Saving electricity with better lights....
Today's post: Wednesday, 9-21-2010
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 an 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:
Saving electricity with better lights....
We need massive new installation of renewable energy sources including solar and wind and to become much more energy efficient soon to prevent economic collapse when oil prices surge sometime in the next decade or two.
That’s true even if global warming stops by itself. (The recent fires and drought and record temperatures in Texas suggest the reverse! The people there who don’t believe in global warming didn’t notice apparently.)
Since we don’t yet have massive installations of renewable energy sources, that means it becomes even more critical to find and install all kinds of energy saving and more energy efficient devices that use electricity.
We’ve posted on ways to make homes more heat proof in sunny, hot weather because it can cut air conditioning costs up to 100 %. Even worst case locations can easily save over 50% on air conditioning costs with doable heat proofing.
We’ve posted on how solar canopies or roofs over parking lots not only generate the most electricity on the same sunny, hot days, they save the air conditioning costs for the people who park under them.
Today, lighting uses as much as 25% of all the electricity we use. So if we cut the electricity used by our lights five to one, that gives us about 20% of the electricity we use now for things like electric and plug-in hybrid cars and more computers and severs – WITHOUT needing to add any more electricity generation.
LED lights use as little as 10 % to 12% of the energy incandescent light bulbs use to make the same amount of light. LED lights also use half as much electricity or less than compact fluorescent bulbs – AND, unlike compact fluorescent bulbs, LED lights contain no toxic mercury.
(Many people who have compact fluorescent bulbs don’t know they contain mercury. They are unaware that when one breaks, the mercury causes that room to have a hazardous materials problem and that failure to deal with this correctly can harm their health. And people often are careless in disposing of things. So putting lots of compact fluorescent bulbs into homes is guaranteed to cause lots of added mercury in household trash.)
LED lights also last something like a hundred times longer than incandescent light bulbs and many times as long as compact fluorescent bulbs.
That means that LED lights are dramatically better and more desirable to use.
So why haven’t LED light bulbs already replaced everything out there?
The reasons that has not already happened are these three.:
1. Like the early compact fluorescent bulbs, LED light bulbs that fit in the fixtures that were made for incandescent light bulbs have not been available. This one is beginning to be solved. There are some LED bulbs that make the same amount of light that do fit.
2. Even now when LED bulbs that do fit fixtures are beginning to be available, they can cost $60 each or more while incandescent light bulbs cost a dollar and compact fluorescent bulbs cost less than $10 often.
3. Even though over time LED bulbs last so much longer and use so much less electricity to make light, they are already a good deal on lifetime costs, few people have replaced their other bulbs with LED bulbs. If your house takes 20 bulbs now, replacing all 20 with LED bulbs takes over $1200!
So, the third thing we don’t yet have is financing to buy all the LED bulbs you need at one time. A five year loan for $1200 would be about $24 a month. Most people can afford $24 a month.
The good news is that more and more companies are already making LED bulbs that will fit in the fixtures that were made for incandescent light bulbs.
And, two companies I know of are already working to cut the cost of making LED lights at least in half, Bridgelux and GLO AB.
Once all three of these problems are solved, the only light bulbs that won’t be LED light bulbs are those that are specialty lights of some kind. LED lights don’t yet make some colors or very high intensity lights.
Showing posts with label green venture capital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label green venture capital. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Solyndra had problems but its federal backing was and is a good idea....
Today's post: Wednesday, 9-14-2010
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 an 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:
Solyndra had problems but its federal backing was and is a good idea….
We need massive new installation of renewable energy sources including solar and wind and to become much more energy efficient soon to prevent economic collapse when oil prices surge sometime in the next decade or two.
That’s true even if global warming stops by itself. (The recent fires and drought and record temperatures in Texas suggest the reverse! The people there who don’t believe in global warming didn’t notice apparently.)
Solyndra proposed a way to install efficient solar photovoltaic cells quickly and on a large scale.
Had it worked, it would have helped produce the badly needed new solar power in the large amounts we need.
So the federal funding had the correct goal.
Their solution turned out to be overpriced as prices in their market dropped before they became established. Some companies have recovered from that.
But they also got too much funding before they got enough sales and feedback from buyers. They also got too much upfront funding instead of having funding contingent on meeting milestones and did NOT use the safer progress payment funding model.
Many very smart people with money and experienced venture capitalists have made these same mistakes.
But what they people trying to criticize the investment or make political capital of Solyndra’s failure don’t know is that success in backing new companies in growth industries does NOT require they all be successful.
If three of ten survive and one does really well investing in the ten often more than doubles your starting money. And, this can happen in few enough years to be interesting indeed!
Secondly, investing in new industry actually works BETTER if you invest quickly and fail quickly. That way, you learn enough to make more successful investments while that industry is still in high growth mode.
So, the federal government program that backed Solyndra invested in a potential solution for the problem that needed solving.
In this case, they failed quickly. They will be better informed for their next investments.
So even in the next few months, they should make better investments than they would have done had Solyndra not failed.
But there is far, far more to this story.
The government was working to get large scale solutions in place and build momentum for even more growth in these solutions.
Solyndra DID fail.
But the exact same program that gave Solyndra the money they lost also looks very much as if the whole program has ALREADY succeeded.
Tesla Motors has successfully created huge and unstoppable momentum in enabling us to power vehicles and transport without oil or while using dramatically less of it.
Moreover that’s true even if Tesla fails also. And, with Toyota as a partner it is increasingly unlikely Tesla will fail.
But thanks to Tesla and its initial success and genius for publicity, virtually every serious player in car manufacturing is working on plug-in hybrids and all electric cars.
In addition, thousands of charging stations for such cars are already in place and several companies are building more.
Solyndra did fail. But the federal program that lost money on it was doing the right things and has already succeeded in its underlying goal. And there’s more good news coming.
Today's post: Wednesday, 9-14-2010
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 an 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:
Solyndra had problems but its federal backing was and is a good idea….
We need massive new installation of renewable energy sources including solar and wind and to become much more energy efficient soon to prevent economic collapse when oil prices surge sometime in the next decade or two.
That’s true even if global warming stops by itself. (The recent fires and drought and record temperatures in Texas suggest the reverse! The people there who don’t believe in global warming didn’t notice apparently.)
Solyndra proposed a way to install efficient solar photovoltaic cells quickly and on a large scale.
Had it worked, it would have helped produce the badly needed new solar power in the large amounts we need.
So the federal funding had the correct goal.
Their solution turned out to be overpriced as prices in their market dropped before they became established. Some companies have recovered from that.
But they also got too much funding before they got enough sales and feedback from buyers. They also got too much upfront funding instead of having funding contingent on meeting milestones and did NOT use the safer progress payment funding model.
Many very smart people with money and experienced venture capitalists have made these same mistakes.
But what they people trying to criticize the investment or make political capital of Solyndra’s failure don’t know is that success in backing new companies in growth industries does NOT require they all be successful.
If three of ten survive and one does really well investing in the ten often more than doubles your starting money. And, this can happen in few enough years to be interesting indeed!
Secondly, investing in new industry actually works BETTER if you invest quickly and fail quickly. That way, you learn enough to make more successful investments while that industry is still in high growth mode.
So, the federal government program that backed Solyndra invested in a potential solution for the problem that needed solving.
In this case, they failed quickly. They will be better informed for their next investments.
So even in the next few months, they should make better investments than they would have done had Solyndra not failed.
But there is far, far more to this story.
The government was working to get large scale solutions in place and build momentum for even more growth in these solutions.
Solyndra DID fail.
But the exact same program that gave Solyndra the money they lost also looks very much as if the whole program has ALREADY succeeded.
Tesla Motors has successfully created huge and unstoppable momentum in enabling us to power vehicles and transport without oil or while using dramatically less of it.
Moreover that’s true even if Tesla fails also. And, with Toyota as a partner it is increasingly unlikely Tesla will fail.
But thanks to Tesla and its initial success and genius for publicity, virtually every serious player in car manufacturing is working on plug-in hybrids and all electric cars.
In addition, thousands of charging stations for such cars are already in place and several companies are building more.
Solyndra did fail. But the federal program that lost money on it was doing the right things and has already succeeded in its underlying goal. And there’s more good news coming.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Ways communities and utilities can create jobs and clean energy....
Today's post: Wednesday, 8-10-2010
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:
Ways communities and utilities can create jobs and clean energy....
I see 3 ways this can be done.
1. They can sponsor homes and businesses they serve to do just a few things that will make a major difference if lots of the homeowners and businesses do them.
Such things as:
adding insulation
and weather stripping or heat proofing buildings with peaked roofs by adding well screened intake ports around their perimeter and convection powered turbines so that the spaces between the roof and ceiling stay very warm and cool off when the sun goes down instead of being much hotter than the air temperature and staying that way all night
or replacing all or most of the light bulbs with LED bulbs fit here.
2. They can sponsor a special program for homeowners and businesses to do all or add most of the energy saving or renewable or onsite power generation methods they don’t already have in place.
That would add doing things like double pane windows and adding solar power in addition to doing all three of the things above.
3. They can in addition sponsor a program for all local organizations and businesses that have parking lots that get sun now to cover them with solar photovoltaic canopies.
This one is a surprisingly large opportunity that has extra benefits.
Every community in the United States has from hundreds to thousands of parking lots where people park where they work or where they shop. With minor exceptions such as some breaks for daytime light or trees now in the larger parking lots, every square foot of those parking lots could be generating solar electricity for the businesses or shops involved.
But that’s not the only benefit. The canopies and the solar cells will make the cars and people in the parking lots MUCH cooler in the summer. On a 100 degree summer day, the cars will be up to 100 degrees inside instead of the 120 to 150 degrees they often are now. That will give the shops that offer them a competitive advantage. And it will save the energy now spent by the people running their car air conditioners to remove all that heat. Lastly, it will make getting in and out of their cars and going to and from their cars much drier and less of a hassle in rainy weather.
A. Given the sparse money currently available to the governments of communities from small towns to large states, their main role will likely need to be to:
Encourage the utilities serving them to offer and finance such programs.
Encourage the companies that now finance solar installations to offer similar financing to other energy saving work to new customers even without solar and to other energy saving work for their current solar clients.
Publicize to everyone in their communities that these programs exist as they become available so everyone who lives there knows they exist. This one they can do immediately because of the programs that already exist that companies such as Solar City and Sungevity offer.
Offer lower permit fees or fast track the project approvals or both for the work to install such projects.
B) Utilities have more to gain and more money available to promote such projects.
They can publicize the value of doing these things and the national and local companies that offer them in the areas they serve.
But in addition, they can offer to help finance all such upgrades that save energy in the summer or which add more solar power either for homeowners or businesses that have no other way to finance them or offer incentives for using other financing options.
Doing this would likely add more to their ability to meet peak summer demand than adding more fossil fuel or nuclear power plants, do it in a tenth of the time, and at far less cost.
Lastly, they could ask for small increases in rates to help pay to do even more in this area. Germany is doing extremely well using this technique, FIT or feed-in tariff, to add more solar and such energy saving upgrades.
Every one of these actions will improve the economy and add jobs in the communities that do them.
The money saved from the energy savings over time will also strengthen the local economy as the residents will have more money to spend.
And, it will give the utility companies a more diverse and stable way to generate and supply energy and meet peak demands.
Today's post: Wednesday, 8-10-2010
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:
Ways communities and utilities can create jobs and clean energy....
I see 3 ways this can be done.
1. They can sponsor homes and businesses they serve to do just a few things that will make a major difference if lots of the homeowners and businesses do them.
Such things as:
adding insulation
and weather stripping or heat proofing buildings with peaked roofs by adding well screened intake ports around their perimeter and convection powered turbines so that the spaces between the roof and ceiling stay very warm and cool off when the sun goes down instead of being much hotter than the air temperature and staying that way all night
or replacing all or most of the light bulbs with LED bulbs fit here.
2. They can sponsor a special program for homeowners and businesses to do all or add most of the energy saving or renewable or onsite power generation methods they don’t already have in place.
That would add doing things like double pane windows and adding solar power in addition to doing all three of the things above.
3. They can in addition sponsor a program for all local organizations and businesses that have parking lots that get sun now to cover them with solar photovoltaic canopies.
This one is a surprisingly large opportunity that has extra benefits.
Every community in the United States has from hundreds to thousands of parking lots where people park where they work or where they shop. With minor exceptions such as some breaks for daytime light or trees now in the larger parking lots, every square foot of those parking lots could be generating solar electricity for the businesses or shops involved.
But that’s not the only benefit. The canopies and the solar cells will make the cars and people in the parking lots MUCH cooler in the summer. On a 100 degree summer day, the cars will be up to 100 degrees inside instead of the 120 to 150 degrees they often are now. That will give the shops that offer them a competitive advantage. And it will save the energy now spent by the people running their car air conditioners to remove all that heat. Lastly, it will make getting in and out of their cars and going to and from their cars much drier and less of a hassle in rainy weather.
A. Given the sparse money currently available to the governments of communities from small towns to large states, their main role will likely need to be to:
Encourage the utilities serving them to offer and finance such programs.
Encourage the companies that now finance solar installations to offer similar financing to other energy saving work to new customers even without solar and to other energy saving work for their current solar clients.
Publicize to everyone in their communities that these programs exist as they become available so everyone who lives there knows they exist. This one they can do immediately because of the programs that already exist that companies such as Solar City and Sungevity offer.
Offer lower permit fees or fast track the project approvals or both for the work to install such projects.
B) Utilities have more to gain and more money available to promote such projects.
They can publicize the value of doing these things and the national and local companies that offer them in the areas they serve.
But in addition, they can offer to help finance all such upgrades that save energy in the summer or which add more solar power either for homeowners or businesses that have no other way to finance them or offer incentives for using other financing options.
Doing this would likely add more to their ability to meet peak summer demand than adding more fossil fuel or nuclear power plants, do it in a tenth of the time, and at far less cost.
Lastly, they could ask for small increases in rates to help pay to do even more in this area. Germany is doing extremely well using this technique, FIT or feed-in tariff, to add more solar and such energy saving upgrades.
Every one of these actions will improve the economy and add jobs in the communities that do them.
The money saved from the energy savings over time will also strengthen the local economy as the residents will have more money to spend.
And, it will give the utility companies a more diverse and stable way to generate and supply energy and meet peak demands.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Clean and sustainable energy is beginning to add jobs
Today's post: Wednesday, 8-3-2010
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:
Clean and sustainable energy is beginning to add jobs
We need more jobs to put people to work and boost the economy.
The more jobs we add, the better off we are.
And, the more reliable, sustainable, clean, and efficient our energy production and use becomes, the stronger our economy will be and the more jobs there will be.
So the recent uptrend in new solar projects and new solar financing is very good news indeed!
We recently did a post or two on this uptrend. And, today on www.greentechmedia.com is an article on the recent uptrend in solar and solar financing.
The two GreenTech Media stories that caught my attention were:
1. A company called Prologis apparently is of massive size and owns warehouses throughout the United States. They now have the financing to put photovoltaic cells on every one of the roofs of their warehouses that it can be placed on.
Why is that so important?
If that project gets done successfully, it will add as much PV electricity as ALL the PV electricity we had in place in 2010. (I hope they do a phase 2 to put up solar canopies over all the parking lots involved.)
2. A story highlights that solar thermal power can store the heat it collects to generate electricity for hours after the sun goes down and to be able to match the electricty they send to the grid to the demand for it.
BrightSource Energy with its solar thermal tower design says the higher temperatures of its design can do this better than thermal solar trough design. That may or may not be true. And it's less likely to be true for doing better per dollar spent since the trough design is far cheaper and faster to deploy.
But this is great to see either way since it begins to make solar more capable of replacing electricity made by burning fossil fuels or from nuclear power.
A thermal solar plant in Spain has even provided 24 hour electricity during the summer and other times of year with lots of sun.
At some point, larger solar power locations will also add batteries to enable 24 hour electricity supply as needed to match demand on the grid. The technology to make this doable and cost effective is coming I believe.
Clearly this will likely happen first at solar thermal locations.
Today's post: Wednesday, 8-3-2010
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:
Clean and sustainable energy is beginning to add jobs
We need more jobs to put people to work and boost the economy.
The more jobs we add, the better off we are.
And, the more reliable, sustainable, clean, and efficient our energy production and use becomes, the stronger our economy will be and the more jobs there will be.
So the recent uptrend in new solar projects and new solar financing is very good news indeed!
We recently did a post or two on this uptrend. And, today on www.greentechmedia.com is an article on the recent uptrend in solar and solar financing.
The two GreenTech Media stories that caught my attention were:
1. A company called Prologis apparently is of massive size and owns warehouses throughout the United States. They now have the financing to put photovoltaic cells on every one of the roofs of their warehouses that it can be placed on.
Why is that so important?
If that project gets done successfully, it will add as much PV electricity as ALL the PV electricity we had in place in 2010. (I hope they do a phase 2 to put up solar canopies over all the parking lots involved.)
