Four clean energy good news reports....

Today's post: Wednesday, 5-18-2010

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. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 3 years from now.

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.

Today’s post:

Four clean energy good news reports....

1. LED bulbs that can be used in existing lamps and light fixtures now in homes are very important. They use 11 to 14 % of the energy when compared to incandescent bulbs.

Compact fluorescent bulbs use about 15%. But compact fluorescent bulbs cause environmental mercury pollution when discarded as most people likely still do and may harm you if you break one in your home because of the mercury and mercury vapor released. Some are better now but often still take a bit to come on to fully bright after you turn them on. And, compacts like all fluorescent lights, often have a harsh tint.

LED bulbs are the most efficient bulbs. They contain no mercury! They now come in warmer looking colors. And they are truly instant on as well. LED bulbs also are notably cooler in their temperature than fluorescents and incandescent bulbs. So they warm a room less in hot weather and are less of a potential fire hazard in some uses. They also really do last dramatically longer than incandescent bulbs and also longer than compact fluorescents have done in practice.

The problem has been their too large size physically and great expense and the very low availability in stores and the low light sizes they were coming in.

**I read that you can now go to Home Depot stores and buy Philips 60 watt LED bulbs for just $40!

I’ve not yet bought one yet or seen one. But the report is that they do fit most fixtures and lamps designed originally for incandescent bulbs.

At that price, they begin to be affordable enough to replace all the incandescent bulbs & compact fluorescents in people’s homes.

If you have room on your credit card or enough savings to buy enough for your whole house once you’ve bought one and tested it fits everywhere, that can work for you.

Or, you can simply buy one a month until you’ve replaced all your light bulbs with them.

It’s still pricey. But I’ve read they last over 10 years or maybe even 20. And once those who can afford them now do this, the price will come down and more people will buy them.

In addition, utilities may yet realize it will pay them to finance people to buy them. For some utilities, even buying them for customers or selling them to customers for an 80% discount may save money compared with adding a new plant to generate electricity.

So this is extremely good news indeed.

2. The quick to charge but low range Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrids ARE resulting in quite large reductions in the gasoline needed to drive according to actual owner experience as reported a couple of weeks ago yesterday by GM.

**Here’s part of their press release and my comments.

“2011-05-03 DETROIT – Chevrolet Volt owners made fewer trips to the gas station in March, going an average of 30 days – or nearly a month – between fill-ups.

“Volt owners drove an average of 800 miles between fill-ups since the Volt launched in December, and in March they averaged 1,000 miles,” said Cristi Landy, Volt marketing director.

Steve Wojtanek, a Volt buyer in Boca Raton, Fla. “I have made it my goal to drive as efficiently as possible and I am seeing the results, with more than 3,417 miles under my belt – of which 2,225 are EV miles.” A Volt owner since December, Wojtanek is averaging 122 miles per gallon and visiting the gas station about once a month.”

That means he is using only about 35% as much gas as he would in a comparable gasoline only car of the Volt’s size.

So, we are on our way now, I think, to having a third of the drivers have short range plug-in hybrids like the Volt, a third having longer range hybrids that cut gasoline buying and use by more like 90% , and one third all electrics that cut back gasoline by 100 %.

Once that happens, we will likely get to the point we no longer need to import oil. So this initial report is good news indeed. It will also cut back on the CO2 released by driving and truck transport now. And, it will do so even more as clean energy production of electricity comes online more and more.

It may take more like 30 years than the 5 years I’d prefer to see. But this report shows it is on its way!

3. Solar thermal generation of electricity is very important for several reasons.

The Southwest United States has enough solar thermal potential to supply the total electricity needs of the entire country.

(Since virtually all of Mexico has that potential – about three times that much – that is quite significant. If even some of that potential solar thermal is built, there will be enough new jobs in Mexico to stop worries about people their going to the United States for jobs.)

In addition, solar thermal energy can be stored very efficiently for several hours. That means that sunshine in the afternoon in California can produce electricity for Chicago or Dallas that night. It certainly can be used that night in San Diego!

The good news is that there are several big players in building solar thermal electricity generation. Many of them are making progress around the world.

**Here’s the recent good news in California.:

BrightSource Energy is about to raise $250 million in an initial public offering which will likely help achieve its goal to use solar-thermal technology across the southwest United States at generators with the equivalent capacity of 11 atomic plants.

They are planning to build solar thermal large scale electric generation plants “that could potentially earn $4 billion of revenue and produce 11 gigawatts on 110,000 acres in California and elsewhere in the southwest United States.”

"BrightSource Energy, Inc. designs, develops and sells solar thermal power systems that deliver reliable and cost-competitive clean energy to utilities and industrial companies." (http://www.brightsourceenergy.com )

4. Although there are many companies also building large scale photovoltaic plants to generate electricity as well, the very valuable potential of photovoltaic solar is to have it put on nearly every roof of every building and on canopies over most parking lots. Those may be smaller. But tens of thousands of them or more will add up!

(SunPower is one of the companies building the large scale power plants and Sun Edison is helping large businesses install photovoltaic systems.)

But until now, it has been very challenging to install solar for homeowners. They had to be able to finance and be willing to pay large dollars up front to install solar AND arrange one or more in-home appointments with estimators etc.

What if all homeowners could simply give their address and be willing to make a modest monthly payment and have the solar installed by next week?

That would certainly launch large increases all over the country of photovoltaic solar installations.

What has been a well kept secret is that this has already been possible for a while!

Sungevity here in the San Francisco Bay area does just exactly that!

By using satellite technology and their knowledge of solar, they can give homeowners an accurate quote to install solar with no need for an in-home visit. And, their financing makes the solar easy to finance.

See http://www.sungevity.com .

**Here’s the news.

Sungevity is about to get a huge boost for its sales efforts as they just signed a deal with the 1725 store Lowe's home improvement chain and company to market their solar quote and financing service.

As this news gets out, solar installations all over the country will go up. And it will happen in every state.


It’s still early in the process and far too late for my taste, but the net result of news like these four reports is that the clean energy economy is really beginning to pick up momentum and accelerate!

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.