra's system enables its customers to realize significant savings on installation costs.
"By eliminating the need for roof-penetrating mounts and wind ballasts, PV arrays with Solyndra panels can be installed with one-third the labor, in one-third of the time, at one-half the cost," said Manfred Bachler, Chief Technical Officer at Phoenix Solar AG, one of the largest solar power integrators in Europe and a Solyndra customer. "For commercial rooftops, PV module installation time can now be measured in days, not weeks. For flat commercial rooftops this is game-changing technology."
According to Solyndra founder and CEO Chris Gronet, "Solyndra's system uniquely optimizes PV performance on commercial rooftops by converting more of the sunlight that strikes the total rooftop area into electricity while also providing for a lower installation cost and lower cost of electricity."
ABOUT SOLYNDRA
Solyndra designs and manufactures photovoltaic systems, comprised of panels and mounting hardware, for the commercial rooftop market. Solyndra employs high volume manufacturing based on proven technologies and processes to meet the needs of the global solar market. Using proprietary cylindrical modules and thin-film technology, Solyndra systems are designed to provide the lowest installed cost per system and the highest solar electrical energy output for typical low slope commercial rooftops. Headquartered in Fremont, California, Solyndra operates a state-of-the-art 300,000 square foot fully-automated manufacturing complex. Learn more at www.solyndra.com.
3. The story on this was in: "Flexible OLEDs could be part of lighting's future" (AP) Posted on Fri Oct 10, 2008 10:20AM EDT
In NISKAYUNA, N.Y., an industrial building contains a machine that prints sheets of LED lights. “. The OLED printer was made by General Electric….”
Summary: these 3 reports show that we are indeed on our way to having a much more energy efficient economy that is all or very nearly all powered by renewable energy.
That’s good news indeed.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 10-15-2008
1. 3600 likely large sites, mostly solar, in & around California can generate over 6 times all the current electrical generation capacity that exists now in California.
Since many of these sites can be solar thermal, the electricity can be provided from 16 to 17 hours a day.
And, by adding the much greater photovoltaic installations possible on homes, businesses, and other buildings--& on covered parking lots, that’s an enormous potential. And, by adding all of these in the other states in the South Western United States from California to West Texas and the Rocky Mountain states and North Western Mexico -- and adding wind power and transmission lines, this part of North America can come close to providing all the electricity needed by all of North America including the future increased electricity needed over the next several decades. (The link to the report is below.)
This data suggests that Al Gore’s 100 % renewable goal is achievable or very close to it. And, from just this part of North America.
2. The new Solar company, Solyndra, may make photovoltaic solar for covered parking lots and flat roofs of commercial buildings and business facilities faster to install, more efficient, and less expensive. (See their press release below.)
3. Rolls of LED’s make may make walls & ceilings & even window shades the light source for rooms at reasonable cost & with much less electricity use than incandescent or compact fluorescent light bulbs in lamps and ceiling fixtures. And, it sounds like it may cost a good bit less than LED bulbs in lamps and ceiling fixtures. (The AP story about this GE advance is referenced below.)
1. The 3600 site info comes from a study done by the engineering firm, Black & Veatch. (The heads up was in the Bottom Line column in the business section of the San Francisco Chronicle.)
See http://links.sfgate.com/ZEZW
or http://www.energy.ca.gov/reti/documents/2008-08-16_PHASE_1B_DRAFT_RESOURCE_REPORT.PDF .
2. Solyndra’s press release:
FREMONT, Calif., October 7, 2008 — Solyndra, Inc. today announced a new solar photovoltaic (PV) system for the commercial rooftop market. Solyndra's PV system is designed to generate significantly more solar electricity on an annual basis from typical low-slope commercial rooftops with lower installation costs than conventional PV flat panel technologies. Commercial rooftops represent a vast, underutilized resource and huge opportunity for generating solar electricity. Since its founding in 2005, Solyndra has been developing technology and ramping manufacturing capacity to produce its proprietary CIGS-based thin film PV system. Solyndra is currently shipping its systems, comprised of panels and mounting hardware, to fulfill more than $1.2 billion of multi-year contracts with customers in Europe and the United States.