2. A story highlights that solar thermal power can store the heat it collects to generate electricity for hours after the sun goes down and to be able to match the electricty they send to the grid to the demand for it.
BrightSource Energy with its solar thermal tower design says the higher temperatures of its design can do this better than thermal solar trough design. That may or may not be true. And it's less likely to be true for doing better per dollar spent since the trough design is far cheaper and faster to deploy.
But this is great to see either way since it begins to make solar more capable of replacing electricity made by burning fossil fuels or from nuclear power.
A thermal solar plant in Spain has even provided 24 hour electricity during the summer and other times of year with lots of sun.
At some point, larger solar power locations will also add batteries to enable 24 hour electricity supply as needed to match demand on the grid. The technology to make this doable and cost effective is coming I believe.
Clearly this will likely happen first at solar thermal locations.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Several kinds of good news on solar....
Today's post: Wednesday, 7-27-2010
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:
Several kinds of good news on solar....
1. For years now, the Germans have done the world’s best job on adding solar capacity. And they are now out to double that to help replace using even less nuclear power.
2. As we posted on last week, China is beginning to add significant solar capacity & the CEO we posted on then of Suntech Solar said that China was on its way to becoming one of the two largest solar markets.
3. He also said that the United States is also on its way to becoming one of the two largest solar markets.
For example, in California, where there is lots of sun, a lot of innovation driven companies, and a lot of voters who value renewable energy, three good things are happening.
Now that no upfront money needed financing is available to add solar, the number of homeowners adding solar to their homes has already about doubled since before that happened.
Solar City and Sungevity are two of the strongest players in that market; but there are many more.
Second and third, California Governor, Jerry Brown just announced a plan to also add about 12% of the state’s future electricity in medium to small sized solar locations near existing transmission lines (and near where people will use the electricity are living.) Nanosolar is a thin film solar company specializing in serving this market at lowest cost and fastest deployment. They have already been installing such systems in Germany.
The other part of his plan is to add large solar farms both photovoltaic and thermal in locations where there is room to put them and lots of sun to add another 10% of the states future electricity. Many of those projects also got federal support and are already being built.
There are three pieces of good news in this.
California is a state that because of its innovations is often copied by other states when the innovations work.
The cash going into solar companies that supply California will cause them to grow and gradually drive prices down so the day is near when solar is one of the cheapest ways to generate electricity per watt.
And, since almost all of Mexico has multiple times the solar potential of the sunniest part of California, Mexico will begin to copy California and initially buy from solar companies in the United States.
4. Many major corporations in the world are also increasing their investment in solar products.
Just this week DuPont bought Innovalight, a Silicon Valley company, that makes specialty inks that can increase the electricity produced in a solar cell or installation in a given area.
I also heard an ad on the radio a few days ago sponsored by Sharp Solar, a Japanese technology company. They were advertising adding their panels with a solar lease program to the people in our area.
Applied Materials in the United States is a large technology company in the Silicon Valley and already has millions of dollars a year in sales from its thin film solar related products.
5. And, this is the tip of the iceberg. The events I’m reporting here may be as little as a ninth or tenth of what is happening in real solar progress that I haven’t yet learned about.
Global warming related costs are already going up and the world wide recession and rising health care costs are still with us.
But in solar, there is increasingly good news!
Today's post: Wednesday, 7-27-2010
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:
Several kinds of good news on solar....
1. For years now, the Germans have done the world’s best job on adding solar capacity. And they are now out to double that to help replace using even less nuclear power.
2. As we posted on last week, China is beginning to add significant solar capacity & the CEO we posted on then of Suntech Solar said that China was on its way to becoming one of the two largest solar markets.
3. He also said that the United States is also on its way to becoming one of the two largest solar markets.
For example, in California, where there is lots of sun, a lot of innovation driven companies, and a lot of voters who value renewable energy, three good things are happening.
Now that no upfront money needed financing is available to add solar, the number of homeowners adding solar to their homes has already about doubled since before that happened.
Solar City and Sungevity are two of the strongest players in that market; but there are many more.
Second and third, California Governor, Jerry Brown just announced a plan to also add about 12% of the state’s future electricity in medium to small sized solar locations near existing transmission lines (and near where people will use the electricity are living.) Nanosolar is a thin film solar company specializing in serving this market at lowest cost and fastest deployment. They have already been installing such systems in Germany.
The other part of his plan is to add large solar farms both photovoltaic and thermal in locations where there is room to put them and lots of sun to add another 10% of the states future electricity. Many of those projects also got federal support and are already being built.
There are three pieces of good news in this.
California is a state that because of its innovations is often copied by other states when the innovations work.
The cash going into solar companies that supply California will cause them to grow and gradually drive prices down so the day is near when solar is one of the cheapest ways to generate electricity per watt.
And, since almost all of Mexico has multiple times the solar potential of the sunniest part of California, Mexico will begin to copy California and initially buy from solar companies in the United States.
4. Many major corporations in the world are also increasing their investment in solar products.
Just this week DuPont bought Innovalight, a Silicon Valley company, that makes specialty inks that can increase the electricity produced in a solar cell or installation in a given area.
I also heard an ad on the radio a few days ago sponsored by Sharp Solar, a Japanese technology company. They were advertising adding their panels with a solar lease program to the people in our area.
Applied Materials in the United States is a large technology company in the Silicon Valley and already has millions of dollars a year in sales from its thin film solar related products.
5. And, this is the tip of the iceberg. The events I’m reporting here may be as little as a ninth or tenth of what is happening in real solar progress that I haven’t yet learned about.
Global warming related costs are already going up and the world wide recession and rising health care costs are still with us.
But in solar, there is increasingly good news!
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Google research report shows clean energy adds jobs and grows the economy....
Today's post: Wednesday, 7-6-2010
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:
Google research report shows clean energy adds jobs and grows the economy....
See the full report at:
http://leadenergy.org/2011/06/google-energy-innovation-offers-transformative-impact/
Here’s the key summary:
“Achieving breakthroughs in energy technology could have a “transformative impact” on United States, offering major benefits for economic growth, job creation, lower energy costs for American families, and reduced oil consumption and carbon emissions. By 2030, the economic analysis finds that key energy innovations alone could provide the following benefits over business-as-usual:
Grow the US economy by over $155 billion in GDP/year
Create over 1.1 million new net jobs
Save US consumers over $942/household/year
Reduce US oil consumption by over 1.1 billion barrels/year
Reduce US total greenhouse gas emissions by 13%.”
Research on such technology is a first priority based on this analysis. So, is using the clean technology we already have more than we have already done.
1. Such research has some support even from conservative groups:
"...there’s one tried and true method for the federal government to drive breakthroughs in technology: major investment in research and development.
That’s why a growing bipartisan group of think tanks and business leaders — including groups like the American Energy Innovation Council, American Enterprise Institute, Breakthrough Institute, Brookings Institution, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, Association of American Universities, Third Way, President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, New England Clean Energy Council, and many others — have been calling on the federal government to increase its investment in advanced energy research and development from approximately $3 billion to $15 billion per year.
As David Leonhardt wrote in the New York Times last fall, “To put it another way, the death of cap and trade doesn’t have to mean the death of climate policy. The alternative revolves around much more, and much better organized, financing for clean energy research. It’s an idea with a growing list of supporters, a list that even includes conservatives — most of whom opposed cap and trade.”
One of Google’s key executives invested in a company working on battery technology enabling more electricity to be stored in a given size or weight of batteries.
(The report describes the importance of such technology well: “Breakthroughs in electric vehicle (EV) batteries could be transformative: cheaper and denser battery technology could enable mass adoption of electric vehicles and unlock much of the potential economic benefits. The report notes, “This leads to EVs, Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV) and Plug-In Electric Vehicles (PHEV) achieving 90% market share for light duty vehicle sales, reducing oil consumption by 1.1 billion barrels per year by 2030 -- or more than Canada’s entire 2009 oil production.”
2. Google also has invested in expanding the use of clean technology we already have more than we have already done.
They have helped back solar thermal and solar photovoltaic large scale “farms” to produce clean electricity on a large scale.
They have supported a program to allow homeowners to install solar photovoltaic panels at no money down. (In some cases the savings on the energy bills of homeowners will start out being less than the payment for their solar system in the first year!)
And, Google has supported a major project to build more wind generated electricity.
Here’s my comment on this report:
“Very, very well done.
I most liked this part: "The alternative revolves around much more, and much better organized, financing for clean energy research. It’s an idea with a growing list of supporters, a list that even includes conservatives most of whom opposed cap and trade."
That potentially makes it politically doable.
I also like that the analysis says this policy will add jobs, add GDP, and save people money. Most people support those things. That too makes it doable politically.
That’s in addition to the reduction of our extremely dangerous dependence on the fossil fuels we are using up faster and faster.
And it’s in addition to halting excess CO2 release. That’s less salable now; but it is just as true and important.
Thanks much to Google and its key people for helping make this happen in so many ways.”
Today's post: Wednesday, 7-6-2010
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:
Google research report shows clean energy adds jobs and grows the economy....
See the full report at:
http://leadenergy.org/2011/06/google-energy-innovation-offers-transformative-impact/
Here’s the key summary:
“Achieving breakthroughs in energy technology could have a “transformative impact” on United States, offering major benefits for economic growth, job creation, lower energy costs for American families, and reduced oil consumption and carbon emissions. By 2030, the economic analysis finds that key energy innovations alone could provide the following benefits over business-as-usual:
Grow the US economy by over $155 billion in GDP/year
Create over 1.1 million new net jobs
Save US consumers over $942/household/year
Reduce US oil consumption by over 1.1 billion barrels/year
Reduce US total greenhouse gas emissions by 13%.”
Research on such technology is a first priority based on this analysis. So, is using the clean technology we already have more than we have already done.
1. Such research has some support even from conservative groups:
"...there’s one tried and true method for the federal government to drive breakthroughs in technology: major investment in research and development.
That’s why a growing bipartisan group of think tanks and business leaders — including groups like the American Energy Innovation Council, American Enterprise Institute, Breakthrough Institute, Brookings Institution, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, Association of American Universities, Third Way, President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, New England Clean Energy Council, and many others — have been calling on the federal government to increase its investment in advanced energy research and development from approximately $3 billion to $15 billion per year.
As David Leonhardt wrote in the New York Times last fall, “To put it another way, the death of cap and trade doesn’t have to mean the death of climate policy. The alternative revolves around much more, and much better organized, financing for clean energy research. It’s an idea with a growing list of supporters, a list that even includes conservatives — most of whom opposed cap and trade.”
One of Google’s key executives invested in a company working on battery technology enabling more electricity to be stored in a given size or weight of batteries.
(The report describes the importance of such technology well: “Breakthroughs in electric vehicle (EV) batteries could be transformative: cheaper and denser battery technology could enable mass adoption of electric vehicles and unlock much of the potential economic benefits. The report notes, “This leads to EVs, Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV) and Plug-In Electric Vehicles (PHEV) achieving 90% market share for light duty vehicle sales, reducing oil consumption by 1.1 billion barrels per year by 2030 -- or more than Canada’s entire 2009 oil production.”
2. Google also has invested in expanding the use of clean technology we already have more than we have already done.
They have helped back solar thermal and solar photovoltaic large scale “farms” to produce clean electricity on a large scale.
They have supported a program to allow homeowners to install solar photovoltaic panels at no money down. (In some cases the savings on the energy bills of homeowners will start out being less than the payment for their solar system in the first year!)
And, Google has supported a major project to build more wind generated electricity.
Here’s my comment on this report:
“Very, very well done.
I most liked this part: "The alternative revolves around much more, and much better organized, financing for clean energy research. It’s an idea with a growing list of supporters, a list that even includes conservatives most of whom opposed cap and trade."
That potentially makes it politically doable.
I also like that the analysis says this policy will add jobs, add GDP, and save people money. Most people support those things. That too makes it doable politically.
That’s in addition to the reduction of our extremely dangerous dependence on the fossil fuels we are using up faster and faster.
And it’s in addition to halting excess CO2 release. That’s less salable now; but it is just as true and important.
Thanks much to Google and its key people for helping make this happen in so many ways.”
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Slash summer air conditioning costs two ways....
Today's post: Wednesday, 6-22-2010
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: Slash summer air conditioning costs two ways....
I. The first way is for your home if you are a homeowner.
(In some areas you can save $2,000 or more in one summer.) And, in all areas, your home will be dramatically more comfortable to live in. This can be very important in having your home cool off at night on hot days!
II. When you go outside on a hot day and have to cool your car from over 120 degrees inside, it’s obnoxious and uncomfortable at first. But you also have to pay for the extra gas or electricity to do that job. The second part of this post has a way to prevent this that also actually generates electricity. (It’s just after the first part.)
I. This part of this post reviews some information that was in previous posts for those of you who didn’t see them or know the information otherwise.
1. In the Northern hemisphere we are now having truly hot summer temperatures in many places. And, in many parts of the United States, a major energy use is for residential air conditioning.
In fact, during the hottest days, it is exactly that air conditioning use that dictates what your utility needs to be able to deliver for peak demand.
Did you know that for many people you can drop your electricity use for air conditioning so much you do pay off the costs in one year and save literally hundreds to thousands of dollars on your summer electric bill for every year after that?
You can. And, it even has a bonus. Your home will be dramatically more comfortable. And the night time temperature in your home will be so much lower that you’ll sleep much better and have a good deal more energy each day!
Here’s our post on this method from April, 2008.:
Slash your Air Conditioning bills this summer....
Today’s post: Weds, 4-9-2008
How does cutting your bill to zero or by 70 % sound?
Hot weather is coming soon to where you live & work this year. In some areas you already have it!
(In our area, in the Silicon Valley, after below average temps recently, our first hot weather of this year just started a few days ago.)
Unfortunately, in many homes & buildings a huge amount of money & energy is spent on air conditioning to pump heat out of buildings it could easily never have gotten into to begin with.
For many buildings & most homes, moderately inexpensive fixes can keep enough heat from getting in to cut well over 50% from air conditioning costs & energy use or even eliminate them totally & do it each summer after they are installed.
In addition, the more people do this, the less new electric generating capacity has to be built to manage peak demand for electricity which is now driven by afternoon air conditioning use on the hottest days.
In climates where the temperature falls enough at night, you can let in cool night air to remove any left over heat from the day before by opening the windows &/or by using fans to pull in air from outside & push out the inside air. Often, if you have things well set up to prevent heat from getting in &/or have ceiling fans to lower the perceived temperature a few degrees, from 76 actual to 72 perceived, for example, on most days you then will need NO air conditioning use at all.
In climates where it is much hotter or only falls to a level where you still need to run the air conditioning, if you have things well set up to prevent heat from getting in &/or have ceiling fans to lower the perceived temperature a few degrees, you can get a triple play. You only will need to run your air conditioner at night on most days. That means you can get maximum efficiency per unit of energy as the AC works better with cooler temps to dump the excess heat into so your bill is less. And, you use the electricity at night when it often costs less per kilowatt than at peak times in the afternoon. Lastly, you no longer need to add a lot of load in the afternoon to overstress your local power grid. The idea is to have the house at or office at 68 degrees F or even a bit less in the early morning when it’s coolest outside & have it not set to turn back on until the inside gets to 76 degrees (or perhaps 72 if you don’t have ceiling fans yet. Then, if your heat proofing is good enough, your AC will rarely need to come back on. And, if it does, it will need to run a LOT less.
Well insulated buildings with a lot of thermal mass, ideally with few windows or with double pane windows, that also have good passive design to prevent heat from entering do this very well.
New buildings with part underground or with thick walls made of rammed earth or adobe or straw or well insulated concrete block & heat resistant roofs do this well.
But in most homes today & some commercial buildings, the main problem is in the roof crawl space.
Usually there is no insulation between the roof & the crawl space -- & in some areas not much below it. In addition, the crawl space has almost no ventilation. As a result, instead of the under the roof temperature being only slightly above the outside air, it can be as much as 70 or 80 degrees hotter. Then this trapped heat re-radiates into the rooms beneath acting as a solar heater all afternoon. Even worse, this heat continues to radiate well into the night making the people inside miserable or running up their AC bills like crazy.
My wife & I had a house like that which was also badly insulated and had no air conditioning. On sunny days much above 79 degrees for a high, it was often well over 80 or even 90 until about the time the next morning we had to get up to go to work. This was NOT fun. And, if we had decent air conditioning then, we would have run it a LOT.
We then discovered & installed a system that uses NO OUTSIDE ENERGY AT ALL which prevented this under the roof heat build up. And, we installed ceiling fans.
We didn’t even get to upgrading the insulation and got this result.:
After doing this, we experienced a day well into the high 90’s outside. It would have been over 100 inside from 3 PM to midnight before. After installing this system & adding ceiling fans, it only got up to about 75 inside & then only from about 3 to 6 PM – AND the 75 felt Ok with just the ceiling fans alone. It was in the high 90’s outside and we needed NO air conditioning at all. And, remember, that was before we upgraded our ceiling insulation to R19 or better.
