3 pieces of good economic AND renewable energy news....
Today's post: Wednesday, 10-28-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Further, it’s extremely clear that the most supported and economically beneficial solution to add energy that does not use oil nor burn fossil fuels to release more CO2 into air that already has too much is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy production, particularly those that generate electricity & to dramatically increase energy efficiency and reduce the amount of energy that is now wasted.
And, of those the more important long range solution is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy generation.
There are 3 pieces of extremely good news in the last week showing that money is being spent & will be spent to build more and more useful renewable energy and which will create jobs in the next few months to three years and more!
1. For example, if you are a homeowner, you may well have a home that would do well to have solar photovoltaic panels on your roof and perhaps other parts of your property. Or, you may own a shopping center where you could install solar photovoltaic panels on the roof and on canopies over all or most of your parking lot.
But with what money?
For many reasons, over time the price for grid electricity will rise, so in addition to the environmental benefits you might actually save money on your costs for electricity over a 20 year time period.
But with the possibility that you might sell your property or be foreclosed on and many banks not having the resources to lend on anything but a sure thing these days, if you don’t have the entire construction cost in savings or in your checking account that has no other demands on it, how on earth will you finance installing the solar you’d like to install and may even save money on?
The reality is that most people won’t have access to the financing or the upfront cash & won’t install the solar.
Magic wand time has arrived!
8 days ago on Tuesday, 10-20-2009 the San Francisco Chronicle has a story that a local & famous community has found a solution. Even better, the current federal administration is taking steps to see that communities all over the United States begin to adopt this plan.
Here’s a few excerpts from that story.:
“Biden to model solar finance plan on Berkeley's
The solar financing plan that originated in Berkeley in 2007 will become a national model, Vice President Joe Biden said Monday.
San Francisco Chronicle, Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 E-mail Carolyn Jones at carolynjones@sfchronicle.com.
Biden's program, known as Recovery Through Retrofit, creates a framework for cities, counties and states to set up tax districts that allow residential and business property owners to install solar panels and make other energy improvements, repaying the investment over a 20-year property tax assessment.”
“Since Berkeley adopted its financing plan, cities across the nation have adopted similar models, and California, New York, Texas and 11 other states have passed legislation making it easier for municipalities to create their own financing plans.
Berkeley's plan intends to eliminate the up-front cost of solar installation, which could total about $20,000 for an average bungalow, and the financial commitment that could follow property owners after they move from the home.
Under the plan, the assessment stays with the property, not the person. Property owners pay no money up front but pay about $180 a month on their property tax bill….”
“The federal plan and those adopted in most other cities allow property owners to make other energy-efficiency upgrades, too, such as installing new windows, insulation and weather stripping.
Solar financing plans have been a boon for installers. A Berkeley firm, Sungevity….seen its business increase dramatically in California, including in Sonoma County and Palm Desert, which have adopted versions of the financing plan. "Where it's available, it's a clear market driver," said Danny Kennedy, Sungevity president. "There's no question there's a demand out there, and this goes a long way to removing the barriers."
(Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/19/BAKT1A7R72.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0VGMDGa7Z /)”
This one innovation in financing alone could multiply solar and energy efficiency upgrades in every community that adopts this plan.
Now it looks as if nearly every community will have it soon.
This could make our entire country 25% more energy efficient in its energy use in housing & multiply our total solar installations by five over the next 10 or 15 years.
Even better, as most of this will be done where the electricity will be used on the exact site where it’s generated, no new transmission lines need to be built to enable it.
2. Yesterday, Tuesday, 10-27-2009, the San Jose Mercury News reported that Energy Secretary, Steven Chu announced the first $151 million in grants for potentially high reward experiments in energy related projects.
“U. S. looking for clean-tech ‘home runs’ “
Some of these will fail or not do very much. But those that succeed will quite literally generate billions in venture capital to expand them and tens of thousands of new jobs.
There will be another $249 million in such grants as the total was reported to eventually be $400 million.