THE NEW SHAPE OF SOLAR
Solyndra's panels employ cylindrical modules which capture sunlight across a 360-degree photovoltaic surface capable of converting direct, diffuse and reflected sunlight into electricity. This self-tracking design allows Solyndra's PV systems to capture significantly more sunlight than traditional flat-surfaced solar panels, which require costly tilted mounting devices to improve the capture of direct light, offer poor collection of diffuse light and fail to collect reflected light from rooftops or other installation surfaces.
Conventional flat PV panels must be mounted at an angle and spaced apart for optimum energy production. The sunlight striking the spaces between the panels is not collected and thus is wasted. Solyndra's panels perform optimally when mounted horizontally and packed closely together, thereby covering significantly more of the available roof area and producing more electricity per rooftop on an annual basis than a conventional panel installation.
COST-EFFECTIVE INSTALLATION
To meet rooftop wind loading requirements, conventional flat solar panels must be anchored to commercial roofs with either ballast or rooftop penetrations, which are inherently problematic. Together with the need for tilting, the resulting complex mounting systems require significant investment in labor, materials and engineering. Conversely, because wind blows through Solyndra panels, no rooftop anchoring is required. Further, the low weight of the Solyndra system enables the installation of PV on a broader range of rooftops.
For typical conventional PV installations, a solar panel is only half the cost of a complete installation; the other half includes additional expenses such as installation, cables, and inverters. The horizontal mounting and unique air-flow properties of Solyndra's solar panel design substantially simplify the installation process for Solyndra's PV systems. The ease of installation and simpler mounting hardware of Solyndra's system enables its customers to realize significant savings on installation costs.
"By eliminating the need for roof-penetrating mounts and wind ballasts, PV arrays with Solyndra panels can be installed with one-third the labor, in one-third of the time, at one-half the cost," said Manfred Bachler, Chief Technical Officer at Phoenix Solar AG, one of the largest solar power integrators in Europe and a Solyndra customer. "For commercial rooftops, PV module installation time can now be measured in days, not weeks. For flat commercial rooftops this is game-changing technology."
According to Solyndra founder and CEO Chris Gronet, "Solyndra's system uniquely optimizes PV performance on commercial rooftops by converting more of the sunlight that strikes the total rooftop area into electricity while also providing for a lower installation cost and lower cost of electricity."
ABOUT SOLYNDRA
Solyndra designs and manufactures photovoltaic systems, comprised of panels and mounting hardware, for the commercial rooftop market. Solyndra employs high volume manufacturing based on proven technologies and processes to meet the needs of the global solar market. Using proprietary cylindrical modules and thin-film technology, Solyndra systems are designed to provide the lowest installed cost per system and the highest solar electrical energy output for typical low slope commercial rooftops. Headquartered in Fremont, California, Solyndra operates a state-of-the-art 300,000 square foot fully-automated manufacturing complex. Learn more at www.solyndra.com.
3. The story on this was in: "Flexible OLEDs could be part of lighting's future" (AP) Posted on Fri Oct 10, 2008 10:20AM EDT
In NISKAYUNA, N.Y., an industrial building contains a machine that prints sheets of LED lights. “. The OLED printer was made by General Electric….”
Summary: these 3 reports show that we are indeed on our way to having a much more energy efficient economy that is all or very nearly all powered by renewable energy.
That’s good news indeed.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
California Energy propositions....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 10-8-2008
All or most of the readers of this blog are ardent supporters of renewable energy.
Here in California there are 2 propositions that seem to be favorable to renewable energy.
Proposition 7 says it will boost the installation of renewable energy. And the campaign for it says so and that the utilities that oppose it are doing so because they don’t want renewable energy.
Proposition 10 says it will increase the use of renewable fuels for cars and trucks. And, the radio ad for it makes it out to be a good thing for renewable energy.
So, it would seem as if people who support renewable energy would vote for both of them.
But two of the organizations that most strongly support renewable energy and have the staff to analyze these two propositions BOTH urge a NO vote on each of them.
Here’s the overview from the Union of Concerned Scientists.:
“Based on our thorough analysis of each proposition, the Union of Concerned Scientists urges you to vote:
NO on Proposition 7, which is loophole-ridden and so poorly drafted that it could actually hinder the development of new clean, renewable energy sources in California, like solar and wind power.