Here is the magic trick we used that I cannot recommend more highly after this experience.:
Hot air rises. So, what we did is to install several very well screened air intake vents around the perimeter of our roof’s crawl space that were under the shade of the roof & we had a competent workman also install several convection powered turbines in the roof near its peak. Then we added ceiling fans to our bedrooms & living room. The entire project cost less than $1,000. And, this was a one time fee.
The very same hot air that was giving us such grief before now happily spun the turbines as it rose & drew the much less hot outside air in behind it. This was all solar powered. We needed no outside energy at all to run it.
If we had more money at the time, I would have liked to add the extra ceiling insulation & a radiant heat barrier in our attic and installed wood frame double pane windows.
Even better would have been to add a decent heat pump system also to deliver efficient air conditioning if we ever needed it for days above 100 degrees & install enough solar panels to run it all. And, added window shading on the west & south sides of the house would have also helped.
But, much to my delight, we got close to 100 % of the cooling we needed from this single inexpensive fix that still needs no energy bills at all to operate these several years later.
So, if you have a roof that traps heat the way our roof then did, you can add all sorts of useful extras as I would have liked to do. But for about $2500 or less you can heat proof your house better than you might imagine with this simple system.
(In our area we bought the convection powered turbines & ceiling fans at Home Depot.)
The next part is from our 7-7-2010 post.:
These relatively inexpensive fixes can save enough on electricity bills for air conditioning to pay for themselves in one summer in some places while in others, it may take more like 4 summers. But the savings start the minute they are installed. The increased livability and comfort start the minute they are installed. And, once installed, they save money and electricity use every year at virtually no added cost.
2. Consider adding solar photovoltaic cells to your roof. By using this electricity during the time when you are most likely to use your air conditioning, you save paying the higher costs for grid electricity at those times. Even better, at those same times, you will have extra sun to produce extra electricity.
This does cost more than heat proofing and venting the air from under your roof. But there are now some innovative programs to pay the upfront costs for solar installation.
Sungevity and SolarCity now have this kind of no upfront cost financing. And, Sungevity needs no in home appointment to know what solar you can build on your roof. (They have a website and are also available at Lowe’s stores.)
3. Best of all, if most homeowners in a community do both things, they can cut the peak use of electricity by a great deal on the hottest summer days.
II. When you go outside on a hot day and have to cool your car from over 120 degrees inside, it’s obnoxious and uncomfortable at first. But you also have to pay for the extra gas or electricity to do that job. The second part of this post has a way to prevent this that also actually generates electricity.
Quite often, particularly at work and at large shopping centers, you have this problem. BUT, in these large, open parking lots, it’s possible to install an inexpensive canopy or roof that will give you shade on hot sunny days. (These also enable you to get into and our of your car with far less hassle on rainy days.)
That means on hot, sunny days, your car will be LESS hot inside than the air outside instead of 20 to 40 degrees hotter.
This would give a competitive advantage to shopping centers that install them.
But here’s the great added value. In most cities and towns today, many such parking lots exist. That totals millions of square feet of such parking in most states!
If each owner of such parking lots of any size installed such canopies over these parking lots AND added solar cells, they could almost power their own air conditioners each summer at no added cost.
This would be great for the utilities too since this added electricity would peak just when their load on the grid peaks now. (This is so much so, it would pay utilities to help finance such solar canopies or give price breaks to companies who do it.)
Any shopping center owner or owner of real estate where businesses are located or businesses wanting to add more solar could do this. (Applied Materials in Santa Clara, California is the only company I know of to do this so far. There may be others.)
It would also pay states and cities and counties to make permits for such solar canopies easy to get or even offer financial incentives for building them.
Today's post: Wednesday, 6-22-2010
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: Slash summer air conditioning costs two ways....
I. The first way is for your home if you are a homeowner.
(In some areas you can save $2,000 or more in one summer.) And, in all areas, your home will be dramatically more comfortable to live in. This can be very important in having your home cool off at night on hot days!
II. When you go outside on a hot day and have to cool your car from over 120 degrees inside, it’s obnoxious and uncomfortable at first. But you also have to pay for the extra gas or electricity to do that job. The second part of this post has a way to prevent this that also actually generates electricity. (It’s just after the first part.)
I. This part of this post reviews some information that was in previous posts for those of you who didn’t see them or know the information otherwise.
1. In the Northern hemisphere we are now having truly hot summer temperatures in many places. And, in many parts of the United States, a major energy use is for residential air conditioning.
In fact, during the hottest days, it is exactly that air conditioning use that dictates what your utility needs to be able to deliver for peak demand.
Did you know that for many people you can drop your electricity use for air conditioning so much you do pay off the costs in one year and save literally hundreds to thousands of dollars on your summer electric bill for every year after that?
You can. And, it even has a bonus. Your home will be dramatically more comfortable. And the night time temperature in your home will be so much lower that you’ll sleep much better and have a good deal more energy each day!
Here’s our post on this method from April, 2008.:
Slash your Air Conditioning bills this summer....
Today’s post: Weds, 4-9-2008
How does cutting your bill to zero or by 70 % sound?
Hot weather is coming soon to where you live & work this year. In some areas you already have it!
(In our area, in the Silicon Valley, after below average temps recently, our first hot weather of this year just started a few days ago.)
Unfortunately, in many homes & buildings a huge amount of money & energy is spent on air conditioning to pump heat out of buildings it could easily never have gotten into to begin with.
For many buildings & most homes, moderately inexpensive fixes can keep enough heat from getting in to cut well over 50% from air conditioning costs & energy use or even eliminate them totally & do it each summer after they are installed.
In addition, the more people do this, the less new electric generating capacity has to be built to manage peak demand for electricity which is now driven by afternoon air conditioning use on the hottest days.
In climates where the temperature falls enough at night, you can let in cool night air to remove any left over heat from the day before by opening the windows &/or by using fans to pull in air from outside & push out the inside air. Often, if you have things well set up to prevent heat from getting in &/or have ceiling fans to lower the perceived temperature a few degrees, from 76 actual to 72 perceived, for example, on most days you then will need NO air conditioning use at all.
In climates where it is much hotter or only falls to a level where you still need to run the air conditioning, if you have things well set up to prevent heat from getting in &/or have ceiling fans to lower the perceived temperature a few degrees, you can get a triple play. You only will need to run your air conditioner at night on most days. That means you can get maximum efficiency per unit of energy as the AC works better with cooler temps to dump the excess heat into so your bill is less. And, you use the electricity at night when it often costs less per kilowatt than at peak times in the afternoon. Lastly, you no longer need to add a lot of load in the afternoon to overstress your local power grid. The idea is to have the house at or office at 68 degrees F or even a bit less in the early morning when it’s coolest outside & have it not set to turn back on until the inside gets to 76 degrees (or perhaps 72 if you don’t have ceiling fans yet. Then, if your heat proofing is good enough, your AC will rarely need to come back on. And, if it does, it will need to run a LOT less.
Well insulated buildings with a lot of thermal mass, ideally with few windows or with double pane windows, that also have good passive design to prevent heat from entering do this very well.
New buildings with part underground or with thick walls made of rammed earth or adobe or straw or well insulated concrete block & heat resistant roofs do this well.
But in most homes today & some commercial buildings, the main problem is in the roof crawl space.
Usually there is no insulation between the roof & the crawl space -- & in some areas not much below it. In addition, the crawl space has almost no ventilation. As a result, instead of the under the roof temperature being only slightly above the outside air, it can be as much as 70 or 80 degrees hotter. Then this trapped heat re-radiates into the rooms beneath acting as a solar heater all afternoon. Even worse, this heat continues to radiate well into the night making the people inside miserable or running up their AC bills like crazy.
My wife & I had a house like that which was also badly insulated and had no air conditioning. On sunny days much above 79 degrees for a high, it was often well over 80 or even 90 until about the time the next morning we had to get up to go to work. This was NOT fun. And, if we had decent air conditioning then, we would have run it a LOT.
We then discovered & installed a system that uses NO OUTSIDE ENERGY AT ALL which prevented this under the roof heat build up. And, we installed ceiling fans.
We didn’t even get to upgrading the insulation and got this result.:
After doing this, we experienced a day well into the high 90’s outside. It would have been over 100 inside from 3 PM to midnight before. After installing this system & adding ceiling fans, it only got up to about 75 inside & then only from about 3 to 6 PM – AND the 75 felt Ok with just the ceiling fans alone. It was in the high 90’s outside and we needed NO air conditioning at all. And, remember, that was before we upgraded our ceiling insulation to R19 or better.
Here is the magic trick we used that I cannot recommend more highly after this experience.:
Hot air rises. So, what we did is to install several very well screened air intake vents around the perimeter of our roof’s crawl space that were under the shade of the roof & we had a competent workman also install several convection powered turbines in the roof near its peak. Then we added ceiling fans to our bedrooms & living room. The entire project cost less than $1,000. And, this was a one time fee.
The very same hot air that was giving us such grief before now happily spun the turbines as it rose & drew the much less hot outside air in behind it. This was all solar powered. We needed no outside energy at all to run it.
If we had more money at the time, I would have liked to add the extra ceiling insulation & a radiant heat barrier in our attic and installed wood frame double pane windows.
Even better would have been to add a decent heat pump system also to deliver efficient air conditioning if we ever needed it for days above 100 degrees & install enough solar panels to run it all. And, added window shading on the west & south sides of the house would have also helped.
But, much to my delight, we got close to 100 % of the cooling we needed from this single inexpensive fix that still needs no energy bills at all to operate these several years later.
So, if you have a roof that traps heat the way our roof then did, you can add all sorts of useful extras as I would have liked to do. But for about $2500 or less you can heat proof your house better than you might imagine with this simple system.
(In our area we bought the convection powered turbines & ceiling fans at Home Depot.)
The next part is from our 7-7-2010 post.:
These relatively inexpensive fixes can save enough on electricity bills for air conditioning to pay for themselves in one summer in some places while in others, it may take more like 4 summers. But the savings start the minute they are installed. The increased livability and comfort start the minute they are installed. And, once installed, they save money and electricity use every year at virtually no added cost.
2. Consider adding solar photovoltaic cells to your roof. By using this electricity during the time when you are most likely to use your air conditioning, you save paying the higher costs for grid electricity at those times. Even better, at those same times, you will have extra sun to produce extra electricity.
This does cost more than heat proofing and venting the air from under your roof. But there are now some innovative programs to pay the upfront costs for solar installation.
Sungevity and SolarCity now have this kind of no upfront cost financing. And, Sungevity needs no in home appointment to know what solar you can build on your roof. (They have a website and are also available at Lowe’s stores.)
3. Best of all, if most homeowners in a community do both things, they can cut the peak use of electricity by a great deal on the hottest summer days.
II. When you go outside on a hot day and have to cool your car from over 120 degrees inside, it’s obnoxious and uncomfortable at first. But you also have to pay for the extra gas or electricity to do that job. The second part of this post has a way to prevent this that also actually generates electricity.
Quite often, particularly at work and at large shopping centers, you have this problem. BUT, in these large, open parking lots, it’s possible to install an inexpensive canopy or roof that will give you shade on hot sunny days. (These also enable you to get into and our of your car with far less hassle on rainy days.)
That means on hot, sunny days, your car will be LESS hot inside than the air outside instead of 20 to 40 degrees hotter.
This would give a competitive advantage to shopping centers that install them.
But here’s the great added value. In most cities and towns today, many such parking lots exist. That totals millions of square feet of such parking in most states!
If each owner of such parking lots of any size installed such canopies over these parking lots AND added solar cells, they could almost power their own air conditioners each summer at no added cost.
This would be great for the utilities too since this added electricity would peak just when their load on the grid peaks now. (This is so much so, it would pay utilities to help finance such solar canopies or give price breaks to companies who do it.)
Any shopping center owner or owner of real estate where businesses are located or businesses wanting to add more solar could do this. (Applied Materials in Santa Clara, California is the only company I know of to do this so far. There may be others.)
It would also pay states and cities and counties to make permits for such solar canopies easy to get or even offer financial incentives for building them.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Google and SolarCity are building clean energy....
Today's post: Wednesday, 6-15-2010
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:
Google and SolarCity are building clean energy....
Between the two companies, Google and SolarCity have invested several hundred million dollars to well over a billion dollars in bringing clean energy sources online.
These two companies were in the news together in the past few days.
SAN MATEO, Calif. & MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)—
June 14, 2011 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
SolarCity® and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), today announced the creation of a new $280 million fund to finance residential solar projects. The Google-backed fund is the first collaboration between the Internet giant and the nation’s leading solar power and energy efficiency service provider, and represents Google’s largest investment to date in the clean energy sector.
The fund is SolarCity’s largest project financing fund and the largest residential solar fund created in the U.S.
SolarCity has now created 15 project funds with seven different partners to finance $1.28 billion in solar projects.
(Homeowners who desire to have solar photovoltaic panels on their home but do not have several thousand dollars in one chunk to have them installed far outnumber those who would break even or better if they could finance the installation. That’s because many months of the year the monthly payment will be less than the savings on the bill for electricity from their utility.
SolarCity is literally installing five times as much solar with these partnerships with companies like Google backing up their financing. Note that they have 6 other such partners in addition to this new deal with Google.)
(Sungevity of Oakland, CA also finances solar installations in addition to giving you an accurate quote based on satellite views of your house. I don’t know how they back their financing. But as we recently posted Lowe’s home improvement stores are beginning to sell Sungevity’s service in their over 1700 locations!)
In addition to these increases in local and near or connected to local transmission grid photovoltaic sources of electricity or distributed generation, Google and its founders and just previous CEO have invested and will invest in many other kinds of clean energy technology, companies, and kinds of sources.
For example:
From http://googlegreenblog.blogspot.com :
"We believe the world needs a wide range of clean energy options in the future, each serving different needs. We’ve already invested in several large-scale renewable energy projects, so we’re excited that this new partnership with SolarCity helps people power their homes directly with solar energy, too. We think “distributed” renewable energy (generated and used right at home) is a smart way to use solar photovoltaic (PV) technology to improve our power system since it helps avoid or alleviate distribution constraints on the traditional electricity grid.
Our investment is a quadruple-win for Google, SolarCity, its new customers and the environment. We continue to look for other renewable energy investments that make business sense and help develop and deploy cleaner sources of energy. Whether harnessing the sun on rooftops like Michael’s or in the desert sands of the Mojave, it’s all part of building a clean energy future.
Posted by Rick Needham, Director of Green Business Operations"
From: http://www.google.com/green/collaborations/support-innovations.html :
"To date, we’ve invested over $350 million in innovative clean energy companies and projects through Google.org, Google Ventures and Google corporate investments.
Through Google.org we’ve supported cleantech companies with scalable and potentially breakthrough technologies that could produce renewable energy cheaper than coal.
At Google Ventures, we look for passionate entrepreneurs who are excited about building disruptive companies that address a range of market and technical problems in this sector and beyond.
And recently, we’ve made project investments that offer a solid return on investment and could have a transformational impact on the sector, such as:
A $280 million investment to create a fund, in partnership with SolarCity, to help the company finance more solar installations across the country. This is our first investment in "distributed" renewable energy (generated and used right at home). We believe our investment is a quadruple-win for Google, SolarCity, the environment, and new customers who get access to clean energy at a economic rates.
Providing $55 million to finance part of the Alta Wind Energy Center (AWEC), a new wind installation being built in several phases to generate combined 1,550 MW -- enough to power 450,000 homes. It'll use some of the first transmission lines being developed specifically to transport renewable energy from remote areas to major population centers.
A $5 million investment in a solar photovoltaic power plant near Berlin, Germany – our first investment in Europe. The 18.65MW facility will provide clean energy to more than 5,000 households.
A $168 million investment in BrightSource Energy's Ivanpah solar power tower plant in the Mojave Desert in California, one of the world's largest solar energy projects. Ivanpah will deploy a compelling clean energy technology and produce 392MW of energy, enough to take 90,000 cars off the road during the lifetime of the plant.
An approximately $100 million investment in the Shepherds Flat Wind Farm, anticipated to be the largest in the world. When completed in 2012, Shepherds Flat will produce 845MW of energy -- enough to power more than 235,000 homes.
An investment in the critical development stage of a project to build a transmission backbone off the mid-Atlantic coast to accelerate offshore wind development, with the potential to connect 6,000MW of wind, enough to serve 1.9 million households.
A $38.8 million investment in two North Dakota wind farms that generate 169.5 megawatts (MW), enough to power 55,000 homes. These wind farms uses some of the latest wind turbine technology and control systems to provide one of the lowest-cost sources of renewable energy to the local grid."
So Google, through these investments, has now invested in distributed photovoltaic solar generation of electricity.
They’ve invested in a large solar thermal farm to generate electicity.
And, they’ve invested in wind generated electricity.
