How to have more renewable energy here....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 2-18-2009
To have more renewable energy in the United States, three new things need to happen.
1. Every political jurisdiction and utility company in Canada needs to put feed-in tariffs for renewable energy producers. In Canada, that will be mostly solar photovoltaic & wind. Some new transmission lines may help.
2. Every political jurisdiction and utility company in the United States needs to put feed-in tariffs for renewable energy producers. We have wind, solar photovoltaic, and solar thermal we can develop. Since wind & solar potential, particularly solar thermal potential, is often in a different part of our country than where the most people live, we definitely will need new transmission lines for much of this renewable electricity.
3. Every political jurisdiction and utility company in Mexico needs to put feed-in tariffs for renewable energy producers. The map we posted some time back of solar potential shows that almost all of Mexico has about three to five times as much or more potential for solar photovoltaic and solar thermal as the entire Southwestern United States.
This one is a bit more complex. It will also be important to help Mexico use this power to build clean industry that can provide jobs to people in Mexico and to help Mexico become enough safer in many places to allow investment and travel to reach its full potential. The good news is that if this is done, Mexico will still have enough electricity generated by renewable sources that by also building some new transmission lines, they will be able to export electricity to the United States.
Between these 3 countries, by using feed-in tariffs in each one, in 15 years or so we could easily have 60 to 100 times more renewably generated electricity as we do now.
Feed-in tariffs have been proven to work. (Germany has about as much solar potential as just British Columbia and over the past 15 years or so has built something like HALF the world’s solar capacity. They make building the renewable energy projects fundable by banks. And they are paid for as they come online by the utility ratepayers. They do NOT need new taxes to pay for the renewable energy. And, the ratepayers see only gradual increases in their bills. Even better, as fossil fuel sources become more expensive for several reasons, the utility bills using feed-in tariffs will eventually be LESS than they would otherwise have been.
Ask your representatives in your government and your local utility companies if they know what feed-in tariffs are. And if they do, why aren’t they already using them.
They work and are the key to fast and fundable increases in renewable energy.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Algae, coal, & biofuels....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 2-11-2009
To protect our economy and prevent sudden energy shortages or horrible cost run-ups that would cause worse problems than the current economic slowdown, we need to do several things.:
We need to mostly reverse the huge excess of CO2 release world-wide because of the large, and perhaps unnecessary, rise in costs due to extreme weather disasters, coastal flooding, and agricultural disruptions the CO2 will cause. We at least need to minimize these costs for modern economies to continue to exist.
We need to switch to getting our energy to mostly getting our energy from renewable sources, at least half and 80 % is better and doable; we may need to use some nuclear power; and we should get most of the rest from carbon neutral biofuels.
We also need to make the transition with as little increase in the cost of energy as possible.
And, we need to at least double our economic productivity per unit of energy. (Preventing waste and creating much more energy efficient products and services is happening; but it needs to be accelerated.)
Clearly wind, solar photovoltaic, and solar thermal need to provide 100 or more times the energy than they do now.
But, to keep the costs down and cut excessive CO2 emissions soon; plus allow the United States and China to become more energy independent and less dependent on oil for energy and fuel, we also need to do several things as a key part of this.
Yesterday, Reuters online news had a story they titled.:
“Can algae save the world - again?” In it they point out that algae once removed enough CO2 from the air and added enough oxygen to make our current lives possible. So, the title implies that maybe they can do this again for us now.
It’s certainly worth doing as a way to generate carbon neutral biofuels if for no other reason. But the article points out that it may also provide a way to reduce or slow the release of CO2 from the burning of coal.
We already know that biofuels as they exist now tend to make fuels that work well in temperatures of over 45 degrees Fahrenheit. But they do less well for fuels at lower or much lower temperatures.
There are already efforts to turn coal directly into clean fuels rather than burning it directly.
By adding biofuels to fuels from coal, we may be able to almost completely get away from burning oil for fuel. Even if we are only partly successful at first, once we get production in volume at reasonable cost, it will prevent the kind of extremely fast run up in fuel prices we saw recently.
And, though we should stop burning coal to the largest extent we can, we depend on it now & to switch to other sources successfully, we need to transition away from burning it at the lowest possible cost. We also need to avoid the economic disruption of simply tossing the existing coal industry on the scrap heap. Switching to non-oil fuels made from coal and biofuels may be a way to do this.