NO on Proposition 10, which would throw nearly ten billion taxpayer dollars into a program promoting natural gas and other transportation fuels that could achieve little or no reductions in smog or global warming pollution.
Since I have not seen the details of the propositions, I then emailed the Sierra Club for their analysis.:
“No on Prop. 7: So Close, Yet So Far Away
By Jim Metropulos, Senior Advocate, Sierra Club California
Normally, Sierra Club volunteers and staff would eagerly line up behind a measure proposing that half of California’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2025.
But Proposition 7, an initiative on the November ballot, doesn’t do enough to save our state and our planet from fossil fuel dependence. In fact, by cementing loopholes that would hold back the growth of the renewable energy industry, it actually could worsen our current energy situation.
Proposition 7:
1. Contains serious, inherent flaws that could get in the way of achieving its goal of 50% renewable fuels by 2025.
2. Actually works against Sierra Club-backed energy policies that would allow communities to choose the source of their energy.
3. Decreases environmental review of proposed power plants.
The lack of a sound, steady source of funding represents one major flaw that’s sure to get in the way of a 50% renewables goal. Instead of setting up such a funding stream, Prop. 7 would force renewable power generators to depend upon an uncertain system of penalty monies. It also locks in energy rate raises to just 3% annually, even though there are no limits for nonrenewable power sources.
Existing loopholes in enforcement and archaic policies that tie the price of renewable energy to the price of natural gas-generated energy would be locked in place. In fact, Prop. 7 even lowers some penalties.
Prop. 7 also would obstruct Sierra Club’s efforts to establish community choice for energy policy, since it removes local control over energy policy. Community choice promises to increase the energy-buying power of local communities, giving them more authority.
Consider how a neighborhood “co-op” store is able to stock more grocery choices because it has more buying power than a smaller store operated by one family. Similarly, a community that bands together could have more choice over what type of energy it chooses to buy.
Lastly, Prop. 7 would decrease environmental protections, in the guise of “streamlining” the permitting process for renewable power. Local chapters wouldn’t be able to introduce new evidence of environmental harm when appealing a proposed permit.
Sierra Club isn’t standing alone against this potentially harmful law. The Union of Concerned Scientists, California League of Conservation Voters, and Natural Resources Defense Council, among other groups, have taken a stand against Prop. 7. California’s Democratic and Republican parties and major utilities also oppose Prop. 7.
Voters should defeat Prop. 7 and clear the way for real progress on renewable power.”
“Vote No on Proposition 10: The Wrong Road Toward Cleaner Vehicles.
by Jim Metropulos, Senior Advocate, Sierra Club California
Sierra Club opposes Proposition 10, The California Renewable Energy and Clean Alternative Fuel Act, because it would put California on the wrong road to cleaner vehicles.
Proposition 10 would provide $5 billion in general obligation bonds for four main purposes: 1) alternative fuel vehicles rebates and research ($3.425 billion), 2) renewable energy ($1.25 billion), 3) renewable energy demonstration ($200 million), and 4) "clean tech" education and training ($125 million).
The primary proponent and funder of the initiative is Clean Energy Fuels Corp., which, according to its website, is the largest provider of natural gas for transportation in North America, and also builds and operates natural gas fueling stations.
The initiative’s backer would benefit financially from its passage, because the main thrust of the measure is to provide close to $3 billion dollars in bond funds to be distributed as rebates to buyers of “clean alternative fuel vehicles.”
The measure has several drawbacks. First, the initiative sets a low bar for “clean alternative vehicles,” which it says must produce “no net material increase in air pollution” relative to gasoline or diesel. Vehicles that meet this standard would do little, if anything, to reduce air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions in the state.
Second, the state already provides significant incentives for natural gas and alternative-fuel vehicles, including a $200 million clean fuels program paid for by fees.
Third, we question the use of bond funds for rebates. Traditionally, bond funds pay for large public works projects that would normally be too expensive for the state to afford. Proposition 10 doesn’t set up a system to pay back the state’s big borrowing; instead it relies on future state tax collections.