The local paper added that they are looking at investing in geothermal power also and that their google.org investments in clean energy technology have totaled $45 million.
In addition, Google’s founders invested in Nanosolar which uses a rolled printing approach and a fast and easy installation method to install thin film solar cells at a low cost per kilowatt hour of electricity.
More recently, their just previous CEO, Eric Schmidt, invested in Amprius which looks to have a technology allowing for batteries for electric cars that store enough more electricity to be lighter or go farther on a charge or both.
We need a 100 times more such efforts soon. But even so, these things do help keep optimism alive. And, they are helping build the multiple part foundation we must have for a clean energy economy.
Today's post: Wednesday, 6-15-2010
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:
Google and SolarCity are building clean energy....
Between the two companies, Google and SolarCity have invested several hundred million dollars to well over a billion dollars in bringing clean energy sources online.
These two companies were in the news together in the past few days.
SAN MATEO, Calif. & MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)—
June 14, 2011 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
SolarCity® and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), today announced the creation of a new $280 million fund to finance residential solar projects. The Google-backed fund is the first collaboration between the Internet giant and the nation’s leading solar power and energy efficiency service provider, and represents Google’s largest investment to date in the clean energy sector.
The fund is SolarCity’s largest project financing fund and the largest residential solar fund created in the U.S.
SolarCity has now created 15 project funds with seven different partners to finance $1.28 billion in solar projects.
(Homeowners who desire to have solar photovoltaic panels on their home but do not have several thousand dollars in one chunk to have them installed far outnumber those who would break even or better if they could finance the installation. That’s because many months of the year the monthly payment will be less than the savings on the bill for electricity from their utility.
SolarCity is literally installing five times as much solar with these partnerships with companies like Google backing up their financing. Note that they have 6 other such partners in addition to this new deal with Google.)
(Sungevity of Oakland, CA also finances solar installations in addition to giving you an accurate quote based on satellite views of your house. I don’t know how they back their financing. But as we recently posted Lowe’s home improvement stores are beginning to sell Sungevity’s service in their over 1700 locations!)
In addition to these increases in local and near or connected to local transmission grid photovoltaic sources of electricity or distributed generation, Google and its founders and just previous CEO have invested and will invest in many other kinds of clean energy technology, companies, and kinds of sources.
For example:
From http://googlegreenblog.blogspot.com :
"We believe the world needs a wide range of clean energy options in the future, each serving different needs. We’ve already invested in several large-scale renewable energy projects, so we’re excited that this new partnership with SolarCity helps people power their homes directly with solar energy, too. We think “distributed” renewable energy (generated and used right at home) is a smart way to use solar photovoltaic (PV) technology to improve our power system since it helps avoid or alleviate distribution constraints on the traditional electricity grid.
Our investment is a quadruple-win for Google, SolarCity, its new customers and the environment. We continue to look for other renewable energy investments that make business sense and help develop and deploy cleaner sources of energy. Whether harnessing the sun on rooftops like Michael’s or in the desert sands of the Mojave, it’s all part of building a clean energy future.
Posted by Rick Needham, Director of Green Business Operations"
From: http://www.google.com/green/collaborations/support-innovations.html :
"To date, we’ve invested over $350 million in innovative clean energy companies and projects through Google.org, Google Ventures and Google corporate investments.
Through Google.org we’ve supported cleantech companies with scalable and potentially breakthrough technologies that could produce renewable energy cheaper than coal.
At Google Ventures, we look for passionate entrepreneurs who are excited about building disruptive companies that address a range of market and technical problems in this sector and beyond.
And recently, we’ve made project investments that offer a solid return on investment and could have a transformational impact on the sector, such as:
A $280 million investment to create a fund, in partnership with SolarCity, to help the company finance more solar installations across the country. This is our first investment in "distributed" renewable energy (generated and used right at home). We believe our investment is a quadruple-win for Google, SolarCity, the environment, and new customers who get access to clean energy at a economic rates.
Providing $55 million to finance part of the Alta Wind Energy Center (AWEC), a new wind installation being built in several phases to generate combined 1,550 MW -- enough to power 450,000 homes. It'll use some of the first transmission lines being developed specifically to transport renewable energy from remote areas to major population centers.
A $5 million investment in a solar photovoltaic power plant near Berlin, Germany – our first investment in Europe. The 18.65MW facility will provide clean energy to more than 5,000 households.
A $168 million investment in BrightSource Energy's Ivanpah solar power tower plant in the Mojave Desert in California, one of the world's largest solar energy projects. Ivanpah will deploy a compelling clean energy technology and produce 392MW of energy, enough to take 90,000 cars off the road during the lifetime of the plant.
An approximately $100 million investment in the Shepherds Flat Wind Farm, anticipated to be the largest in the world. When completed in 2012, Shepherds Flat will produce 845MW of energy -- enough to power more than 235,000 homes.
An investment in the critical development stage of a project to build a transmission backbone off the mid-Atlantic coast to accelerate offshore wind development, with the potential to connect 6,000MW of wind, enough to serve 1.9 million households.
A $38.8 million investment in two North Dakota wind farms that generate 169.5 megawatts (MW), enough to power 55,000 homes. These wind farms uses some of the latest wind turbine technology and control systems to provide one of the lowest-cost sources of renewable energy to the local grid."
So Google, through these investments, has now invested in distributed photovoltaic solar generation of electricity.
They’ve invested in a large solar thermal farm to generate electicity.
And, they’ve invested in wind generated electricity.
The local paper added that they are looking at investing in geothermal power also and that their google.org investments in clean energy technology have totaled $45 million.
In addition, Google’s founders invested in Nanosolar which uses a rolled printing approach and a fast and easy installation method to install thin film solar cells at a low cost per kilowatt hour of electricity.
More recently, their just previous CEO, Eric Schmidt, invested in Amprius which looks to have a technology allowing for batteries for electric cars that store enough more electricity to be lighter or go farther on a charge or both.
We need a 100 times more such efforts soon. But even so, these things do help keep optimism alive. And, they are helping build the multiple part foundation we must have for a clean energy economy.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Germany’s decision is very good news but for an unusual reason....
Today's post: Wednesday, 6-8-2010
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:
Germany’s decision is very good news but for an unusual reason....
A bit before I normally would have done this post last week, Germany announced that it will close its nuclear reactors and cancel plans to build more. They also plan to double their sources of renewable energy from 17% to 34%.
Because they experienced being downwind from Chernobyl, they already have done one of the world’s best jobs in adding renewable energy in general and photovoltaic solar in particular. Despite getting less sunlight than California they recently have been installing NINE times as much solar as California has!
In practice, since I think they were getting something like 25% of their electricity from nuclear power, that may mean buying electricity from France where 80% of it comes from nuclear power.
But here’s the really good news.
To keep our economies strong and continue having our earth support people with an OK quality of life, we must dramatically add more renewable sources for electricity and transport. AND we must sharply improve the energy efficiency in every way we use it.
Because of this decision, Germany will move even more to pioneering ways to add more renewable energy and to improve energy efficiency in every way we use it.
That will cause Germany to become perhaps the world’s best, first customer for improved generation of renewable energy and technologies that save energy.
To some extent that was already true for photovoltaic solar. Now it will be even more true for technologies that make renewable energy more usable and for every kind of technology that saves energy in any and every part of their economy.
That may wind up acting as a catalyst for the rest of the world to make better energy technology available. Old and new companies now have and will come to have even more of a ready market for products or services using such technologies.
By selling first to their best local markets AND Germany, it will make it economically more doable to develop and market clean energy technologies and products.
I think that will turn out to be very, very good news indeed.
Today's post: Wednesday, 6-8-2010
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:
Germany’s decision is very good news but for an unusual reason....
A bit before I normally would have done this post last week, Germany announced that it will close its nuclear reactors and cancel plans to build more. They also plan to double their sources of renewable energy from 17% to 34%.
Because they experienced being downwind from Chernobyl, they already have done one of the world’s best jobs in adding renewable energy in general and photovoltaic solar in particular. Despite getting less sunlight than California they recently have been installing NINE times as much solar as California has!
In practice, since I think they were getting something like 25% of their electricity from nuclear power, that may mean buying electricity from France where 80% of it comes from nuclear power.
But here’s the really good news.
To keep our economies strong and continue having our earth support people with an OK quality of life, we must dramatically add more renewable sources for electricity and transport. AND we must sharply improve the energy efficiency in every way we use it.
Because of this decision, Germany will move even more to pioneering ways to add more renewable energy and to improve energy efficiency in every way we use it.
That will cause Germany to become perhaps the world’s best, first customer for improved generation of renewable energy and technologies that save energy.
To some extent that was already true for photovoltaic solar. Now it will be even more true for technologies that make renewable energy more usable and for every kind of technology that saves energy in any and every part of their economy.
That may wind up acting as a catalyst for the rest of the world to make better energy technology available. Old and new companies now have and will come to have even more of a ready market for products or services using such technologies.
By selling first to their best local markets AND Germany, it will make it economically more doable to develop and market clean energy technologies and products.
I think that will turn out to be very, very good news indeed.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Oil company bills to drill more look to be ineffective and risky.....
Today's post: Wednesday, 5-4-2010
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:
Oil company bills to drill more look to be ineffective and risky.....
I just saw a story online that: “Congress considers West Coast oil drilling.”
May 4, 2011 by Susanne Rust Environment Reporter From: California Watch A Project of the Center for Investigative Reporting
“Nearly a year after a BP oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico and created one of the largest environmental catastrophes of all time, federal lawmakers are considering encouraging drilling off the West Coast, including the rich oil beds off Southern California.
Lawmakers say allowing the drilling would ease the burden of high oil prices and provide an alternative to foreign oil.”
“Critics say the bills (HR 1229, HR 1230 and HR 1231) set the stage for environmental disaster and will have little or no effect on oil prices.
“Not only will the bills expand drilling, they would leave oversight of offshore drilling weaker than it was before last year’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Bob Keefe, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council.”
The article also notes: “…. a study conducted by the federal government's Energy Information Administration, which showed that new drilling off the country's coasts would only reduce gas prices by a few cents.
The bills passed the House Committee on Natural Resources in April, and two of the three bills are scheduled for a vote on Thursday. The third bill, which some call the most sweeping, will likely go to the floor next week, Charter said.
That third bill, HR 1231, or “Reversing President Obama’s Offshore Moratorium Act,” would require the federal government to lease at least 50 percent of available unleased acreage off the West Coast, Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico and much of the East Coast, every five years.”
“Under existing law, the government decides which areas to lease. This new law would effectively double the current level of offshore drilling.
And states, such as California, would have no say in the matter.
“Earlier versions of bills like this generally allowed a state to veto projects,” said Regan Nelson of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“Californians have consistently made it clear that they oppose new offshore drilling off their coast," she said. “This bill is so out of sync of what people want. They’re willing to put oil production over all other considerations.”
Supporters of the bills say the need for more domestic oil is urgent.
"Gas prices in California’s Central Valley have skyrocketed to above $4 a gallon and remained above the national average for weeks," said Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., one of the three local congressmen who voted for the bills.
"We can no longer afford to rely on energy supplies from unstable foreign sources. The time for inaction is over. We must expand domestic energy production to get Americans back to work, bring relief at the pump and create jobs,” he said.”
Here’s my take.:
These bills are likely to be ineffective in lowering gas prices and are likely to cause billions of dollars of damages to the coast of California.
But there are some amendments that could upgrade them enough they might make sense
1. China is very likely to begin importing as much or more oil than we are quite soon. So, it looks like having more oil from offshore drilling will likely only cut back gasoline from $8 a gallon or $9 a gallon that looks to be coming by ten cents a gallon.
If, for every dollar the oil industry spent for offshore drilling had to be matched with three times that much money in switching transport to other fuels than petroleum and in converting existing vehicles into plug-in hybrids AND installing a more efficient gasoline and diesel engine, then that combination might have an effect.
We can deal with double the price of gasoline and diesel if we also begin to only need half as much of these fuels to drive the same number of miles!
2. Since billions of dollars in potential damages are at stake and the oil very irresponsible impression of the safety competence of the oil companies is at stake.
These bills should ONLY be passed if the safety managers on these new offshore drilling rigs are NOT prevented by trying to save money cutting corners on safety.
If the chances are literally one in 10 million of one problematic spill that will be stopped with less than 5% of the oil released by the BP problem in the Gulf, why not allow it?
(This hurry up and drill program looks like a spill about once every ten years and just as big as the Gulf oftentimes will occur if these bills are passed!)
But, if those two provisions are not forceful enough or included, these bills won’t protect our economy from the doubling of gasoline and diesel nor will they make more than the damages they will likely cost.
So, in their present form, it is essential they not be passed!
With these two amendments though, they might make sense.
The one last point is that any state that remains unconvinced of the safety programs for this new drilling should be able to say no to it off the shores of that state.
So, the third amendment is to add that or leave it as is. If the safety procedures are good enough and work in practice other places, states will OK drilling for the new money they get. But they should have the right to say no if the data they see are unconvincing.
These bills in their current form do not make that confidence at all likely!
Today's post: Wednesday, 5-4-2010
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:
Oil company bills to drill more look to be ineffective and risky.....
I just saw a story online that: “Congress considers West Coast oil drilling.”
May 4, 2011 by Susanne Rust Environment Reporter From: California Watch A Project of the Center for Investigative Reporting
“Nearly a year after a BP oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico and created one of the largest environmental catastrophes of all time, federal lawmakers are considering encouraging drilling off the West Coast, including the rich oil beds off Southern California.
Lawmakers say allowing the drilling would ease the burden of high oil prices and provide an alternative to foreign oil.”
“Critics say the bills (HR 1229, HR 1230 and HR 1231) set the stage for environmental disaster and will have little or no effect on oil prices.
“Not only will the bills expand drilling, they would leave oversight of offshore drilling weaker than it was before last year’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Bob Keefe, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council.”
The article also notes: “…. a study conducted by the federal government's Energy Information Administration, which showed that new drilling off the country's coasts would only reduce gas prices by a few cents.
The bills passed the House Committee on Natural Resources in April, and two of the three bills are scheduled for a vote on Thursday. The third bill, which some call the most sweeping, will likely go to the floor next week, Charter said.
That third bill, HR 1231, or “Reversing President Obama’s Offshore Moratorium Act,” would require the federal government to lease at least 50 percent of available unleased acreage off the West Coast, Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico and much of the East Coast, every five years.”
“Under existing law, the government decides which areas to lease. This new law would effectively double the current level of offshore drilling.
And states, such as California, would have no say in the matter.
“Earlier versions of bills like this generally allowed a state to veto projects,” said Regan Nelson of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“Californians have consistently made it clear that they oppose new offshore drilling off their coast," she said. “This bill is so out of sync of what people want. They’re willing to put oil production over all other considerations.”
Supporters of the bills say the need for more domestic oil is urgent.
"Gas prices in California’s Central Valley have skyrocketed to above $4 a gallon and remained above the national average for weeks," said Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., one of the three local congressmen who voted for the bills.
"We can no longer afford to rely on energy supplies from unstable foreign sources. The time for inaction is over. We must expand domestic energy production to get Americans back to work, bring relief at the pump and create jobs,” he said.”
Here’s my take.:
These bills are likely to be ineffective in lowering gas prices and are likely to cause billions of dollars of damages to the coast of California.
But there are some amendments that could upgrade them enough they might make sense
1. China is very likely to begin importing as much or more oil than we are quite soon. So, it looks like having more oil from offshore drilling will likely only cut back gasoline from $8 a gallon or $9 a gallon that looks to be coming by ten cents a gallon.
If, for every dollar the oil industry spent for offshore drilling had to be matched with three times that much money in switching transport to other fuels than petroleum and in converting existing vehicles into plug-in hybrids AND installing a more efficient gasoline and diesel engine, then that combination might have an effect.
We can deal with double the price of gasoline and diesel if we also begin to only need half as much of these fuels to drive the same number of miles!
2. Since billions of dollars in potential damages are at stake and the oil very irresponsible impression of the safety competence of the oil companies is at stake.
These bills should ONLY be passed if the safety managers on these new offshore drilling rigs are NOT prevented by trying to save money cutting corners on safety.
If the chances are literally one in 10 million of one problematic spill that will be stopped with less than 5% of the oil released by the BP problem in the Gulf, why not allow it?
(This hurry up and drill program looks like a spill about once every ten years and just as big as the Gulf oftentimes will occur if these bills are passed!)
But, if those two provisions are not forceful enough or included, these bills won’t protect our economy from the doubling of gasoline and diesel nor will they make more than the damages they will likely cost.
So, in their present form, it is essential they not be passed!
With these two amendments though, they might make sense.
The one last point is that any state that remains unconvinced of the safety programs for this new drilling should be able to say no to it off the shores of that state.
So, the third amendment is to add that or leave it as is. If the safety procedures are good enough and work in practice other places, states will OK drilling for the new money they get. But they should have the right to say no if the data they see are unconvincing.
These bills in their current form do not make that confidence at all likely!