These included:
a way intended to make desalinization of water enough more energy efficient to enable us to stop over-drawing our rivers and underground water supplies AND supply growing populations and farmers.
an experiment designed to potentially double the amount of electricity held by lithium ion batteries used in electric cars, plug-in hybrids, electronic devices and possibly storage for solar generated electricity in homes and commercial facilities.
a way to make wind turbines at lower cost.
a membrane that may be able to capture carbon dioxide thus enabling cost effective storage or redirection to algae to make biofuels in coal or natural gas burning installations.
work on systems to enable individuals and institutions to easily monitor energy use and reduce and optimize the amount of energy used and its cost.
And those were just the grants in the area served by the San Jose Mercury News!
3. For large scale solar photovoltaic and solar thermal electricity generation to be useful and cost effective, we must have a transmission system that can quickly be attached to such plants and deliver the electricity to the people and industries that need it and are not nearby. (Many new wind generation areas and some locations for new nuclear plants have the exact same problem.)
In addition, we need to make that transmission system safer and more reliable and waste less electricity than the one we have now.
Upgrading our current transmission system for electricity enough to accomplish these things will create thousands of new jobs and improve our economy as much or more than the Interstate Highway system did when it was built.
That will take billions of dollars.
As of last Tuesday, we have an $8.1 billion dollar downpayment on that system!
On Tuesday, 10-27-2009, President Obama announced a $3.4 billion dollar government supported fund for electricity grid modernization projects. With the matching $4.7 billion in private investments, that’s an $8.1 billion dollar downpayment on making an upgrade to our electric transmission grid comparable to building the Interstate Highway System.
That will create so many jobs and boost the economy so much even the US Chamber of Commerce praised this clean-energy initiative.
These three developments each individually will enable the building and use of far more renewable energy than we have now and create jobs and improve our economy.
The effects of all three together over the next one to 3 years and beyond is the first thing I’ve seen that gives me real confidence our recession has something that will cause it to end -- and that it will end and put people back to work.
So they will each increase our energy efficiency and amount of renewable energy AND improve our economy.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Bipartisan progress in the Senate....
Today's post: Wednesday, 10-21-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Further, it’s extremely clear that the most supported and economically beneficial solution to add energy that does not use oil nor burn fossil fuels to release more CO2 into air that already has too much is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy production, particularly those that generate electricity & to dramatically increase energy efficiency and reduce the amount of energy that is now wasted.
And, of those the more important long range solution is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy generation.
Supporting federal legislation would help. That’s why the news I got last week that begins to make that much more likely was such welcome news.:
Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) published a joint op-ed piece in the New York Times on Saturday (10-10), calling for bipartisan support for passing climate legislation soon.
They stressed that clean energy is an economic & national security issue, and argued that the United States could lead the world in the increasingly competitive global clean economy. See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/opinion/11kerrygraham.html?scp=1&sq=kerry%20graham&st=cse.
(From the Clean Economy Network
CEN Weekly Intelligence Update October 13, 2009.
You can sign up for this free weekly email at http://www.cleaneconomy.net .)
Here’s a key quote from their Op Ed piece.:
“Many Democrats insist on tough new standards for curtailing the carbon emissions that cause global warming. Many Republicans remain concerned about the cost to Americans relative to the environmental benefit and are adamant about breaking our addiction to foreign sources of oil.”
Their solution is to work a compromise that does its best to combine the best and most safely doable from each party’s wish list.
Their key idea is to build an energy bill to both reduce our impact on global warming AND increase our energy independence while installing safeguards to prevent near term increases in energy costs at a rate that would cause economic harm.
With only one exception, their Op Ed piece lists a good compromise and combined wish list.
A. For global warming,
1. Take practical steps to build more nuclear electric generation plants.
Such plants use no fossil fuels and release no CO2; and a massive increase in renewable energy generated electricity PLUS more nuclear generated electricity produces a much more stable and predictable energy supply than only a massive increase in renewable energy generated electricity. Paradoxically, because that makes a massive increase in renewable energy generated electricity more practical, it may well make it more doable and faster to arrive.
2. Find and insist on clean or cleaner ways to burn coal.
We already have a lot of it & burn huge amounts of it to make electricity now which releases a lot of carbon dioxide. Carbon sequestration looks more than a bit iffy to me because it’s hard to do in volume and looks iffy to do securely plus adding a massive extra cost. But turning much of the coal into natural gas which generates much of its heat by burning the hydrogen and with far less air pollution, turning some of it into gasoline as the Germans once did during World War II, and whenever any coal or natural gas is burned in plants to generate electricity, feeding all or most of the CO2 generated to algae to make biofuels allows us to use the Carbon twice and to substitute for oil supplies that would otherwise run out sooner.