But the Reuters article makes a key point that would make this work even better. Once we have the right algae strains and efficient biofuels production methods from them, we can also use these algae to turn the CO2 from coal fired plants we cannot yet afford to shut down by literally feeding the CO2 from the coal burning to the algae.
Even better, for this to work in part by protecting the algae, or as a relatively cost effective addition to the system that feeds the coal exhaust to the algae, this process can likely be made to remove the acids and particulate pollution not now removed from the exhaust from coal.
Then coal can become a complement to biofuels as a way to replace oil and to protect against the day when we run out of oil that can be used cost effectively.
This will ease the transition from coal both for cost reasons; because it preserves the use of an existing resource; and it will take the pressure off of oil prices.
Lastly, it will help enable the United States to grow economically while ceasing to import oil or having to drill in ever more locations for it.
As a bonus, it provides a way to produce fuels that do NOT use oil that also does NOT compete with leaving existing forests in place or raising crops which corn based ethanol has been doing.
The article shows that there is progress in this area already.:
“Many companies are working on algae and biofuels including U.S. groups Sapphire Energy, OriginOil, BioCentric Energy and PetroAlgae.
Among uses, Japan Airlines had a test flight last month with a jet fuel and biofuels blend including algae oils.
Brazil's MPX Energia plans to trap 10-15 percent of carbon emissions from a coal-fired power plant by feeding them to algae when it starts in 2011.
Plymouth Marine Laboratory says it is taking what we know about algae in the world's oceans and applying it to biotechnology, an approach which differs from much of the commercial research underway, where some claims about the possibilities of algal biofuels are overstated, according to Carole Llewellyn, a marine chemist.” This article says that this lab is in England.
Meanwhile, there are many other companies that are working to produce biofuels from Algae in a cost effective way.
Solazyme in South San Francisco in California is another. There are very likely at least 20 more such companies, some of which will grow to substantial size.
The CEO of the solar photovoltaic company Nanosolar, points out that we can harvest and use much more of the sun’s energy for transport per unit area with solar than we can by growing algae.
But algae may indeed help save us from C02 based global warming by helping replace oil in already installed engines currently in use; and maybe also by removing C02 from exhaust and C02 that is already in the air. (It might pay us to cultivate algae we do NOT burn for fuel as well as algae that we do turn into biofuels we burn.)
So, the title of the article is extremely well chosen.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 2-11-2009
To protect our economy and prevent sudden energy shortages or horrible cost run-ups that would cause worse problems than the current economic slowdown, we need to do several things.:
We need to mostly reverse the huge excess of CO2 release world-wide because of the large, and perhaps unnecessary, rise in costs due to extreme weather disasters, coastal flooding, and agricultural disruptions the CO2 will cause. We at least need to minimize these costs for modern economies to continue to exist.
We need to switch to getting our energy to mostly getting our energy from renewable sources, at least half and 80 % is better and doable; we may need to use some nuclear power; and we should get most of the rest from carbon neutral biofuels.
We also need to make the transition with as little increase in the cost of energy as possible.
And, we need to at least double our economic productivity per unit of energy. (Preventing waste and creating much more energy efficient products and services is happening; but it needs to be accelerated.)
Clearly wind, solar photovoltaic, and solar thermal need to provide 100 or more times the energy than they do now.
But, to keep the costs down and cut excessive CO2 emissions soon; plus allow the United States and China to become more energy independent and less dependent on oil for energy and fuel, we also need to do several things as a key part of this.
Yesterday, Reuters online news had a story they titled.:
“Can algae save the world - again?” In it they point out that algae once removed enough CO2 from the air and added enough oxygen to make our current lives possible. So, the title implies that maybe they can do this again for us now.
It’s certainly worth doing as a way to generate carbon neutral biofuels if for no other reason. But the article points out that it may also provide a way to reduce or slow the release of CO2 from the burning of coal.
We already know that biofuels as they exist now tend to make fuels that work well in temperatures of over 45 degrees Fahrenheit. But they do less well for fuels at lower or much lower temperatures.
There are already efforts to turn coal directly into clean fuels rather than burning it directly.
By adding biofuels to fuels from coal, we may be able to almost completely get away from burning oil for fuel. Even if we are only partly successful at first, once we get production in volume at reasonable cost, it will prevent the kind of extremely fast run up in fuel prices we saw recently.
