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.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
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.
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