3. Increase energy efficiency.
This reduces CO2 release since you can burn the same or less amount of fossil fuels and still have economic growth. It means you no longer have to keep building more coal fired plants for example.
4. Economically safe start up of cap & trade markets.
By making them gentler and slower starting at first and more safe for the economy, you make them enactable and even in their early stages they will reduce CO2. And, by enacting them, they will eventually reduce CO2 release even more over time. Further, they begin to provide extra financial incentives to increase energy efficiency and to use and install renewable energy sources.
5. The only aspect their Op Ed piece fails to address directly is a strong emphasis on legislation ensuring massive increases in renewable energy installations.
They do however suggest that ensuring that we are competitive with the best clean technology companies in the world and developing and supporting such companies here in the United States would help ensure a strong economy. And, if that set of goals is met, it will help ensure much more building of renewable energy installations.
Clearly, however it is fostered, building of renewable energy installations in large quantities will help slow global warming.
B. For breaking our addiction to foreign sources of oil and doing so in ways that avoid over-taxing or slowing our economy,
1. Take practical steps to build more nuclear electric generation plants.
Since these plants generate electricity at night when so many more people are asleep, added nuclear power is a superb way to provide electricity at a time of day when it can recharge the batteries in all electric vehicles and plug-hybrids. That has the potential of cutting our entire use of petroleum in half or more. And that in turn makes importing far less oil from outside sources much more doable.
2. Find and insist on clean or cleaner ways to burn coal.
Since two of the more doable ways, making methane gas and gasoline from coal; and making gasoline, alcohol, diesel fuel, and/or jet fuel from algae that eats the CO2 released when coal or methane made from it is burned -- both generate fuels cars and trucks can burn with no outside oil, or ANY oil at all for that matter, needed.
3. More but highly environmentally responsible offshore oil drilling.
The level of environmental safety needed &/or direct political resistance from West Coast states suggest that this is either undoable or in far smaller volume than proponents might like in those locations.
But, the prospects both politically and from the potential amount of accessible oil are vastly better for more drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Second, if the track record of the environmental controls is good enough there & once oil prices begin again to rise world wide, drilling off our West Coast might become more likely.
Also, both off Baja California and in the Southern Gulf of Mexico, a deal with Mexico might add yet another way to add more offshore drilling.
Lastly, as oil prices begin again to rise world wide, drilling into oil deposits offshore from our West Coast may be become economically affordable by drilling into them from rigs actually located ONSHORE.
4. Increase energy efficiency.
Every time we use new more energy efficient devices in them or retrofit more energy efficient devices and systems into our vehicles and buildings we need less oil and less natural gas or oil or coal generated electricity. That enables us to use far less oil and can substantially contribute to reducing our dependence on outside sources of oil.
5. Economically safe start up of cap & trade markets.
By making them gentler and slower starting at first and more safe for the economy, you make them enactable and even in their early stages they will reduce the amount of oil we use. And, by enacting them, they will eventually reduce the amount of oil we use even more over time. In addition, they will begin to provide extra financial incentives to increase energy efficiency and to use and install renewable energy sources and that will also reduce the amount of oil we use and sharply reduce the amount of oil we need to import.
X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X*
By the way, it’s my opinion that the countries that supply the oil now that we will no longer need will do fine if these things come to pass.
1. The process will take many years and they will have very slow drop offs in the amount of oil they send our way at first.
2. Since the rest of the world is developing economically, they will have other customers for most of the oil we stop getting from them.
3. These countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, have as much solar thermal reserves as they do oil. As the world turns to more renewable energy and the solar thermal industry develops more cost effective technology and economies of scale, these countries will add very large revenues from that source at about the same time they get less from oil either because they have fewer buyers eventually or when they begin to run out.
Today's post: Wednesday, 10-21-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Further, it’s extremely clear that the most supported and economically beneficial solution to add energy that does not use oil nor burn fossil fuels to release more CO2 into air that already has too much is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy production, particularly those that generate electricity & to dramatically increase energy efficiency and reduce the amount of energy that is now wasted.