Last, we worry that Proposition 10 could lead to the creation of environmentally harmful dams, as it includes all classes of hydroelectric power as renewable energy. This conflicts with existing state law that generally limits the “renewable” designation to smaller hydroelectric installations, and to facilities that don’t impound additional water. Defining dams as “renewable” could also create confusion in utilities’ attempts to comply with the California Renewable Portfolio Standard law.
Prop. 10’s promise of more clean alternative vehicles sounds good on its surface. However, the initiative would accomplish little to facilitate real, sound alternative energy or technologies, and its reliance on long-term borrowing for short-term benefits and potentially obsolete technology would put us on the wrong road.
Joining Sierra Club in opposing Proposition 10 are the League of Women Voters, California Nurses Association, California Federation of Teachers, Consumer Federation of California, Consumer Watchdog, the Utility Reform Network, and California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.”
X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X*
These 2 propositions that seem to be favorable to renewable energy each have two major flaws.
They each add narrow and inflexible rules that are not in place now that will prevent the kind of multiple efforts and, in their early stages, experimental, efforts to bring renewable energy online.
That’s devastatingly bad. For that reason alone, please join me in voting no on these two propositions.
The second one is nearly as bad. You cannot get good effects by legislating laws that cause problems if the realities of the situation don’t match the assumptions on which the laws are based. Both of these propositions do that.
Utilities will leave the state or go bankrupt if you make it illegal to increase prices when their costs go up. And, global warming looks very likely to make hydropower in California very unreliable within the next few decades. Further, mandating natural gas as a fuel already looks likely to be undesirable due to the development of renewable biofuels and electric cars and plug-in hybrids that run on solar or wind generated electricity.
So, please vote no on California propositions 7 and 10.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 10-8-2008
All or most of the readers of this blog are ardent supporters of renewable energy.
Here in California there are 2 propositions that seem to be favorable to renewable energy.
Proposition 7 says it will boost the installation of renewable energy. And the campaign for it says so and that the utilities that oppose it are doing so because they don’t want renewable energy.
Proposition 10 says it will increase the use of renewable fuels for cars and trucks. And, the radio ad for it makes it out to be a good thing for renewable energy.
So, it would seem as if people who support renewable energy would vote for both of them.
But two of the organizations that most strongly support renewable energy and have the staff to analyze these two propositions BOTH urge a NO vote on each of them.
Here’s the overview from the Union of Concerned Scientists.:
“Based on our thorough analysis of each proposition, the Union of Concerned Scientists urges you to vote:
NO on Proposition 7, which is loophole-ridden and so poorly drafted that it could actually hinder the development of new clean, renewable energy sources in California, like solar and wind power.
NO on Proposition 10, which would throw nearly ten billion taxpayer dollars into a program promoting natural gas and other transportation fuels that could achieve little or no reductions in smog or global warming pollution.
Since I have not seen the details of the propositions, I then emailed the Sierra Club for their analysis.:
“No on Prop. 7: So Close, Yet So Far Away
By Jim Metropulos, Senior Advocate, Sierra Club California
Normally, Sierra Club volunteers and staff would eagerly line up behind a measure proposing that half of California’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2025.
But Proposition 7, an initiative on the November ballot, doesn’t do enough to save our state and our planet from fossil fuel dependence. In fact, by cementing loopholes that would hold back the growth of the renewable energy industry, it actually could worsen our current energy situation.
Proposition 7:
1. Contains serious, inherent flaws that could get in the way of achieving its goal of 50% renewable fuels by 2025.
2. Actually works against Sierra Club-backed energy policies that would allow communities to choose the source of their energy.
3. Decreases environmental review of proposed power plants.
The lack of a sound, steady source of funding represents one major flaw that’s sure to get in the way of a 50% renewables goal. Instead of setting up such a funding stream, Prop. 7 would force renewable power generators to depend upon an uncertain system of penalty monies. It also locks in energy rate raises to just 3% annually, even though there are no limits for nonrenewable power sources.
Existing loopholes in enforcement and archaic policies that tie the price of renewable energy to the price of natural gas-generated energy would be locked in place. In fact, Prop. 7 even lowers some penalties.
Prop. 7 also would obstruct Sierra Club’s efforts to establish community choice for energy policy, since it removes local control over energy policy. Community choice promises to increase the energy-buying power of local communities, giving them more authority.