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
It IS about the economy but facts count too.....
Today's post: Wednesday, 4-27-2010
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:
It IS about the economy but facts count too.....
I once was extremely opposed to the Presidential candidacy of Democrat John Edwards since some of his economic policies if he became President would have truly horrible consequences if he actually did as he said he would.
His comments showed he simply didn’t understand economic facts. Following his policies would have been much like standing on the beach watching after warnings were posted for a large Tsunami later that day just because you thought you could control or ignore facts you didn’t like. As writer Robert Heinlein once put it, the actually possible events would have happened anyway. Ouch! No way was John Edwards qualified to be President of the United States.
Unfortunately, now, it’s many of the current Republicans that are willing to pretend away facts they don’t like.
There are two problems with that. It looks increasingly as if gasoline price will double from here by 2010. That’s about $8 or $9 a gallon or more!
If we try to pretend this isn’t so and pass laws to cause us to continue to use gasoline and diesel fuel for transport, our economy is in grave danger. Similarly, if we do NOT pass laws to increase mileage standards for vehicles using oil and move to alternatives other than oil for transport, the facts will begin to kill our economy.
In addition to peak oil, China plans to add nearly as many vehicles by 2020 as now exist in Europe.
Shai Agassi, the founder of Better Place, an electric-car company, said this and it was reported yesterday by TIME magazine.:
"Within less than this decade the No. 1 selling car in the world will be the electric car," he says. "It's the biggest financial opportunity the world has ever seen…..."
He added. "I'll put it this way: We have people from China here."
The TIME article said this: “The People's Republic has been busy creating a bourgeoisie, and the middle class does like to drive. Beijing's next five-year plan foresees at least 170 million new vehicles, or perhaps twice that, according to Agassi.
The lower estimate alone is as many cars as there are in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Britain combined.
The 8 million barrels of oil that would be required every day to fuel them is about as much as the U.S. imports every day.
"Do you know what the price of oil will be in five years if they're not using electric cars?" Agassi asks.”
If that happens or even comes close to it, gasoline and diesel prices will go up. They may go up by more than double the current prices in fact.
A separate TIME article on China & its incentive to go to electric cars said this:
"China, like the U.S., also has worries about dependency on foreign oil -- half of its oil comes from abroad; and it's only likely to get worse. China's oil consumption is expected to rise from 7.6 million barrels a day in 2007 to 11.6 million barrels a day by 2020."
Second, we do need to protect our economy from relying on oil while its prices go up enough to stall out our economy.
But the scientists also have found clear and increasing evidence that to save our climate and possibly our ability to grow food and keep some of our coastal cities, we also need to dramatically switch away from much of our use of natural gas and close to all our use of coal. Or we need to find a cost effective way to turn the CO2 produced into Oxygen and Carbon compounds. Cutting back in several ways AND adding cost effective CO2 removal systems is likely best.
The current Republicans who think their wish this isn’t so will prevent the consequences are wrong. If they fail to act to help prevent the disasters we are headed for, their actions are not based on fact.
Unfortunately if they continue to do this in our Congress, the actually possible will happen anyway. And, the survivors will think of them in years to come as many people think of Hitler now. Their beliefs were not based on facts – so their actions had horrible consequences
Also, though many of the economic principles Republicans believe in are sound, as this becomes evident, Republicans will return to being a weak and minority party if they continue to act like ignorant fools. Facts do count. And, pretending or even believing otherwise is not a good idea! The facts always win the argument. As our past California Governor put it, they will return to “losing at the Box office.”
On a more positive note,:
Thermal solar power from the Southwest United States and Mexico, when developed, can come close to producing all the electricity we now use or more. BrightSource Energy, a thermal solar company, has filed for a $250 million dollar ipo. This will enable them to help begin the process of harvesting this potential source of renewable energy on a moderately large scale.
Miasole, a less known Silicon Valley thin film solar photovoltaic company, has just done a deal with Intel which already looks likely to enable them to use similar technology and methods to lower the cost of making these thin film solar panels and radically increase the volume they make. That means that larger photovoltaic solar plants in cool but sunny places and small photovoltaic solar systems all over the world will be more cost effective soon. That means we will build a lot more of them. This will also help.
So, even if the politicians fail to act enough or fast enough, some businesses are working out deals that may protect us anyway.
We just need ten times as much in a quarter of the time it’s taking to avoid real economic problems.
So, every kind of energy efficiency improvement we can put into use, will help us to overcome this. We’ll need a huge amount of them as things stand now!
Today's post: Wednesday, 4-27-2010
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:
It IS about the economy but facts count too.....
I once was extremely opposed to the Presidential candidacy of Democrat John Edwards since some of his economic policies if he became President would have truly horrible consequences if he actually did as he said he would.
His comments showed he simply didn’t understand economic facts. Following his policies would have been much like standing on the beach watching after warnings were posted for a large Tsunami later that day just because you thought you could control or ignore facts you didn’t like. As writer Robert Heinlein once put it, the actually possible events would have happened anyway. Ouch! No way was John Edwards qualified to be President of the United States.
Unfortunately, now, it’s many of the current Republicans that are willing to pretend away facts they don’t like.
There are two problems with that. It looks increasingly as if gasoline price will double from here by 2010. That’s about $8 or $9 a gallon or more!
If we try to pretend this isn’t so and pass laws to cause us to continue to use gasoline and diesel fuel for transport, our economy is in grave danger. Similarly, if we do NOT pass laws to increase mileage standards for vehicles using oil and move to alternatives other than oil for transport, the facts will begin to kill our economy.
In addition to peak oil, China plans to add nearly as many vehicles by 2020 as now exist in Europe.
Shai Agassi, the founder of Better Place, an electric-car company, said this and it was reported yesterday by TIME magazine.:
"Within less than this decade the No. 1 selling car in the world will be the electric car," he says. "It's the biggest financial opportunity the world has ever seen…..."
He added. "I'll put it this way: We have people from China here."
The TIME article said this: “The People's Republic has been busy creating a bourgeoisie, and the middle class does like to drive. Beijing's next five-year plan foresees at least 170 million new vehicles, or perhaps twice that, according to Agassi.
The lower estimate alone is as many cars as there are in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Britain combined.
The 8 million barrels of oil that would be required every day to fuel them is about as much as the U.S. imports every day.
"Do you know what the price of oil will be in five years if they're not using electric cars?" Agassi asks.”
If that happens or even comes close to it, gasoline and diesel prices will go up. They may go up by more than double the current prices in fact.
A separate TIME article on China & its incentive to go to electric cars said this:
"China, like the U.S., also has worries about dependency on foreign oil -- half of its oil comes from abroad; and it's only likely to get worse. China's oil consumption is expected to rise from 7.6 million barrels a day in 2007 to 11.6 million barrels a day by 2020."
Second, we do need to protect our economy from relying on oil while its prices go up enough to stall out our economy.
But the scientists also have found clear and increasing evidence that to save our climate and possibly our ability to grow food and keep some of our coastal cities, we also need to dramatically switch away from much of our use of natural gas and close to all our use of coal. Or we need to find a cost effective way to turn the CO2 produced into Oxygen and Carbon compounds. Cutting back in several ways AND adding cost effective CO2 removal systems is likely best.
The current Republicans who think their wish this isn’t so will prevent the consequences are wrong. If they fail to act to help prevent the disasters we are headed for, their actions are not based on fact.
Unfortunately if they continue to do this in our Congress, the actually possible will happen anyway. And, the survivors will think of them in years to come as many people think of Hitler now. Their beliefs were not based on facts – so their actions had horrible consequences
Also, though many of the economic principles Republicans believe in are sound, as this becomes evident, Republicans will return to being a weak and minority party if they continue to act like ignorant fools. Facts do count. And, pretending or even believing otherwise is not a good idea! The facts always win the argument. As our past California Governor put it, they will return to “losing at the Box office.”
On a more positive note,:
Thermal solar power from the Southwest United States and Mexico, when developed, can come close to producing all the electricity we now use or more. BrightSource Energy, a thermal solar company, has filed for a $250 million dollar ipo. This will enable them to help begin the process of harvesting this potential source of renewable energy on a moderately large scale.
Miasole, a less known Silicon Valley thin film solar photovoltaic company, has just done a deal with Intel which already looks likely to enable them to use similar technology and methods to lower the cost of making these thin film solar panels and radically increase the volume they make. That means that larger photovoltaic solar plants in cool but sunny places and small photovoltaic solar systems all over the world will be more cost effective soon. That means we will build a lot more of them. This will also help.
So, even if the politicians fail to act enough or fast enough, some businesses are working out deals that may protect us anyway.
We just need ten times as much in a quarter of the time it’s taking to avoid real economic problems.
So, every kind of energy efficiency improvement we can put into use, will help us to overcome this. We’ll need a huge amount of them as things stand now!
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Why California’s good news is so badly needed....
Today's post: Wednesday, 4-13-2010
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:
Why California’s good news is so badly needed....
Tuesday, 4-12, yesterday, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a mandate that requires the state's utilities to get 33 % of their electricity from renewable sources like geothermal, wind, small scale hydro power, and solar by 2020.
In 2009, California generated 14 % of its electricity from renewable sources. Last year it was likely closer to 15 to 17 % & the largest California utilities were closer to 17 to 19%.
This was done at an event announcing a Department of Energy $1.2 billion conditional loan guarantee for SunPower and NRG Solar to build a 250-megawatt photovoltaic power plant in San Luis Obispo County.
And, this past Monday, BrightSource Energy closed financing for an even larger thermal solar power plant in Southern California near Ivanpah that included $1.6 billion from a DOE loan guarantee, a $168 million equity investment from Google, and a $200 million venture capital round.
Even better, this project is one of several they are committed to build in Southern California and the rest of the Southwestern United States.
Hopefully this will now be followed up by the utilities helping their commercial and residential customers install onsite photovoltaic solar and similar wind, small hydro, and geothermal plants as well reach the mandated level of 33%.
And, there is the potential, in California at least, of increasing energy efficiency and tripling that amount of renewable energy although population an economic growth will like mean that will be 60 to 75% of California’s energy at that time.
But this progress is very badly needed!
1. Because transport in California and the rest of the United States is so dependent on gasoline and diesel fuel now, the run up in oil prices recently has the potential to derail the economic recovery. An analytic essay by UPI says it has already created a 5 percent cut in discretionary income and shows signs of worse soon. Their article went on to say that since such a large percentage of the oil comes from outside the United States that money will create jobs elsewhere – NOT here. That decrease in consumer demand and job creation they say has the potential to derail the economic recovery or keep it very weak.
When we have far more clean sources of generation of electricity than now and the majority of miles driven in our cars and trucks comes from electricity, we not only will have far less impact from the coming doubling of oil prices otherwise, not only will it derail our economy less on the demand side, far less of our money will leave the country for foreign oil so more jobs can be created here.
Even better, once that happens, electric powered vehicles will cost less per mile to drive and will quickly go to an even larger percentage of our transport.
2. We open this blog with the idea that we need to cut fossil fuel use by 2050 by 80 % while actually growing our economy. In the book, Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth by Mark Hertsgaard, he says that because we are unlikely to get to 100% in time, we also will need to decide what part of our coastal cities we can afford to save from rising sea levels and plan ahead now how we will save the part we can afford to save.
We also will need to think through now how we can save enough farm output to feed ourselves.
So, this good news from California, though 20 to 40 years too late, is extremely good news indeed.
The more of this kind of thing we do and the faster we do it, the less we will have to plan how to lose our economic assets and food production and do it safely.
Today's post: Wednesday, 4-13-2010
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:
Why California’s good news is so badly needed....
Tuesday, 4-12, yesterday, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a mandate that requires the state's utilities to get 33 % of their electricity from renewable sources like geothermal, wind, small scale hydro power, and solar by 2020.
In 2009, California generated 14 % of its electricity from renewable sources. Last year it was likely closer to 15 to 17 % & the largest California utilities were closer to 17 to 19%.
This was done at an event announcing a Department of Energy $1.2 billion conditional loan guarantee for SunPower and NRG Solar to build a 250-megawatt photovoltaic power plant in San Luis Obispo County.
And, this past Monday, BrightSource Energy closed financing for an even larger thermal solar power plant in Southern California near Ivanpah that included $1.6 billion from a DOE loan guarantee, a $168 million equity investment from Google, and a $200 million venture capital round.
Even better, this project is one of several they are committed to build in Southern California and the rest of the Southwestern United States.
Hopefully this will now be followed up by the utilities helping their commercial and residential customers install onsite photovoltaic solar and similar wind, small hydro, and geothermal plants as well reach the mandated level of 33%.
And, there is the potential, in California at least, of increasing energy efficiency and tripling that amount of renewable energy although population an economic growth will like mean that will be 60 to 75% of California’s energy at that time.
But this progress is very badly needed!
1. Because transport in California and the rest of the United States is so dependent on gasoline and diesel fuel now, the run up in oil prices recently has the potential to derail the economic recovery. An analytic essay by UPI says it has already created a 5 percent cut in discretionary income and shows signs of worse soon. Their article went on to say that since such a large percentage of the oil comes from outside the United States that money will create jobs elsewhere – NOT here. That decrease in consumer demand and job creation they say has the potential to derail the economic recovery or keep it very weak.
When we have far more clean sources of generation of electricity than now and the majority of miles driven in our cars and trucks comes from electricity, we not only will have far less impact from the coming doubling of oil prices otherwise, not only will it derail our economy less on the demand side, far less of our money will leave the country for foreign oil so more jobs can be created here.
Even better, once that happens, electric powered vehicles will cost less per mile to drive and will quickly go to an even larger percentage of our transport.
2. We open this blog with the idea that we need to cut fossil fuel use by 2050 by 80 % while actually growing our economy. In the book, Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth by Mark Hertsgaard, he says that because we are unlikely to get to 100% in time, we also will need to decide what part of our coastal cities we can afford to save from rising sea levels and plan ahead now how we will save the part we can afford to save.
We also will need to think through now how we can save enough farm output to feed ourselves.
So, this good news from California, though 20 to 40 years too late, is extremely good news indeed.
The more of this kind of thing we do and the faster we do it, the less we will have to plan how to lose our economic assets and food production and do it safely.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Manhattan project or Moon shot approach to clean energy solutions....
Today's post: Wednesday, 4-6-2010
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:
Manhattan project or Moon shot approach to clean energy solutions....
This week’s post is about what conceptual approach is needed to get to clean energy solutions in time to prevent catastrophic problems from warming or severe economic disruption from that or fossil fuels becoming too scarce and expensive before we have enough alternatives in use.
Tom Friedman and others have suggested that we use the Manhattan project or the race to get a man on the moon as a conceptual model to get enough clean energy solutions in place soon enough. The Manhattan project or the race to get a man on the moon were things ignited the public imagination or get very serious government funding or both and got successful results. They also got successful results in the shortest possible time.
They do inspire the imagination; suggest speed of execution is essential, and by implication suggest a successful result.
But the massive size, multiple aspect, and complexity of the energy situation needs a comparable model to emulate that had these characteristics I think.
The Manhattan project or the race to get a man on the moon had complexities but not at the very multiple level of complexity that the energy crisis does.
However, there WAS a historical event that compared well with the energy crisis. It had multiple aspects and locations and kinds of stakeholders just as the energy crisis does.
That was the focused effort of the United States and its allies to win World War II. It was also successful. But even better, it had several models of the components of that success that also may be helpful.
Yes, it may have won the war to have had the Manhattan project. And, it certainly shortened the war and saved hundreds of thousands of deaths of the Japanese people and the soldiers and other military forces of the United States that an invasion would have produced.
But a review of the progress of the war shows that the war was close to irrevocably won by that time.
It was the strategies that won the war in Europe and were winning in the Pacific war until that time that truly won the war.
These included having the key interest groups work together and support each other at least to some degree. And, it included multiple and massive efforts to deploy effective technologies and make small but real improvements on the fly and multiple sources of innovation and in virtually every area needed at the same time. And a real spirit of public support across our society supported that and helped us win the war.
So, I think what we need is a world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources.
The good news first is that we are beginning to have part of this in place. We are beginning to have the needed, “multiple and massive efforts to deploy effective technologies and make small but real improvements on the fly and have multiple sources of innovation and in virtually every area needed at the same time.”
Here are just a couple of examples.
For example, if a safe and doable way to supply vehicles with hydrogen was developed. We could use wind, solar, geothermal, or nuclear power located close enough to water – lakes, rivers, oceans, etc to use the electricity from those sources to provide the hydrogen and release back into the air some the oxygen we’ve already used and the oxygen the fuels cells in the vehicles powered then use by turning the water into hydrogen and oxygen. (These renewable sources near oceans could desalt the water and use just part of that to produce hydrogen.)
Now it seems we may have that technology. This time I seem to have lost my notes on who developed it; but I saw a recent story that explained that there is a new way to store and deliver hydrogen by encapsulating hydrides from which hydrogen can be extracted for fuel cells and which uses nanotechnology. These encapsulated hydrides can be safely stored, transported, and even piped into vehicle fuel tanks much as gasoline and diesel fuel is now.