And, of those the more important long range solution is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy generation.
Supporting federal legislation would help. That’s why the news I got last week that begins to make that much more likely was such welcome news.:
Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) published a joint op-ed piece in the New York Times on Saturday (10-10), calling for bipartisan support for passing climate legislation soon.
They stressed that clean energy is an economic & national security issue, and argued that the United States could lead the world in the increasingly competitive global clean economy. See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/opinion/11kerrygraham.html?scp=1&sq=kerry%20graham&st=cse.
(From the Clean Economy Network
CEN Weekly Intelligence Update October 13, 2009.
You can sign up for this free weekly email at http://www.cleaneconomy.net .)
Here’s a key quote from their Op Ed piece.:
“Many Democrats insist on tough new standards for curtailing the carbon emissions that cause global warming. Many Republicans remain concerned about the cost to Americans relative to the environmental benefit and are adamant about breaking our addiction to foreign sources of oil.”
Their solution is to work a compromise that does its best to combine the best and most safely doable from each party’s wish list.
Their key idea is to build an energy bill to both reduce our impact on global warming AND increase our energy independence while installing safeguards to prevent near term increases in energy costs at a rate that would cause economic harm.
With only one exception, their Op Ed piece lists a good compromise and combined wish list.
A. For global warming,
1. Take practical steps to build more nuclear electric generation plants.
Such plants use no fossil fuels and release no CO2; and a massive increase in renewable energy generated electricity PLUS more nuclear generated electricity produces a much more stable and predictable energy supply than only a massive increase in renewable energy generated electricity. Paradoxically, because that makes a massive increase in renewable energy generated electricity more practical, it may well make it more doable and faster to arrive.
2. Find and insist on clean or cleaner ways to burn coal.
We already have a lot of it & burn huge amounts of it to make electricity now which releases a lot of carbon dioxide. Carbon sequestration looks more than a bit iffy to me because it’s hard to do in volume and looks iffy to do securely plus adding a massive extra cost. But turning much of the coal into natural gas which generates much of its heat by burning the hydrogen and with far less air pollution, turning some of it into gasoline as the Germans once did during World War II, and whenever any coal or natural gas is burned in plants to generate electricity, feeding all or most of the CO2 generated to algae to make biofuels allows us to use the Carbon twice and to substitute for oil supplies that would otherwise run out sooner.
3. Increase energy efficiency.
This reduces CO2 release since you can burn the same or less amount of fossil fuels and still have economic growth. It means you no longer have to keep building more coal fired plants for example.
4. Economically safe start up of cap & trade markets.
By making them gentler and slower starting at first and more safe for the economy, you make them enactable and even in their early stages they will reduce CO2. And, by enacting them, they will eventually reduce CO2 release even more over time. Further, they begin to provide extra financial incentives to increase energy efficiency and to use and install renewable energy sources.
5. The only aspect their Op Ed piece fails to address directly is a strong emphasis on legislation ensuring massive increases in renewable energy installations.
They do however suggest that ensuring that we are competitive with the best clean technology companies in the world and developing and supporting such companies here in the United States would help ensure a strong economy. And, if that set of goals is met, it will help ensure much more building of renewable energy installations.
Clearly, however it is fostered, building of renewable energy installations in large quantities will help slow global warming.
B. For breaking our addiction to foreign sources of oil and doing so in ways that avoid over-taxing or slowing our economy,
1. Take practical steps to build more nuclear electric generation plants.
Since these plants generate electricity at night when so many more people are asleep, added nuclear power is a superb way to provide electricity at a time of day when it can recharge the batteries in all electric vehicles and plug-hybrids. That has the potential of cutting our entire use of petroleum in half or more. And that in turn makes importing far less oil from outside sources much more doable.
2. Find and insist on clean or cleaner ways to burn coal.
Since two of the more doable ways, making methane gas and gasoline from coal; and making gasoline, alcohol, diesel fuel, and/or jet fuel from algae that eats the CO2 released when coal or methane made from it is burned -- both generate fuels cars and trucks can burn with no outside oil, or ANY oil at all for that matter, needed.