Consider how a neighborhood “co-op” store is able to stock more grocery choices because it has more buying power than a smaller store operated by one family. Similarly, a community that bands together could have more choice over what type of energy it chooses to buy.
Lastly, Prop. 7 would decrease environmental protections, in the guise of “streamlining” the permitting process for renewable power. Local chapters wouldn’t be able to introduce new evidence of environmental harm when appealing a proposed permit.
Sierra Club isn’t standing alone against this potentially harmful law. The Union of Concerned Scientists, California League of Conservation Voters, and Natural Resources Defense Council, among other groups, have taken a stand against Prop. 7. California’s Democratic and Republican parties and major utilities also oppose Prop. 7.
Voters should defeat Prop. 7 and clear the way for real progress on renewable power.”
“Vote No on Proposition 10: The Wrong Road Toward Cleaner Vehicles.
by Jim Metropulos, Senior Advocate, Sierra Club California
Sierra Club opposes Proposition 10, The California Renewable Energy and Clean Alternative Fuel Act, because it would put California on the wrong road to cleaner vehicles.
Proposition 10 would provide $5 billion in general obligation bonds for four main purposes: 1) alternative fuel vehicles rebates and research ($3.425 billion), 2) renewable energy ($1.25 billion), 3) renewable energy demonstration ($200 million), and 4) "clean tech" education and training ($125 million).
The primary proponent and funder of the initiative is Clean Energy Fuels Corp., which, according to its website, is the largest provider of natural gas for transportation in North America, and also builds and operates natural gas fueling stations.
The initiative’s backer would benefit financially from its passage, because the main thrust of the measure is to provide close to $3 billion dollars in bond funds to be distributed as rebates to buyers of “clean alternative fuel vehicles.”
The measure has several drawbacks. First, the initiative sets a low bar for “clean alternative vehicles,” which it says must produce “no net material increase in air pollution” relative to gasoline or diesel. Vehicles that meet this standard would do little, if anything, to reduce air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions in the state.
Second, the state already provides significant incentives for natural gas and alternative-fuel vehicles, including a $200 million clean fuels program paid for by fees.
Third, we question the use of bond funds for rebates. Traditionally, bond funds pay for large public works projects that would normally be too expensive for the state to afford. Proposition 10 doesn’t set up a system to pay back the state’s big borrowing; instead it relies on future state tax collections.
Last, we worry that Proposition 10 could lead to the creation of environmentally harmful dams, as it includes all classes of hydroelectric power as renewable energy. This conflicts with existing state law that generally limits the “renewable” designation to smaller hydroelectric installations, and to facilities that don’t impound additional water. Defining dams as “renewable” could also create confusion in utilities’ attempts to comply with the California Renewable Portfolio Standard law.
Prop. 10’s promise of more clean alternative vehicles sounds good on its surface. However, the initiative would accomplish little to facilitate real, sound alternative energy or technologies, and its reliance on long-term borrowing for short-term benefits and potentially obsolete technology would put us on the wrong road.
Joining Sierra Club in opposing Proposition 10 are the League of Women Voters, California Nurses Association, California Federation of Teachers, Consumer Federation of California, Consumer Watchdog, the Utility Reform Network, and California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.”
X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X*
These 2 propositions that seem to be favorable to renewable energy each have two major flaws.
They each add narrow and inflexible rules that are not in place now that will prevent the kind of multiple efforts and, in their early stages, experimental, efforts to bring renewable energy online.
That’s devastatingly bad. For that reason alone, please join me in voting no on these two propositions.
The second one is nearly as bad. You cannot get good effects by legislating laws that cause problems if the realities of the situation don’t match the assumptions on which the laws are based. Both of these propositions do that.
Utilities will leave the state or go bankrupt if you make it illegal to increase prices when their costs go up. And, global warming looks very likely to make hydropower in California very unreliable within the next few decades. Further, mandating natural gas as a fuel already looks likely to be undesirable due to the development of renewable biofuels and electric cars and plug-in hybrids that run on solar or wind generated electricity.