Another technology we have posted on before is by the Swedish company that now has an office in Sunnyvale, California in the silicon valley, GLO AB.
They use nanotechnology to make manufacturing LED lights something like a fifth as expensive as the manufacturing of LED lights now requires.
Now, I’ve replaced most of the incandescent bulbs we use for lighting with compact fluorescents which use only 25% of the energy of the incandescent bulbs they replaced. But so far, despite their far greater safety to me and my family and using only an eighth of the electricity of incandescent bulbs & half that of compact fluorescents I’ve only replaced two of the compact fluorescents with KED bulbs.
The reason is that I had to pay over a hundred dollars for just those two LED bulbs!
If they only cost a fifth as much. I would have replaced 10 compact fluorescents for the same money. And with only a bit over $10 each, by now I’d have replaced several more compact fluorescents with LED bulbs.
And, at that price level, utilities facing the need for electricity for electric cars or rising prices for electricity from fossil fuels could make LED bulbs available to their customers for ALL their lights at no charge to their customers and still be money ahead themselves.
There are literally hundreds or thousands of such efforts now in every part of energy savings and energy efficiency and clean energy production. Even nuclear may stay around though with much better and more reliable safety features. And, the venture capital firms are beginning to put some serious money into expanding the companies that are successfully deploying those technologies according to a story this week here in the Silicon Valley.
What we are so far missing is the spirit and energy and mulitple buy-in from all kinds of people that the United States, England, and Russia had during World War II.
We need more leaders with that vision and who know how to sell it to all of the stakeholders involved, not just some of them.
I’m out of time today but will list some potential ideas to solve that problem next time.
Until then I challenge you to commit yourself personally to do what you can for the world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources.
What can you already do in your home or at work?
How can you help get support from everyone for the world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources?
Even a single new LED light or more replacing a single energy using device with a more energy efficient one will help.
Even getting one other person to also commit to winning the world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources -- will help.
Today's post: Wednesday, 4-6-2010
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:
Manhattan project or Moon shot approach to clean energy solutions....
This week’s post is about what conceptual approach is needed to get to clean energy solutions in time to prevent catastrophic problems from warming or severe economic disruption from that or fossil fuels becoming too scarce and expensive before we have enough alternatives in use.
Tom Friedman and others have suggested that we use the Manhattan project or the race to get a man on the moon as a conceptual model to get enough clean energy solutions in place soon enough. The Manhattan project or the race to get a man on the moon were things ignited the public imagination or get very serious government funding or both and got successful results. They also got successful results in the shortest possible time.
They do inspire the imagination; suggest speed of execution is essential, and by implication suggest a successful result.
But the massive size, multiple aspect, and complexity of the energy situation needs a comparable model to emulate that had these characteristics I think.
The Manhattan project or the race to get a man on the moon had complexities but not at the very multiple level of complexity that the energy crisis does.
However, there WAS a historical event that compared well with the energy crisis. It had multiple aspects and locations and kinds of stakeholders just as the energy crisis does.
That was the focused effort of the United States and its allies to win World War II. It was also successful. But even better, it had several models of the components of that success that also may be helpful.
Yes, it may have won the war to have had the Manhattan project. And, it certainly shortened the war and saved hundreds of thousands of deaths of the Japanese people and the soldiers and other military forces of the United States that an invasion would have produced.
But a review of the progress of the war shows that the war was close to irrevocably won by that time.
It was the strategies that won the war in Europe and were winning in the Pacific war until that time that truly won the war.
These included having the key interest groups work together and support each other at least to some degree. And, it included multiple and massive efforts to deploy effective technologies and make small but real improvements on the fly and multiple sources of innovation and in virtually every area needed at the same time. And a real spirit of public support across our society supported that and helped us win the war.
So, I think what we need is a world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources.
The good news first is that we are beginning to have part of this in place. We are beginning to have the needed, “multiple and massive efforts to deploy effective technologies and make small but real improvements on the fly and have multiple sources of innovation and in virtually every area needed at the same time.”
Here are just a couple of examples.
For example, if a safe and doable way to supply vehicles with hydrogen was developed. We could use wind, solar, geothermal, or nuclear power located close enough to water – lakes, rivers, oceans, etc to use the electricity from those sources to provide the hydrogen and release back into the air some the oxygen we’ve already used and the oxygen the fuels cells in the vehicles powered then use by turning the water into hydrogen and oxygen. (These renewable sources near oceans could desalt the water and use just part of that to produce hydrogen.)
Now it seems we may have that technology. This time I seem to have lost my notes on who developed it; but I saw a recent story that explained that there is a new way to store and deliver hydrogen by encapsulating hydrides from which hydrogen can be extracted for fuel cells and which uses nanotechnology. These encapsulated hydrides can be safely stored, transported, and even piped into vehicle fuel tanks much as gasoline and diesel fuel is now.
Another technology we have posted on before is by the Swedish company that now has an office in Sunnyvale, California in the silicon valley, GLO AB.
They use nanotechnology to make manufacturing LED lights something like a fifth as expensive as the manufacturing of LED lights now requires.
Now, I’ve replaced most of the incandescent bulbs we use for lighting with compact fluorescents which use only 25% of the energy of the incandescent bulbs they replaced. But so far, despite their far greater safety to me and my family and using only an eighth of the electricity of incandescent bulbs & half that of compact fluorescents I’ve only replaced two of the compact fluorescents with KED bulbs.
The reason is that I had to pay over a hundred dollars for just those two LED bulbs!
If they only cost a fifth as much. I would have replaced 10 compact fluorescents for the same money. And with only a bit over $10 each, by now I’d have replaced several more compact fluorescents with LED bulbs.
And, at that price level, utilities facing the need for electricity for electric cars or rising prices for electricity from fossil fuels could make LED bulbs available to their customers for ALL their lights at no charge to their customers and still be money ahead themselves.
There are literally hundreds or thousands of such efforts now in every part of energy savings and energy efficiency and clean energy production. Even nuclear may stay around though with much better and more reliable safety features. And, the venture capital firms are beginning to put some serious money into expanding the companies that are successfully deploying those technologies according to a story this week here in the Silicon Valley.
What we are so far missing is the spirit and energy and mulitple buy-in from all kinds of people that the United States, England, and Russia had during World War II.
We need more leaders with that vision and who know how to sell it to all of the stakeholders involved, not just some of them.
I’m out of time today but will list some potential ideas to solve that problem next time.
Until then I challenge you to commit yourself personally to do what you can for the world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources.
What can you already do in your home or at work?
How can you help get support from everyone for the world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources?
Even a single new LED light or more replacing a single energy using device with a more energy efficient one will help.
Even getting one other person to also commit to winning the world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources -- will help.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Much safer nuclear or alternatives....
Today's post: Wednesday, 3-23-2010
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:
Much safer nuclear or alternatives....
This week’s post is on the nuclear situation.
There are two responses that make sense for nuclear energy now that the Japan quake and some checking of other reactors since have found safety issues.
I think the best answer is to do both. BUT they are both challenging to do. So we need to tackle them with a lot of brains, knowledge, energy and, unfortunately, money.
But the alternative of building a supposed to be safe nuclear facility near population centers and farms that was inadequately designed for effective safety cannot be allowed to continue. The situation in Japan shows this.
1. Germany was downwind from Chernobyl a few years ago. They already have done a close to best in the world job of adding energy conservation upgrades and renewable energy sources for electricity. And that experience is one of the reasons.
Now in today’s news, AP, in a story datelined Berlin reports that Germany now plans to begin to wean itself from nuclear power entirely. This is of interest for two reasons. One is that anything effective they manage to do can be used here and around the world. The second is that the United States in just California has more potential to generate renewable sources for electricity. So if Germany can even come close, the United States can do even better.
So what would doing without nuclear or adding very little more in the United States require?
Quite a lot which I’ll list. But the more we do, the less nuclear we will need and the more likely it is any nuclear we do add will be done safely instead almost safely but not really as it has been so far.
a) In the important and very well researched book, Addicted to Energy, by Elton Sherwin, Jr, he makes the point that simply retrofitting existing technologies or replacing things with the existing technologies to increase energy efficiency throughout the economy in the United States would save more energy than all the oil we now import.
The book should have been titled something like, “Massive savings from energy efficiency using already available technologies.”
Doing what he recommends at a flat out fast speed all over the economy right away will return more money than it costs. And, the improved GDP per energy used will arrive far sooner than we can add more renewable energy or nuclear that is actually safe or far closer to it can be done.
So, whether or not we build more nuclear, this set of things has to be the number one priority.
b) We need to do dramatically more building of renewable energy sources than we have.
Following Germany’s incentive system to ensure this happens is a first key. They have roughly a half to a third of California’s solar potential and have been installing nine times as much solar as California for many years. We must find locally effective versions of these incentives and use them very soon in California and across the United States.
We need to build close to the maximum that is even close to environmentally safe of large thermal solar plants throughout the Southwestern United States and most of Mexico. And, we need to build the transmission lines and make the upgrades to the current transmission grid to get that electricity to where it will be used.
We need to do the same with wind generated electricity from Minnesota to West Texas and add wind energy in most of the other places that have wind.
We need to add photovoltaic solar in moderate sized but inexpensive locations near cities and existing transmission grids and make the process of doing so easy, cheap, and quick where permits and grid connections are concerned.
We need to install photovoltaic solar on close to every rooftop and cover every parking lot of reasonable size with a canopy and install photovoltaic solar on every square foot of these canopies.
c) We need to continue our development and roll out of much better batteries so that homes, businesses, and cities can store the irregular supply of electricity from renewable sources for when it is actually needed.
d) We need to convert coal to gas and use that and natural gas to generate electricity in Bloom Energy’s fuels cells or those of a set of competitors if Bloom Energy isn’t up to the job; stop burning these fuels; and feed the CO2 released to algae to make biofuels.
e) We need to find out how to use far more geothermal energy including drilling much deeper to access it and to find out how to do this without causing earthquakes. Once we do that, we need to multiply our supply because like nuclear and natural gas and coal, geothermal delivers energy as needed.
The other good news besides the massive amount of usable electricity these steps can net our economy is that as expensive and time consuming as doing them all well is, it likely is cheaper and faster than building truly safe nuclear plants.
So, this is the better choice that we should rely on most and do the most and do the fastest.
2. But the recent TED talk by Stewart Brand supporting nuclear power make some good points.
Nuclear power uses dramatically less land than all of the renewable sources of any size and delivers power as needed as renewable energy sources do not – at least so far.
And, it deliver so much less air pollution and CO2 than burning coal it’s scary to contemplate.
To avoid having unbreatheable air as early London had and part of China do now, we need to burn dramatically less coal. (Gasifying it and using fuel cells to make electricity solves that problem.) But Brand has a legitimate point that so does using nuclear power instead.
And, if we really have already used up the safe limits of sending CO2 into the air as the evidence increasingly says we have, his point that nuclear can solve that problem and may well be badly needed to do so, is also legitimate.
So, I agree with Energy Secretary Chu and President Obama that we should keep nuclear power as an option.
But it’s only worth doing at all if it is done far more safely than it was recently in Japan and that level of safety likely is not in our existing reactors.
The reason is that the downside is so dreadful.
There are two problems that need to be solved every single time and solved far better than they have been.
Yes that will make nuclear far more expensive and slower to get more of. But no nuclear plant should be built or kept long in operation without it.
1. Nuclear plants should only be built in politically stable and relatively sane countries. Countries such as Iran and North Korea should have none based on their current politics. They should have nuclear power but from other countries that can afford to build safe reactors and won’t weaponize them. South Korea or China can supply North Korea and Russia can supply Iran.
In addition, every reactor should get extremely tight 24/7 security from the military of the country where they are located every single day they operate.
If that’s too expensive, don’t build nuclear. I think it is that simple.
2. Building safe reactors we are now seeing is much harder and expensive than was initially thought as the Japan experience has shown.
Here are just a few ideas I’ve had since the Japan situation has revealed the need for them.
Going forward, I think no reactor should be built that doesn’t have all of these needed steps in place that the Japanese reactors did not have.
a) Radioactive steam was released into the air and then spread out. They did not have a superfort sized building encasing the entire site that would have allowed that steam to enter there but not the surrounding community. The VAB, vehicle assembly building that was used for the Saturn moon rockets show we can build such structures.
That will be expensive to do for each reactor; but it can be done.
b) Many of the things the workers in these reactors could not do because of high radiation can be done by robots controlled from safer locations. Such robots are just now arriving in Japan to the stricken sites. That’s unacceptably unsafe, they should have already been inside and ready to use. Every nuclear site should have them & likely doesn’t now.
That will be expensive to do for each reactor; but it can be done.
c) The cooling that didn’t happen caused the problem in Japan and its severity.
Better reactor design and fuel rod storage design going forward can make this problem less likely. But dramatically better electric power backup within each site and of the coolants needed as well must be in every site.
They should have a mini-reactor that is even better protected than the main reactors that can supply the electricity needed to run the plant and its cooling systems – at least in shut down mode for the main reactors.
And, if that fails, they also need the natural gas and fuel cells to make electricity onsite with at least 3 weeks of supply necessary to maintain the controls, robots, and shut down mode cooling.
There would have been no problem in Japan if they had all these things ahead of time.
Doing all these things for every reactor built or retrofitted to those we will keep will be expensive to do for each and every reactor; but it can be done.
My position is that we need the nuclear reactors; but we should not use them or build more without these safe-guards. It will make them a lot more expensive and make them take longer to build.
But better that than nuclear accidents that happen near people and farmland. And, without these safeguards we run a very large risk.
Today's post: Wednesday, 3-23-2010
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:
Much safer nuclear or alternatives....
This week’s post is on the nuclear situation.
There are two responses that make sense for nuclear energy now that the Japan quake and some checking of other reactors since have found safety issues.
I think the best answer is to do both. BUT they are both challenging to do. So we need to tackle them with a lot of brains, knowledge, energy and, unfortunately, money.
But the alternative of building a supposed to be safe nuclear facility near population centers and farms that was inadequately designed for effective safety cannot be allowed to continue. The situation in Japan shows this.
1. Germany was downwind from Chernobyl a few years ago. They already have done a close to best in the world job of adding energy conservation upgrades and renewable energy sources for electricity. And that experience is one of the reasons.
Now in today’s news, AP, in a story datelined Berlin reports that Germany now plans to begin to wean itself from nuclear power entirely. This is of interest for two reasons. One is that anything effective they manage to do can be used here and around the world. The second is that the United States in just California has more potential to generate renewable sources for electricity. So if Germany can even come close, the United States can do even better.
So what would doing without nuclear or adding very little more in the United States require?
Quite a lot which I’ll list. But the more we do, the less nuclear we will need and the more likely it is any nuclear we do add will be done safely instead almost safely but not really as it has been so far.
a) In the important and very well researched book, Addicted to Energy, by Elton Sherwin, Jr, he makes the point that simply retrofitting existing technologies or replacing things with the existing technologies to increase energy efficiency throughout the economy in the United States would save more energy than all the oil we now import.
The book should have been titled something like, “Massive savings from energy efficiency using already available technologies.”
Doing what he recommends at a flat out fast speed all over the economy right away will return more money than it costs. And, the improved GDP per energy used will arrive far sooner than we can add more renewable energy or nuclear that is actually safe or far closer to it can be done.
So, whether or not we build more nuclear, this set of things has to be the number one priority.
b) We need to do dramatically more building of renewable energy sources than we have.
Following Germany’s incentive system to ensure this happens is a first key. They have roughly a half to a third of California’s solar potential and have been installing nine times as much solar as California for many years. We must find locally effective versions of these incentives and use them very soon in California and across the United States.
We need to build close to the maximum that is even close to environmentally safe of large thermal solar plants throughout the Southwestern United States and most of Mexico. And, we need to build the transmission lines and make the upgrades to the current transmission grid to get that electricity to where it will be used.
We need to do the same with wind generated electricity from Minnesota to West Texas and add wind energy in most of the other places that have wind.
We need to add photovoltaic solar in moderate sized but inexpensive locations near cities and existing transmission grids and make the process of doing so easy, cheap, and quick where permits and grid connections are concerned.
We need to install photovoltaic solar on close to every rooftop and cover every parking lot of reasonable size with a canopy and install photovoltaic solar on every square foot of these canopies.
c) We need to continue our development and roll out of much better batteries so that homes, businesses, and cities can store the irregular supply of electricity from renewable sources for when it is actually needed.
d) We need to convert coal to gas and use that and natural gas to generate electricity in Bloom Energy’s fuels cells or those of a set of competitors if Bloom Energy isn’t up to the job; stop burning these fuels; and feed the CO2 released to algae to make biofuels.
e) We need to find out how to use far more geothermal energy including drilling much deeper to access it and to find out how to do this without causing earthquakes. Once we do that, we need to multiply our supply because like nuclear and natural gas and coal, geothermal delivers energy as needed.