3. More but highly environmentally responsible offshore oil drilling.
The level of environmental safety needed &/or direct political resistance from West Coast states suggest that this is either undoable or in far smaller volume than proponents might like in those locations.
But, the prospects both politically and from the potential amount of accessible oil are vastly better for more drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Second, if the track record of the environmental controls is good enough there & once oil prices begin again to rise world wide, drilling off our West Coast might become more likely.
Also, both off Baja California and in the Southern Gulf of Mexico, a deal with Mexico might add yet another way to add more offshore drilling.
Lastly, as oil prices begin again to rise world wide, drilling into oil deposits offshore from our West Coast may be become economically affordable by drilling into them from rigs actually located ONSHORE.
4. Increase energy efficiency.
Every time we use new more energy efficient devices in them or retrofit more energy efficient devices and systems into our vehicles and buildings we need less oil and less natural gas or oil or coal generated electricity. That enables us to use far less oil and can substantially contribute to reducing our dependence on outside sources of oil.
5. Economically safe start up of cap & trade markets.
By making them gentler and slower starting at first and more safe for the economy, you make them enactable and even in their early stages they will reduce the amount of oil we use. And, by enacting them, they will eventually reduce the amount of oil we use even more over time. In addition, they will begin to provide extra financial incentives to increase energy efficiency and to use and install renewable energy sources and that will also reduce the amount of oil we use and sharply reduce the amount of oil we need to import.
X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X* X*
By the way, it’s my opinion that the countries that supply the oil now that we will no longer need will do fine if these things come to pass.
1. The process will take many years and they will have very slow drop offs in the amount of oil they send our way at first.
2. Since the rest of the world is developing economically, they will have other customers for most of the oil we stop getting from them.
3. These countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, have as much solar thermal reserves as they do oil. As the world turns to more renewable energy and the solar thermal industry develops more cost effective technology and economies of scale, these countries will add very large revenues from that source at about the same time they get less from oil either because they have fewer buyers eventually or when they begin to run out.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Very good news in California for renewable energy....
Today's post: Wednesday, 10-14-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Further, it’s extremely clear that the most supported and economically beneficial solution to add energy that does not use oil nor burn fossil fuels to release more CO2 into air that already has too much is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy production, particularly those that generate electricity & to dramatically increase energy efficiency and reduce the amount of energy that is now wasted.
And, of those the more important long range solution is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy generation.
There are two ways that have been proven to help do this.
One is to pay the going rate for renewable energy fed into the grid even from small generators.
The other is to use the same kind of Feed-in tariff that guarantees builders of larger renewable energy generation projects that Germany used so successfully that makes it profitable AND FINANCABLE up front for builders to build the renewable energy generation production projects they will build. The contracts that give them a modest profit and guaranteed income over the life of the contracts are the key to this.
The state of California just took two key steps in the right direction.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed two key bills Sunday, 10-11, 2009 that will boost solar power. Since I live in California & also know that what we do here is often copied elsewhere, I’m extremely pleased and encouraged.
Here are the two key bills he signed.:
1. AB920, requires the utilities to pay a homeowner whose solar array or small wind generator produces more electricity during the year than the customer uses. Until now, if a homeowner's panels produced more energy than the home used in an entire year, the utilities got the excess for free.
For people with larger homes with room for a lot of solar cells this may make installing solar cells much more affordable since they will get some income in return in some cases. It will also make installing a large enough system to come close to powering the home by itself even in less sunny weather, since they will get paid for the excess they generate in sunny weather.
It may even cause the building of micro-projects to generate renewable energy by guaranteeing the electricity they generate is marketable.
(I’ve not yet read the bill to see if such installations or a similar deal for businesses is included as well as the one reported for homeowners. One report I saw suggests it might but I do not yet know.)
If we need more renewable energy, & we very much do need it and soon, this policy has made such good sense, I’ve wanted this done for quite some time. So it’s great news that it has been made California law – or will be the day it takes effect it will be.
2. SB32, will expand California's feed-in tariff for renewable power. Used widely in Europe, feed-in tariffs establish a price the utilities pay to buy electricity from businesses with solar arrays.