So, please vote no on California propositions 7 and 10.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Solar parking lots have a HUGE upside....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 10-1-2008
All kinds of businesses and organizations have facilities that they need electricity for. These range from shopping centers, to manufacturing companies, to municipal buildings and more.
As the cost of solar photovoltaic collectors, systems, and installation continues to fall relative to power from the grid that is produced by burning natural gas, petroleum, and coal it will become both cost effective and a superb hedge against rising prices or reduced supply of natural gas, petroleum, and coal for all kinds of businesses and organizations to install solar photovoltaic power systems.
I also think that within 10 years all utilities will pay for electricity fed back into the grid in excess of the electricity taken out. (Many of them now will zero out the electricity part of your bill but give you no incentive to generate or supply them with electricity beyond that.)
However, these businesses and organizations are now constrained by the size of the roofs for their facilities, and by the kind of roofs they have in place in some cases.
So, if they had a way to site additional solar panels at their facility, it might now and will soon for sure pay them to do that.
Most of them do have this extra space now!
Except for high-rises in downtown areas, they virtually all have parking lots over which a roof or canopy can easily be built to hold more solar panels.
In fact, one recent and large solar photovoltaic installation in the Silicon Valley shows that solar parking lots can more than double the amount of available solar electricity many companies or organizations can generate at their facilities.
A story on the "solar parking lot" at Applied Materials was in the Saturday San Jose Mercury News, of 9-20-2007.
The story was based on the original Press release. And, that press release came from SunPower instead of Applied Materials since SunPower provided the installation & possibly the solar cells.Here's the important part of the SunPower release from Friday, 9-19-2008.
(Note that of the 2.15 Megawatts, 1.2 or 55.8 %, more than half, comes from the parking lot installation --NOT the roof of their building. Great job!!)See:
http://investors.sunpowercorp.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=335603
(The release also had a picture.) "(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080919/AQF026) "
"Applied Materials Activates Largest Solar Deployment on a Corporate Campus in U.S.
SILICON VALLEY, Calif., Sept 19, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -
- Applied Materials (Nasdaq: AMAT) and SunPower Corporation (Nasdaq: SPWR) today announced completion of two SunPower solar power systems totaling 2.1 megawatts at Applied Materials' corporate facilities in Sunnyvale, Calif. The systems represent the largest solar power deployment at a corporate facility in the United States.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080919/AQF026)
"This is another exciting milestone in the adoption of solar power in California," said Mike Splinter, president and chief executive officer of Applied Materials. "More companies are realizing the wisdom of integrating solar as a non-intrusive, clean, silent form of energy generation into our businesses and communities. We've converted our parking lots to power plants and we encourage others to join us in making solar power a meaningful part of the energy supply."
The system includes a 950 kilowatt SunPower PowerGuard(R) installation and a 1.2 megawatt SunPower(R) Tracker installation atop an elevated parking canopy.
The SunPower Tracker follows the sun as it moves across the sky, increasing sunlight capture by up to 25 percent over conventional fixed-tilt systems. Both systems use SunPower solar panels, the most efficient panels available on the market today. SunPower uses Applied Materials' Baccini technology in its solar cell manufacturing process. "
But the good news on solar parking lots is even better.
This story is unusually significant because, of the 2.15 megawatts total, 1.2 megawatts, or more than half the total comes from the solar cells over their parking lot.
Here's more on why that's so important:
From the a separate story that ran in a Sunnyvale newspaper: "We've converted our parking lots to power plants," Applied Chief Executive Mike Splinter said in a statement.
Covered parking lots for employees also mean less hassle getting to and in and out of their cars in rainy weather for their employees.
And, the shade from the "parking canopy" & solar cells on it also means the employees also will burn less gasoline running their car air conditioners in sunny and hot weather.
And, it provides a significant part of the power needed to run their whole business from clean, renewable energy.
Why not do this in every large company and shopping center parking lot in the whole Bay Area?
Why not do it everywhere in California?
Why not do it everywhere?
If we just did it here in California, it would help PG & E and Southern California Edison become able to hit very ambitious renewable energy goals.
It also help will protect the businesses who do it from future increases in the price of natural gas.