The other good news besides the massive amount of usable electricity these steps can net our economy is that as expensive and time consuming as doing them all well is, it likely is cheaper and faster than building truly safe nuclear plants.
So, this is the better choice that we should rely on most and do the most and do the fastest.
2. But the recent TED talk by Stewart Brand supporting nuclear power make some good points.
Nuclear power uses dramatically less land than all of the renewable sources of any size and delivers power as needed as renewable energy sources do not – at least so far.
And, it deliver so much less air pollution and CO2 than burning coal it’s scary to contemplate.
To avoid having unbreatheable air as early London had and part of China do now, we need to burn dramatically less coal. (Gasifying it and using fuel cells to make electricity solves that problem.) But Brand has a legitimate point that so does using nuclear power instead.
And, if we really have already used up the safe limits of sending CO2 into the air as the evidence increasingly says we have, his point that nuclear can solve that problem and may well be badly needed to do so, is also legitimate.
So, I agree with Energy Secretary Chu and President Obama that we should keep nuclear power as an option.
But it’s only worth doing at all if it is done far more safely than it was recently in Japan and that level of safety likely is not in our existing reactors.
The reason is that the downside is so dreadful.
There are two problems that need to be solved every single time and solved far better than they have been.
Yes that will make nuclear far more expensive and slower to get more of. But no nuclear plant should be built or kept long in operation without it.
1. Nuclear plants should only be built in politically stable and relatively sane countries. Countries such as Iran and North Korea should have none based on their current politics. They should have nuclear power but from other countries that can afford to build safe reactors and won’t weaponize them. South Korea or China can supply North Korea and Russia can supply Iran.
In addition, every reactor should get extremely tight 24/7 security from the military of the country where they are located every single day they operate.
If that’s too expensive, don’t build nuclear. I think it is that simple.
2. Building safe reactors we are now seeing is much harder and expensive than was initially thought as the Japan experience has shown.
Here are just a few ideas I’ve had since the Japan situation has revealed the need for them.
Going forward, I think no reactor should be built that doesn’t have all of these needed steps in place that the Japanese reactors did not have.
a) Radioactive steam was released into the air and then spread out. They did not have a superfort sized building encasing the entire site that would have allowed that steam to enter there but not the surrounding community. The VAB, vehicle assembly building that was used for the Saturn moon rockets show we can build such structures.
That will be expensive to do for each reactor; but it can be done.
b) Many of the things the workers in these reactors could not do because of high radiation can be done by robots controlled from safer locations. Such robots are just now arriving in Japan to the stricken sites. That’s unacceptably unsafe, they should have already been inside and ready to use. Every nuclear site should have them & likely doesn’t now.
That will be expensive to do for each reactor; but it can be done.
c) The cooling that didn’t happen caused the problem in Japan and its severity.
Better reactor design and fuel rod storage design going forward can make this problem less likely. But dramatically better electric power backup within each site and of the coolants needed as well must be in every site.
They should have a mini-reactor that is even better protected than the main reactors that can supply the electricity needed to run the plant and its cooling systems – at least in shut down mode for the main reactors.
And, if that fails, they also need the natural gas and fuel cells to make electricity onsite with at least 3 weeks of supply necessary to maintain the controls, robots, and shut down mode cooling.
There would have been no problem in Japan if they had all these things ahead of time.
Doing all these things for every reactor built or retrofitted to those we will keep will be expensive to do for each and every reactor; but it can be done.
My position is that we need the nuclear reactors; but we should not use them or build more without these safe-guards. It will make them a lot more expensive and make them take longer to build.
But better that than nuclear accidents that happen near people and farmland. And, without these safeguards we run a very large risk.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Energy efficiency upgrades with already available technology is critical to do....
Today's post: Wednesday, 3-9-2010
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:
Energy efficiency upgrades with already available technology is critical to do....
In the important and very well researched book, Addicted to Energy, by Elton Sherwin, Jr, he makes the point that simply retrofitting existing technologies or replacing things with the existing technologies to increase energy efficiency throughout the economy in the United States would save more energy than all the oil we now import.
The book should have been titled something like, “Massive savings from energy efficiency using already available technologies.” Addicted to Energy is shorter but both misrepresents the content and is a bit negative.
His book, by contrast is quite positive. He points out that the work needed to make these energy efficiency upgrades will both create jobs and improve the economy from energy savings and less need for new electric power generation plants.
Yesterday, I found out the United States may be on its way to being behind the economy of the EU countries and left with increasing energy costs while they are NOT so burdened.
They actually have an EU plan to make these upgrades in every part of Europe.
AP ran a story yesterday titled, “EU plan to double energy efficiency by 2020.” Arthur Max wrote it.
The EU plans to boost energy efficiency dramatically by producing better household appliances, renovating public buildings and private homes, and driving more energy efficient cars. The plan to do this was adopted yesterday, Tuesday, 3-8, according to the article.
The EU aims to cut greenhouse gases 25 % below 1990 levels by 2020, outperforming its original 20 % target, with the resulting increase in energy efficiency in transportation, buildings, construction, and agriculture.
“"The good news is we don't need to wait for technological breakthroughs," said European climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard, because existing technologies are enough. "We need to start the transition toward a competitive low carbon economy now," she said….”
The principal goal is to cut emissions 80 % by 2050. This new plan also sets milestones of 40 % by 2030 & 60 by 2040.
The plan, called Roadmap 2050, will be presented to the European Parliament and member countries for creating legislation to implement the plan.
Environmentalists criticized the plan for not being even more ambitious. That’s unfortunate since implementing the plan can be accelerated later and an even more ambitious plan might be rejected as undoable. (The United States and the EU should both have done this 20 years ago too! I think the environmentalists should support this now; and find ways to add doable upgrades later once it is actually happening. That actually might get to the goals they seek. Getting in the way of putting this plan in motion now will jeopardize those goals.)
The plan targets investments of 270 billion Euros a year, or 1.5 percent of the EU's economic output.
That sounds like a huge amount of money and one that might slow their economy.
But that is totally misleading. It may save their economy and give them a significant economic advantage instead!
In the most important point in the article, it explained why that’s so!
Initially most of that will return and later all of it will return from the savings due to lower oil and gas imports. (If they also switch to plug-in hybrids and all electric cars and trucks as a part of this plan, they may do even better.)
The long term projection shows this plan reaping returns that would please a venture capitalist!
Check out this quote.:
“Over the next 40 years, fuel costs could fall by euro175 billion to euro320 billion a year, the commission said, but without action those bills will more than double.”
This means the investments of 270 billion Euros a year will begin to save 670 billion Euros a year or more. Their imported fuel bill will be 320 billion Euros a year or less instead of 990 billion Euros a year or more – and rising!
If the United States fails to do likewise, Europe will have a massive economic advantage.
They will prosper while we go broke!
The current good news is that the Silicon Valley and California have more knowledgeable people about science, technology, and the real energy situation, and the world economy than most of the members of the current congress.
If they succeed in doing as the EU is doing which they are working to do, eventually the rest of the country will follow along – if we are lucky.
If so, our economy will improve too instead of getting far worse!
Today's post: Wednesday, 3-9-2010
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:
Energy efficiency upgrades with already available technology is critical to do....
In the important and very well researched book, Addicted to Energy, by Elton Sherwin, Jr, he makes the point that simply retrofitting existing technologies or replacing things with the existing technologies to increase energy efficiency throughout the economy in the United States would save more energy than all the oil we now import.
The book should have been titled something like, “Massive savings from energy efficiency using already available technologies.” Addicted to Energy is shorter but both misrepresents the content and is a bit negative.
His book, by contrast is quite positive. He points out that the work needed to make these energy efficiency upgrades will both create jobs and improve the economy from energy savings and less need for new electric power generation plants.
Yesterday, I found out the United States may be on its way to being behind the economy of the EU countries and left with increasing energy costs while they are NOT so burdened.
They actually have an EU plan to make these upgrades in every part of Europe.
AP ran a story yesterday titled, “EU plan to double energy efficiency by 2020.” Arthur Max wrote it.
The EU plans to boost energy efficiency dramatically by producing better household appliances, renovating public buildings and private homes, and driving more energy efficient cars. The plan to do this was adopted yesterday, Tuesday, 3-8, according to the article.
The EU aims to cut greenhouse gases 25 % below 1990 levels by 2020, outperforming its original 20 % target, with the resulting increase in energy efficiency in transportation, buildings, construction, and agriculture.
“"The good news is we don't need to wait for technological breakthroughs," said European climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard, because existing technologies are enough. "We need to start the transition toward a competitive low carbon economy now," she said….”
The principal goal is to cut emissions 80 % by 2050. This new plan also sets milestones of 40 % by 2030 & 60 by 2040.
The plan, called Roadmap 2050, will be presented to the European Parliament and member countries for creating legislation to implement the plan.
Environmentalists criticized the plan for not being even more ambitious. That’s unfortunate since implementing the plan can be accelerated later and an even more ambitious plan might be rejected as undoable. (The United States and the EU should both have done this 20 years ago too! I think the environmentalists should support this now; and find ways to add doable upgrades later once it is actually happening. That actually might get to the goals they seek. Getting in the way of putting this plan in motion now will jeopardize those goals.)
The plan targets investments of 270 billion Euros a year, or 1.5 percent of the EU's economic output.
That sounds like a huge amount of money and one that might slow their economy.
But that is totally misleading. It may save their economy and give them a significant economic advantage instead!
In the most important point in the article, it explained why that’s so!
Initially most of that will return and later all of it will return from the savings due to lower oil and gas imports. (If they also switch to plug-in hybrids and all electric cars and trucks as a part of this plan, they may do even better.)
The long term projection shows this plan reaping returns that would please a venture capitalist!
Check out this quote.:
“Over the next 40 years, fuel costs could fall by euro175 billion to euro320 billion a year, the commission said, but without action those bills will more than double.”
This means the investments of 270 billion Euros a year will begin to save 670 billion Euros a year or more. Their imported fuel bill will be 320 billion Euros a year or less instead of 990 billion Euros a year or more – and rising!
If the United States fails to do likewise, Europe will have a massive economic advantage.
They will prosper while we go broke!
The current good news is that the Silicon Valley and California have more knowledgeable people about science, technology, and the real energy situation, and the world economy than most of the members of the current congress.
If they succeed in doing as the EU is doing which they are working to do, eventually the rest of the country will follow along – if we are lucky.
If so, our economy will improve too instead of getting far worse!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids headed for the mainstream....
Today's post: Wednesday, 3-2-2010
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:
Electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids headed for the mainstream....
Even if we are not yet at peak oil or it’s more than 3 years off, relying on it for transport is becoming dramatically riskier.
The oil it is inexpensive to extract is mostly gone. And, as the population grows and the economies of the world’s countries improve, the demand for transport will continue to increase. While most transport has been powered by oil, that increase in demand has led to increased oil prices.
But now that we have added political turmoil in the oil producing countries in the Middle East and elsewhere, supply of oil may drop or suddenly be less available.
Five to ten dollar a gallon prices for gasoline and for diesel fuel in the United States are on their way.
Even without global warming considerations, that means that depending on oil to power transport is a very bad idea because it threatens sudden and continuing cost increases for transport throughout the world’s economy. It can even lead to rationing of fuel and periodic shut downs of fuel.
This will be economically disastrous if when that happens we have too little ability to power transport by other means.
Further, since the United States imports a huge percentage of its oil supply – and mostly from areas increasingly unstable politically, if we can manage to cut our use of oil in half or more by using other power sources for transport, our national security and economic stability will be dramatically better.
Lastly, the billions of dollars now leaving the United States to pay for imported oil will stop leaving.
The combination of these literally means that the future health of the economy of the United States quite literally depends on switching away from oil as a way to power transport.
All-electric cars and plug-in hybrids – and hopefully soon trucks as well – are rapidly on their way to becoming a solution to this and entering the mainstream.
Soon gasoline only or diesel only vehicles will become a tiny minority of those sold.
Increasingly, major car makers all over the world are well on their way to introducing practical all electric cars and plug-in hybrids. This has become so much the case that developments in this area are hard to keep up with as they are increasing and picking up speed and momentum. Tesla is leading the way. But nearly every other car manufacturer in the world is racing to follow on if not will all electric cars with plug-in hybrids. As this rolls out, the added costs for such cars will gradually decrease due to the increasing volume and economies of scale.
Technology to make such cars go farther and cost less with lower weight batteries and increases in efficiency in electric power grids and uses are in rapid development.
And, most of what were thought to be problems for deploying such vehicles are not serious or rapidly being solved.
Here are some examples:
Envia Systems Inc of Newark, California has a new joint venture deal with GM. (GM Ventures Makes Strategic Investment in Envia Systems Jan 26, 2011 This was part of a funding round of $17 million.) "Envia's advanced cathode technology uses inexpensive materials that store more energy per unit of mass than current cathode materials. Since the cathode is a key driver for the overall battery cost, the more energy the cathode delivers, the lower the battery cost because fewer cells are needed." Their website also notes this will allow for lighter weight battery packs.
D r. Yi Cui of Stanford University discovered that silicon nanowires could form a potent and reliable lithium-ion anode material with the ability to improve anode capacity by up to 10X. His breakthrough was published in Nature Nanotechnology and is one of very few readily implementable lithium-ion battery technologies. Use of silicon nanowires can immediately increase the energy capacity of batteries by 40% and more thus increasing the range of electric vehicles by a similar amount. "
Amprius Inc of Menlo Park, California is a development stage company working to turn this discovery into usable products to achieve this result.
This literally could mean battery packs providing a 20% longer range and nearly a 15% drop in battery pack weight at the same time.
What if we could suddenly add such dramatic increases in efficiency in transporting electricity and changing from alternating current to direct current or the reverse that we would add the equivalent of 300 new coal fired power plants without adding new plants to generate electricity of any kind?
That would certainly allow for powering a lot of electric and plug in hybrids!
Transphorm in Goleta, California near Santa Barbara is developing a technology to do just that.
"Transphorm is redefining power conversion. Leveraging breakthroughs in modern materials and unmatched expertise, Transphorm's ultra-efficient power modules eliminate up to 90% of all electric conversion losses. From HVACs to hybrids; servers to solar panels - Transphorm enables significant energy savings across the grid."
GreenTech Media's coverage of Transphorm notes that there are several steps not yet done that would be needed to move this technology into large scale use enough to achieve this result.
But since the technology works, the money to be made by doing so and the need to do it are such that I think these steps will be taken successfully.
What about other problems?
Here’s a recent article from the Sierra club and my comments on each of their points.:
Electric Vehicles: Myths vs. Reality
Myth 1: Switching to an electric vehicle will just mean that the same amount of pollution comes from the electricity generation rather than from the tailpipe — I'll just be switching from oil to coal.
Reality: According to a range of studies, an electric car leads to 35 to 60% less carbon dioxide pollution from electricity than the CO2 pollution from the oil of a conventional car with an internal combustion engine.[1][2][3]
In some areas, like many on the West Coast that rely largely on wind or hydro power, the emissions are significantly lower for EVs. And that's today. As we retire more coal plants and bring cleaner sources of power online, the emissions from electric vehicle charging drop even further. Additionally, in some areas, night-time charging will increase the opportunity to take advantage of wind power -- another way to reduce emissions.
A caveat to consider, according to some studies, is that when coal plants supply the majority of the power mix in a given area, electric vehicles may emit more CO2 and SO2….
(My comments on this point: That’s an air pollution and CO2 release objection which is valid in and of itself. But they leave out some key points. This still means moving away from oil to powering transport with other sources. And, although increased costs of operating coal fired plants due to regulation and the need to install less polluting systems to retrofit these plants will occur, it will be far more predictable and slower than the price run up in oil. And, the United States HAS enough coal and need not send money out of the country as it is now doing by importing oil. We can afford the regulations and these upgrades with the money electric cars and hybrids will save us in paying higher and higher prices to import oil that we no longer will need to pay.)
Myth 2: Plug-in cars will lead to the production of more coal and nuclear plants.
Reality: Even if the majority of drivers switched to electric, the existing electrical grid's off-peak/nighttime capacity for power generation is sufficient without building a single new power plant.
Studies have shown that electric vehicle owners will largely charge their vehicles at night when there is plenty of capacity on the grid. In some areas, new "smart charging" allows you and the utility to set up a system by which you and other electricity users distribute the load evenly during charging so that the system is not overwhelmed by increased demand.
(My comment: Mid-day charging also lends itself to using solar power for the source of the electricity and will be used to do so in my view. So much of the potential need for more coal and nuclear plants will be removed by this.)
Myth 3: Electric car batteries pose a recycling problem.
Reality: Internal combustion engine vehicles use lead-acid batteries, and their recycle rate is about 98% in the US.