California already has a feed-in tariff, but it only covers renewable power projects capable of generating 1.5 megawatts or less. Under SB32, the limit is increased to 3 megawatts.
This is much smaller progress since the existing program is quite a bit less than the German model that is proven to work so well.
But, since it is on a much bigger scale than paying those homeowners who manage to produce more electricity from renewables than they consume—and because even if partial it’s a step in the right direction and now can boost projects twice as large, it is still modest but important progress.
When ALL projects from tiny to much larger than 3 megawatts can get a feed-in tariff contract as good as the Germans used, I’ll be happier and we will get a lot more renewable energy built.
That said, in California, we now are headed there more than we were before.
And, it’s news of progress that will begin to help.
Today's post: Wednesday, 10-14-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
Further, it’s extremely clear that the most supported and economically beneficial solution to add energy that does not use oil nor burn fossil fuels to release more CO2 into air that already has too much is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy production, particularly those that generate electricity & to dramatically increase energy efficiency and reduce the amount of energy that is now wasted.
And, of those the more important long range solution is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy generation.
There are two ways that have been proven to help do this.
One is to pay the going rate for renewable energy fed into the grid even from small generators.
The other is to use the same kind of Feed-in tariff that guarantees builders of larger renewable energy generation projects that Germany used so successfully that makes it profitable AND FINANCABLE up front for builders to build the renewable energy generation production projects they will build. The contracts that give them a modest profit and guaranteed income over the life of the contracts are the key to this.
The state of California just took two key steps in the right direction.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed two key bills Sunday, 10-11, 2009 that will boost solar power. Since I live in California & also know that what we do here is often copied elsewhere, I’m extremely pleased and encouraged.
Here are the two key bills he signed.:
1. AB920, requires the utilities to pay a homeowner whose solar array or small wind generator produces more electricity during the year than the customer uses. Until now, if a homeowner's panels produced more energy than the home used in an entire year, the utilities got the excess for free.
For people with larger homes with room for a lot of solar cells this may make installing solar cells much more affordable since they will get some income in return in some cases. It will also make installing a large enough system to come close to powering the home by itself even in less sunny weather, since they will get paid for the excess they generate in sunny weather.
It may even cause the building of micro-projects to generate renewable energy by guaranteeing the electricity they generate is marketable.
(I’ve not yet read the bill to see if such installations or a similar deal for businesses is included as well as the one reported for homeowners. One report I saw suggests it might but I do not yet know.)
If we need more renewable energy, & we very much do need it and soon, this policy has made such good sense, I’ve wanted this done for quite some time. So it’s great news that it has been made California law – or will be the day it takes effect it will be.
2. SB32, will expand California's feed-in tariff for renewable power. Used widely in Europe, feed-in tariffs establish a price the utilities pay to buy electricity from businesses with solar arrays.
California already has a feed-in tariff, but it only covers renewable power projects capable of generating 1.5 megawatts or less. Under SB32, the limit is increased to 3 megawatts.
This is much smaller progress since the existing program is quite a bit less than the German model that is proven to work so well.
But, since it is on a much bigger scale than paying those homeowners who manage to produce more electricity from renewables than they consume—and because even if partial it’s a step in the right direction and now can boost projects twice as large, it is still modest but important progress.
When ALL projects from tiny to much larger than 3 megawatts can get a feed-in tariff contract as good as the Germans used, I’ll be happier and we will get a lot more renewable energy built.
That said, in California, we now are headed there more than we were before.
And, it’s news of progress that will begin to help.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Warming is real & there are two other reasons to act....
Today's post: Wednesday, 10-7-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
1. I’ve seen first hand that global warming is real. And the likely costs of global warming are huge and a bit frightening.
For most of the last 25 years my parents had a cabin the Sierra of California just low enough in elevation that they didn’t get a lot of snow (& closer than the Lake Tahoe area to where they and most of the rest of our family lived in the San Francisco Bay Area.)
Because cold winter weather becomes colder, and in this location snowier, at higher elevations, if the climate warms up snow will fall at in increasingly higher elevations and plants that don’t grow where it gets too cold will be found at increasingly higher elevations.