So, the evidence this story gives that "solar parking lots" ARE doable and have that much potential for solar energy is a HUGE story.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 10-1-2008
All kinds of businesses and organizations have facilities that they need electricity for. These range from shopping centers, to manufacturing companies, to municipal buildings and more.
As the cost of solar photovoltaic collectors, systems, and installation continues to fall relative to power from the grid that is produced by burning natural gas, petroleum, and coal it will become both cost effective and a superb hedge against rising prices or reduced supply of natural gas, petroleum, and coal for all kinds of businesses and organizations to install solar photovoltaic power systems.
I also think that within 10 years all utilities will pay for electricity fed back into the grid in excess of the electricity taken out. (Many of them now will zero out the electricity part of your bill but give you no incentive to generate or supply them with electricity beyond that.)
However, these businesses and organizations are now constrained by the size of the roofs for their facilities, and by the kind of roofs they have in place in some cases.
So, if they had a way to site additional solar panels at their facility, it might now and will soon for sure pay them to do that.
Most of them do have this extra space now!
Except for high-rises in downtown areas, they virtually all have parking lots over which a roof or canopy can easily be built to hold more solar panels.
In fact, one recent and large solar photovoltaic installation in the Silicon Valley shows that solar parking lots can more than double the amount of available solar electricity many companies or organizations can generate at their facilities.
A story on the "solar parking lot" at Applied Materials was in the Saturday San Jose Mercury News, of 9-20-2007.
The story was based on the original Press release. And, that press release came from SunPower instead of Applied Materials since SunPower provided the installation & possibly the solar cells.Here's the important part of the SunPower release from Friday, 9-19-2008.
(Note that of the 2.15 Megawatts, 1.2 or 55.8 %, more than half, comes from the parking lot installation --NOT the roof of their building. Great job!!)See:
http://investors.sunpowercorp.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=335603
(The release also had a picture.) "(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080919/AQF026) "
"Applied Materials Activates Largest Solar Deployment on a Corporate Campus in U.S.
SILICON VALLEY, Calif., Sept 19, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -
- Applied Materials (Nasdaq: AMAT) and SunPower Corporation (Nasdaq: SPWR) today announced completion of two SunPower solar power systems totaling 2.1 megawatts at Applied Materials' corporate facilities in Sunnyvale, Calif. The systems represent the largest solar power deployment at a corporate facility in the United States.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080919/AQF026)
"This is another exciting milestone in the adoption of solar power in California," said Mike Splinter, president and chief executive officer of Applied Materials. "More companies are realizing the wisdom of integrating solar as a non-intrusive, clean, silent form of energy generation into our businesses and communities. We've converted our parking lots to power plants and we encourage others to join us in making solar power a meaningful part of the energy supply."
The system includes a 950 kilowatt SunPower PowerGuard(R) installation and a 1.2 megawatt SunPower(R) Tracker installation atop an elevated parking canopy.
The SunPower Tracker follows the sun as it moves across the sky, increasing sunlight capture by up to 25 percent over conventional fixed-tilt systems. Both systems use SunPower solar panels, the most efficient panels available on the market today. SunPower uses Applied Materials' Baccini technology in its solar cell manufacturing process. "
But the good news on solar parking lots is even better.
This story is unusually significant because, of the 2.15 megawatts total, 1.2 megawatts, or more than half the total comes from the solar cells over their parking lot.
Here's more on why that's so important:
From the a separate story that ran in a Sunnyvale newspaper: "We've converted our parking lots to power plants," Applied Chief Executive Mike Splinter said in a statement.
Covered parking lots for employees also mean less hassle getting to and in and out of their cars in rainy weather for their employees.
And, the shade from the "parking canopy" & solar cells on it also means the employees also will burn less gasoline running their car air conditioners in sunny and hot weather.
And, it provides a significant part of the power needed to run their whole business from clean, renewable energy.
Why not do this in every large company and shopping center parking lot in the whole Bay Area?
Why not do it everywhere in California?
Why not do it everywhere?
If we just did it here in California, it would help PG & E and Southern California Edison become able to hit very ambitious renewable energy goals.
It also help will protect the businesses who do it from future increases in the price of natural gas.
So, the evidence this story gives that "solar parking lots" ARE doable and have that much potential for solar energy is a HUGE story.
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