The newer batteries for electric vehicles, such as those made of lithium-ion, include even more valuable and recyclable metals and will have a life well beyond the vehicle. In fact, a Belgian company plans to use Tesla Motor's electric vehicle battery pack material to produce an alloy it can further refine into cobalt, nickel, and other valuable metals as well as special grades of concrete. Technology will soon allow for EV batteries to store energy produced by solar or wind power.
Myth 4: My electricity bill will go way up.
Reality: While you'll spend more on electricity, the savings on gas will more than cover it. If you drive a pure battery electric vehicle 12,000 miles a year at current electricity rates (assuming $.12 per kilowatt hour though rates vary throughout the country), you'll pay about $389 per year for the electricity to charge your battery, but you'll save about $1200 in gas (assuming $3 per gallon, a 30 miles per gallon vehicle, and 12,000 miles driven). So $1200 minus $389 equals $811 in savings -a 68% reduction in fueling costs. Some utilities are offering EV owners lower off-peak/nighttime rates. The more we successfully advocate for these off-peak incentives, the lower your electricity payments will go.
(Gasoline is already headed to $5 a gallon and soon after that we may see $10 a gallon. That means the savings per month will begin to approach the monthly payment needed to by an electric or plug-in hybrid car!)
Myth 5: Electric vehicles will just fail again like they did before.
Reality: Manufacturers are serious this time -- rolling out more than a dozen new plug-in models in the next couple of years, starting now. With higher gas prices and climate change worrying many consumers, stricter fuel economy standards for new vehicles required of auto manufacturers, and billions of public and corporate dollars being spent on an EV infrastructure and research in the US, EVs are here to stay.
Myth 6: My battery will run out of juice.
Reality: The majority of drivers in the US drive less than 35 miles each day, sufficient for a fully charged pure electric vehicle (most can go 80 to 140 miles on one charge), and an extended range electric vehicle (that drives about 35 miles on electric and then the gasoline power kicks in).
Using a 220-volt outlet and charging station, a plug-in hybrid recharges in about 100 minutes, an extended range plug-in electric in about four hours, and a pure electric in six to eight hours. A regular 110-volt outlet will mean significantly longer charging times, but for plug-in hybrids and extended range electrics, this outlet may be sufficient. Most of the time, the battery will not be empty when you plug in, thus reducing charging time.
Most people will charge at home. However, some businesses and public entities are beginning to install 220-volt public chargers. Some are installing fast-charging stations along highways and in public places that can re-charge a car to 80% of battery capacity in less than 30 minutes.
(Increases in range compared with these numbers due to better battery technology and customer demand are also quite likely in my opinion – for both all electric and plug-in hybrid cars. And, for plug-in hybrids as gasoline prices go much higher or begin to be erratic in supply on occasion, the demand for increased range will also go up as well.)
Myth 7: Electric vehicles are much more expensive than traditional vehicles.
Reality: While the initial sticker price of EVs is higher than traditional vehicles, you need to do the math to account for a variety of factors. For individual consumers, there is currently a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 for the purchase of an electric vehicle, as well as a partial federal credit for the charging unit. Several states have additional tax credits on top of the federal ones. Additionally, the average EV driver will save more than $800 a year in fuel (the cost of electricity compared to gasoline).
Due to a cleaner, more streamlined system under the hood, an EV may save the average driver about 46% in annual maintenance costs, according to one federal government study.[5]
(Larger and larger savings for oil base fuel and less time and money spent each year in the shop, will begin to give “EV’s” a net cost ADVANTAGE. Meanwhile, they will begin to cost less!)
Myth 8: Electric vehicles are only available in California.
Reality: While EVs are not yet available for purchase in every state, they are quickly becoming available in many. The fully electric Nissan Leaf is being sold to customers in California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, and Tennessee. The Chevy Volt, an extended range plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, is currently being sold at select dealerships in California, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and Washington, DC. Customers in nearly all states are expected to be able to purchase or lease a Leaf, Volt, or plug-in Toyota Prius by late 2011 or early 2012. The Tesla Roadster, a fully electric luxury sportscar, is available in several locations throughout the country. By 2012, many other models will become available nationwide, including the Ford Focus EV, Tesla Model S, and the Mitsubishi iMiev.
Myth 9: Charging an EV on solar power is a futuristic dream.
Reality: The technology to power your EV with solar power is already available. The investment in solar panels pays off faster when the solar power is not only replacing grid electricity, but replacing much more expensive gasoline.
According to Plug-In America, EVs typically travel three to four miles (or more) per kWh (kilowatt hour) of electricity. If you drive 12,000 miles per year, you will need 3,000-4,000 kWh. Depending on where you live, you will need a 1.5kW-3kW photovoltaic (PV) system to generate that much power using about 150 to 300 square feet of space on your roof. Utility credits for the daytime solar power can offset the cost of charging the car at night. If solar PV isn't feasible at your home, find out if your utility offers a green energy option.
(Here in the Silicon Valley, electrical engineers have already begun to retrofit existing cars to become all electric and powering them from solar arrays on their homes!
When gasoline prices recently spiked to over $4.60 a gallon they had no increased costs at all!
And, as solar and premade EV’s drop in cost, this will become a very popular option. 300 square feet (or even 600 square feet for two cars) is NOT that big a collector. 20 feet by 15 feet or 20 feet by 30 feet will fit on most roofs with space left over!)
It all adds up to an interesting ride as EV’s become the mainstream kind of cars and trucks people buy and drive!
Today's post: Wednesday, 3-2-2010
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:
Electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids headed for the mainstream....
Even if we are not yet at peak oil or it’s more than 3 years off, relying on it for transport is becoming dramatically riskier.
The oil it is inexpensive to extract is mostly gone. And, as the population grows and the economies of the world’s countries improve, the demand for transport will continue to increase. While most transport has been powered by oil, that increase in demand has led to increased oil prices.
But now that we have added political turmoil in the oil producing countries in the Middle East and elsewhere, supply of oil may drop or suddenly be less available.
Five to ten dollar a gallon prices for gasoline and for diesel fuel in the United States are on their way.
Even without global warming considerations, that means that depending on oil to power transport is a very bad idea because it threatens sudden and continuing cost increases for transport throughout the world’s economy. It can even lead to rationing of fuel and periodic shut downs of fuel.
This will be economically disastrous if when that happens we have too little ability to power transport by other means.
Further, since the United States imports a huge percentage of its oil supply – and mostly from areas increasingly unstable politically, if we can manage to cut our use of oil in half or more by using other power sources for transport, our national security and economic stability will be dramatically better.
Lastly, the billions of dollars now leaving the United States to pay for imported oil will stop leaving.
The combination of these literally means that the future health of the economy of the United States quite literally depends on switching away from oil as a way to power transport.
All-electric cars and plug-in hybrids – and hopefully soon trucks as well – are rapidly on their way to becoming a solution to this and entering the mainstream.
Soon gasoline only or diesel only vehicles will become a tiny minority of those sold.
Increasingly, major car makers all over the world are well on their way to introducing practical all electric cars and plug-in hybrids. This has become so much the case that developments in this area are hard to keep up with as they are increasing and picking up speed and momentum. Tesla is leading the way. But nearly every other car manufacturer in the world is racing to follow on if not will all electric cars with plug-in hybrids. As this rolls out, the added costs for such cars will gradually decrease due to the increasing volume and economies of scale.
Technology to make such cars go farther and cost less with lower weight batteries and increases in efficiency in electric power grids and uses are in rapid development.
And, most of what were thought to be problems for deploying such vehicles are not serious or rapidly being solved.
Here are some examples:
Envia Systems Inc of Newark, California has a new joint venture deal with GM. (GM Ventures Makes Strategic Investment in Envia Systems Jan 26, 2011 This was part of a funding round of $17 million.) "Envia's advanced cathode technology uses inexpensive materials that store more energy per unit of mass than current cathode materials. Since the cathode is a key driver for the overall battery cost, the more energy the cathode delivers, the lower the battery cost because fewer cells are needed." Their website also notes this will allow for lighter weight battery packs.
D r. Yi Cui of Stanford University discovered that silicon nanowires could form a potent and reliable lithium-ion anode material with the ability to improve anode capacity by up to 10X. His breakthrough was published in Nature Nanotechnology and is one of very few readily implementable lithium-ion battery technologies. Use of silicon nanowires can immediately increase the energy capacity of batteries by 40% and more thus increasing the range of electric vehicles by a similar amount. "
Amprius Inc of Menlo Park, California is a development stage company working to turn this discovery into usable products to achieve this result.
This literally could mean battery packs providing a 20% longer range and nearly a 15% drop in battery pack weight at the same time.
What if we could suddenly add such dramatic increases in efficiency in transporting electricity and changing from alternating current to direct current or the reverse that we would add the equivalent of 300 new coal fired power plants without adding new plants to generate electricity of any kind?
That would certainly allow for powering a lot of electric and plug in hybrids!
Transphorm in Goleta, California near Santa Barbara is developing a technology to do just that.
"Transphorm is redefining power conversion. Leveraging breakthroughs in modern materials and unmatched expertise, Transphorm's ultra-efficient power modules eliminate up to 90% of all electric conversion losses. From HVACs to hybrids; servers to solar panels - Transphorm enables significant energy savings across the grid."
GreenTech Media's coverage of Transphorm notes that there are several steps not yet done that would be needed to move this technology into large scale use enough to achieve this result.
But since the technology works, the money to be made by doing so and the need to do it are such that I think these steps will be taken successfully.
What about other problems?
Here’s a recent article from the Sierra club and my comments on each of their points.:
Electric Vehicles: Myths vs. Reality
Myth 1: Switching to an electric vehicle will just mean that the same amount of pollution comes from the electricity generation rather than from the tailpipe — I'll just be switching from oil to coal.
Reality: According to a range of studies, an electric car leads to 35 to 60% less carbon dioxide pollution from electricity than the CO2 pollution from the oil of a conventional car with an internal combustion engine.[1][2][3]
In some areas, like many on the West Coast that rely largely on wind or hydro power, the emissions are significantly lower for EVs. And that's today. As we retire more coal plants and bring cleaner sources of power online, the emissions from electric vehicle charging drop even further. Additionally, in some areas, night-time charging will increase the opportunity to take advantage of wind power -- another way to reduce emissions.
A caveat to consider, according to some studies, is that when coal plants supply the majority of the power mix in a given area, electric vehicles may emit more CO2 and SO2….
(My comments on this point: That’s an air pollution and CO2 release objection which is valid in and of itself. But they leave out some key points. This still means moving away from oil to powering transport with other sources. And, although increased costs of operating coal fired plants due to regulation and the need to install less polluting systems to retrofit these plants will occur, it will be far more predictable and slower than the price run up in oil. And, the United States HAS enough coal and need not send money out of the country as it is now doing by importing oil. We can afford the regulations and these upgrades with the money electric cars and hybrids will save us in paying higher and higher prices to import oil that we no longer will need to pay.)
Myth 2: Plug-in cars will lead to the production of more coal and nuclear plants.
Reality: Even if the majority of drivers switched to electric, the existing electrical grid's off-peak/nighttime capacity for power generation is sufficient without building a single new power plant.
Studies have shown that electric vehicle owners will largely charge their vehicles at night when there is plenty of capacity on the grid. In some areas, new "smart charging" allows you and the utility to set up a system by which you and other electricity users distribute the load evenly during charging so that the system is not overwhelmed by increased demand.
(My comment: Mid-day charging also lends itself to using solar power for the source of the electricity and will be used to do so in my view. So much of the potential need for more coal and nuclear plants will be removed by this.)
Myth 3: Electric car batteries pose a recycling problem.
Reality: Internal combustion engine vehicles use lead-acid batteries, and their recycle rate is about 98% in the US.
The newer batteries for electric vehicles, such as those made of lithium-ion, include even more valuable and recyclable metals and will have a life well beyond the vehicle. In fact, a Belgian company plans to use Tesla Motor's electric vehicle battery pack material to produce an alloy it can further refine into cobalt, nickel, and other valuable metals as well as special grades of concrete. Technology will soon allow for EV batteries to store energy produced by solar or wind power.
Myth 4: My electricity bill will go way up.
Reality: While you'll spend more on electricity, the savings on gas will more than cover it. If you drive a pure battery electric vehicle 12,000 miles a year at current electricity rates (assuming $.12 per kilowatt hour though rates vary throughout the country), you'll pay about $389 per year for the electricity to charge your battery, but you'll save about $1200 in gas (assuming $3 per gallon, a 30 miles per gallon vehicle, and 12,000 miles driven). So $1200 minus $389 equals $811 in savings -a 68% reduction in fueling costs. Some utilities are offering EV owners lower off-peak/nighttime rates. The more we successfully advocate for these off-peak incentives, the lower your electricity payments will go.
(Gasoline is already headed to $5 a gallon and soon after that we may see $10 a gallon. That means the savings per month will begin to approach the monthly payment needed to by an electric or plug-in hybrid car!)
Myth 5: Electric vehicles will just fail again like they did before.
Reality: Manufacturers are serious this time -- rolling out more than a dozen new plug-in models in the next couple of years, starting now. With higher gas prices and climate change worrying many consumers, stricter fuel economy standards for new vehicles required of auto manufacturers, and billions of public and corporate dollars being spent on an EV infrastructure and research in the US, EVs are here to stay.
Myth 6: My battery will run out of juice.
Reality: The majority of drivers in the US drive less than 35 miles each day, sufficient for a fully charged pure electric vehicle (most can go 80 to 140 miles on one charge), and an extended range electric vehicle (that drives about 35 miles on electric and then the gasoline power kicks in).
Using a 220-volt outlet and charging station, a plug-in hybrid recharges in about 100 minutes, an extended range plug-in electric in about four hours, and a pure electric in six to eight hours. A regular 110-volt outlet will mean significantly longer charging times, but for plug-in hybrids and extended range electrics, this outlet may be sufficient. Most of the time, the battery will not be empty when you plug in, thus reducing charging time.
Most people will charge at home. However, some businesses and public entities are beginning to install 220-volt public chargers. Some are installing fast-charging stations along highways and in public places that can re-charge a car to 80% of battery capacity in less than 30 minutes.
(Increases in range compared with these numbers due to better battery technology and customer demand are also quite likely in my opinion – for both all electric and plug-in hybrid cars. And, for plug-in hybrids as gasoline prices go much higher or begin to be erratic in supply on occasion, the demand for increased range will also go up as well.)
Myth 7: Electric vehicles are much more expensive than traditional vehicles.
Reality: While the initial sticker price of EVs is higher than traditional vehicles, you need to do the math to account for a variety of factors. For individual consumers, there is currently a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 for the purchase of an electric vehicle, as well as a partial federal credit for the charging unit. Several states have additional tax credits on top of the federal ones. Additionally, the average EV driver will save more than $800 a year in fuel (the cost of electricity compared to gasoline).
Due to a cleaner, more streamlined system under the hood, an EV may save the average driver about 46% in annual maintenance costs, according to one federal government study.[5]
(Larger and larger savings for oil base fuel and less time and money spent each year in the shop, will begin to give “EV’s” a net cost ADVANTAGE. Meanwhile, they will begin to cost less!)
Myth 8: Electric vehicles are only available in California.
Reality: While EVs are not yet available for purchase in every state, they are quickly becoming available in many. The fully electric Nissan Leaf is being sold to customers in California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, and Tennessee. The Chevy Volt, an extended range plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, is currently being sold at select dealerships in California, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and Washington, DC. Customers in nearly all states are expected to be able to purchase or lease a Leaf, Volt, or plug-in Toyota Prius by late 2011 or early 2012. The Tesla Roadster, a fully electric luxury sportscar, is available in several locations throughout the country. By 2012, many other models will become available nationwide, including the Ford Focus EV, Tesla Model S, and the Mitsubishi iMiev.
Myth 9: Charging an EV on solar power is a futuristic dream.
Reality: The technology to power your EV with solar power is already available. The investment in solar panels pays off faster when the solar power is not only replacing grid electricity, but replacing much more expensive gasoline.
According to Plug-In America, EVs typically travel three to four miles (or more) per kWh (kilowatt hour) of electricity. If you drive 12,000 miles per year, you will need 3,000-4,000 kWh. Depending on where you live, you will need a 1.5kW-3kW photovoltaic (PV) system to generate that much power using about 150 to 300 square feet of space on your roof. Utility credits for the daytime solar power can offset the cost of charging the car at night. If solar PV isn't feasible at your home, find out if your utility offers a green energy option.
(Here in the Silicon Valley, electrical engineers have already begun to retrofit existing cars to become all electric and powering them from solar arrays on their homes!
When gasoline prices recently spiked to over $4.60 a gallon they had no increased costs at all!
And, as solar and premade EV’s drop in cost, this will become a very popular option. 300 square feet (or even 600 square feet for two cars) is NOT that big a collector. 20 feet by 15 feet or 20 feet by 30 feet will fit on most roofs with space left over!)
It all adds up to an interesting ride as EV’s become the mainstream kind of cars and trucks people buy and drive!
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