That’s exactly what happened at my parents’ cabin. They saw the snow line go to higher elevations. And, poison oak, that doesn’t grow where it gets to cold, went from none at all in the community near my parents’ cabin to having some to having a lot over the last 25 years. They saw other similar changes in what plants grew there also.
The ample pictures of huge decreases in glaciers suggest strongly that this effect is world-wide and NOT just found in California.
So, since global warming looks quite real, what problems will it cause?
Since warming, as it continues, will flood coastal cities that contain much of the world’s population and economy now, that’s a very big deal indeed. The costs that look to be needed for flood protection, as the Netherlands has done, or relocations will be enormous.
We’ve seen initial evidence that global warming may increase the number of droughts and floods and storms such as tornados & hurricanes or make the ones that occur worse. The costs that look to be needed to combat these effects will be enormous. And the economic productivity lost that would not have been won’t help either. Worse, our food supply will potentially be reduced as these effects harm agriculture.
2. Mining and burning coal as it is now practiced has been expanding as our economy grows. But in addition to the huge amount of CO2 this has generated & will continue to do even under the best and most optimistic scenarios, this causes land and water pollution during mining and when the coal is burned, it kills trees with acid rain that we need to remove the CO2 from the air & poisons the fish and seafood we eat with the mercury it throws into the air. And, there is evidence this mercury is poisoning US. That harms our brains and can cause both decreases in reasoning ability & memory -- & it can lead to mental decline as well. That slows our economy and creates more medical costs.
Burning coal without adequate filtering of the smoke also creates enough haze to harm agriculture and cause lung and heart disease – as it has already begun to do in China and the countries downwind from China. That effect too creates more medical costs and harms the economic productivity of the people it harms.
So, even if global warming were not the concern it is, it’s become clear that until or unless we clean up the process of mining and burning coal AND burn far less, we will have increasing environmental problems and harm both to people AND to our economy.
That will make coal more expensive to burn even without any regulations on CO2 released that tax or limit the CO2 that is released. So it will pay us to have alternatives in place soon that cost less.
3. At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
That means we have a number one priority to act to save our economy from these effects even if global warming weren’t real.
As gasoline prices went from $2.00 a gallon to over $4.50 a gallon in our part of California recently it slowed our economy noticeably here. And the similar increases in the cost of gasoline elsewhere in the United States helped trigger the recession since it both increased the cost of doing business and reduced the amount of other purchases consumers were able to make. It certainly did for my wife and me.
Imagine the effects of gasoline rapidly going to $10 a gallon or more in today’s dollars and having gas lines and rationing on top of that -- with worse to come.
Unless we very rapidly increase the energy efficiency of our economy and add huge amounts of renewable energy sources soon we may well see exactly that.
So, that means that opposing the switch from coal and oil to increasing the energy efficiency of our economy and adding huge amounts of renewable energy in part by increased regulation of fossil fuels and braking their use in some way -- will harm our economy and the people and businesses in it.
That means opposition to global warming and acting to switch our economy to these new sources is very BAD for business -- and will be so much sooner than many now think.
And, all three of these concerns make the recent opposition of exactly that kind by the US Chamber of Commerce an extremely ill advised policy indeed!
The companies with leaders who understand this likely complained to the leadership of US Chamber of Commerce apparently with no effect.
So, those companies recently have been leaving the US Chamber of Commerce and declining to any longer be members or associated with it.
I’m pleased to say that this includes PG&E and Apple Computer that are headquartered here in the Silicon Valley area.
There IS a point that makes sense to increase energy efficiency and renewable energy supplies more at first than making use fossil fuel energy more expensive to avoid shocking our reeling economy.
But not understanding that the need to make this switch is real and pandering to people as if they are not informed or quite bright to oppose it as the US Chamber of Commerce has been doing are simply not OK.
I think Tom Freidman’s idea of the United States racing the Chinese to do the most to develop and add huge amounts of renewable energy is dramatically better policy.
Today's post: Wednesday, 10-7-2009
We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.
1. I’ve seen first hand that global warming is real. And the likely costs of global warming are huge and a bit frightening.
For most of the last 25 years my parents had a cabin the Sierra of California just low enough in elevation that they didn’t get a lot of snow (& closer than the Lake Tahoe area to where they and most of the rest of our family lived in the San Francisco Bay Area.)
Because cold winter weather becomes colder, and in this location snowier, at higher elevations, if the climate warms up snow will fall at in increasingly higher elevations and plants that don’t grow where it gets too cold will be found at increasingly higher elevations.
That’s exactly what happened at my parents’ cabin. They saw the snow line go to higher elevations. And, poison oak, that doesn’t grow where it gets to cold, went from none at all in the community near my parents’ cabin to having some to having a lot over the last 25 years. They saw other similar changes in what plants grew there also.
The ample pictures of huge decreases in glaciers suggest strongly that this effect is world-wide and NOT just found in California.
So, since global warming looks quite real, what problems will it cause?
Since warming, as it continues, will flood coastal cities that contain much of the world’s population and economy now, that’s a very big deal indeed. The costs that look to be needed for flood protection, as the Netherlands has done, or relocations will be enormous.
We’ve seen initial evidence that global warming may increase the number of droughts and floods and storms such as tornados & hurricanes or make the ones that occur worse. The costs that look to be needed to combat these effects will be enormous. And the economic productivity lost that would not have been won’t help either. Worse, our food supply will potentially be reduced as these effects harm agriculture.
2. Mining and burning coal as it is now practiced has been expanding as our economy grows. But in addition to the huge amount of CO2 this has generated & will continue to do even under the best and most optimistic scenarios, this causes land and water pollution during mining and when the coal is burned, it kills trees with acid rain that we need to remove the CO2 from the air & poisons the fish and seafood we eat with the mercury it throws into the air. And, there is evidence this mercury is poisoning US. That harms our brains and can cause both decreases in reasoning ability & memory -- & it can lead to mental decline as well. That slows our economy and creates more medical costs.
Burning coal without adequate filtering of the smoke also creates enough haze to harm agriculture and cause lung and heart disease – as it has already begun to do in China and the countries downwind from China. That effect too creates more medical costs and harms the economic productivity of the people it harms.
So, even if global warming were not the concern it is, it’s become clear that until or unless we clean up the process of mining and burning coal AND burn far less, we will have increasing environmental problems and harm both to people AND to our economy.
That will make coal more expensive to burn even without any regulations on CO2 released that tax or limit the CO2 that is released. So it will pay us to have alternatives in place soon that cost less.
3. At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.
And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.
That means we have a number one priority to act to save our economy from these effects even if global warming weren’t real.
As gasoline prices went from $2.00 a gallon to over $4.50 a gallon in our part of California recently it slowed our economy noticeably here. And the similar increases in the cost of gasoline elsewhere in the United States helped trigger the recession since it both increased the cost of doing business and reduced the amount of other purchases consumers were able to make. It certainly did for my wife and me.
Imagine the effects of gasoline rapidly going to $10 a gallon or more in today’s dollars and having gas lines and rationing on top of that -- with worse to come.
Unless we very rapidly increase the energy efficiency of our economy and add huge amounts of renewable energy sources soon we may well see exactly that.
So, that means that opposing the switch from coal and oil to increasing the energy efficiency of our economy and adding huge amounts of renewable energy in part by increased regulation of fossil fuels and braking their use in some way -- will harm our economy and the people and businesses in it.
That means opposition to global warming and acting to switch our economy to these new sources is very BAD for business -- and will be so much sooner than many now think.
And, all three of these concerns make the recent opposition of exactly that kind by the US Chamber of Commerce an extremely ill advised policy indeed!
The companies with leaders who understand this likely complained to the leadership of US Chamber of Commerce apparently with no effect.
So, those companies recently have been leaving the US Chamber of Commerce and declining to any longer be members or associated with it.
I’m pleased to say that this includes PG&E and Apple Computer that are headquartered here in the Silicon Valley area.
There IS a point that makes sense to increase energy efficiency and renewable energy supplies more at first than making use fossil fuel energy more expensive to avoid shocking our reeling economy.
But not understanding that the need to make this switch is real and pandering to people as if they are not informed or quite bright to oppose it as the US Chamber of Commerce has been doing are simply not OK.
I think Tom Freidman’s idea of the United States racing the Chinese to do the most to develop and add huge amounts of renewable energy is dramatically better policy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)