And, though we should stop burning coal to the largest extent we can, we depend on it now & to switch to other sources successfully, we need to transition away from burning it at the lowest possible cost. We also need to avoid the economic disruption of simply tossing the existing coal industry on the scrap heap. Switching to non-oil fuels made from coal and biofuels may be a way to do this.
But the Reuters article makes a key point that would make this work even better. Once we have the right algae strains and efficient biofuels production methods from them, we can also use these algae to turn the CO2 from coal fired plants we cannot yet afford to shut down by literally feeding the CO2 from the coal burning to the algae.
Even better, for this to work in part by protecting the algae, or as a relatively cost effective addition to the system that feeds the coal exhaust to the algae, this process can likely be made to remove the acids and particulate pollution not now removed from the exhaust from coal.
Then coal can become a complement to biofuels as a way to replace oil and to protect against the day when we run out of oil that can be used cost effectively.
This will ease the transition from coal both for cost reasons; because it preserves the use of an existing resource; and it will take the pressure off of oil prices.
Lastly, it will help enable the United States to grow economically while ceasing to import oil or having to drill in ever more locations for it.
As a bonus, it provides a way to produce fuels that do NOT use oil that also does NOT compete with leaving existing forests in place or raising crops which corn based ethanol has been doing.
The article shows that there is progress in this area already.:
“Many companies are working on algae and biofuels including U.S. groups Sapphire Energy, OriginOil, BioCentric Energy and PetroAlgae.
Among uses, Japan Airlines had a test flight last month with a jet fuel and biofuels blend including algae oils.
Brazil's MPX Energia plans to trap 10-15 percent of carbon emissions from a coal-fired power plant by feeding them to algae when it starts in 2011.
Plymouth Marine Laboratory says it is taking what we know about algae in the world's oceans and applying it to biotechnology, an approach which differs from much of the commercial research underway, where some claims about the possibilities of algal biofuels are overstated, according to Carole Llewellyn, a marine chemist.” This article says that this lab is in England.
Meanwhile, there are many other companies that are working to produce biofuels from Algae in a cost effective way.
Solazyme in South San Francisco in California is another. There are very likely at least 20 more such companies, some of which will grow to substantial size.
The CEO of the solar photovoltaic company Nanosolar, points out that we can harvest and use much more of the sun’s energy for transport per unit area with solar than we can by growing algae.
But algae may indeed help save us from C02 based global warming by helping replace oil in already installed engines currently in use; and maybe also by removing C02 from exhaust and C02 that is already in the air. (It might pay us to cultivate algae we do NOT burn for fuel as well as algae that we do turn into biofuels we burn.)
So, the title of the article is extremely well chosen.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Keys to solving global warming....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 2-4-2009
NPR had a story in its online news saying that we almost need every developed and developing country to manage to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 80 % over the next 40 years or so, to halt global warming at a level short of global disaster.
And they quote a man who is working on the problem who makes the point, with which I agree, that overdoing taxes or other coercive devices to boost costs for fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide release are potentially undoable politically and economically dangerous as well.
His points are 3: We need to get the reductions anyway but we’ll need a different way to do it; innovation by dozens of new organizations that each do a little bit to solve the problem each working on their part of it at the same time may be needed; & the most critical part is using new technology to reduce the cost of renewable energy to the point it is cheaper than using fossil fuels.
The man they quote is Dan Sarewitz of Arizona State University who runs the Consortium for Science Policy and Outcomes based at Arizona State University. He is now trying to identify what institutions we need to drive that transformation in the coming decades.
His other goal is to make renewable energy as cheap as fossil fuels.
He believes there's little hope that the nations of the world will agree to tackle climate change unless that can be done. And, he says, “There's no time to lose.”
I agree with much of what they quote Dan Sarewitz as saying.
But I think there are some ways to get there that go beyond his views.
A. In an earlier post, I talk about how feed-in tariffs have proven to work in dramatically increasing the amount of renewable energy in a relatively short time. The evidence is dramatic. With a world location and area similar to just the Canadian province of British Columbia, Germany has used feed-in tariffs to install HALF of the worlds solar power. Note that they did this without severe harm to their economy AND at a time when the renewable energy produced electricity cost MORE than the electricity produced in other ways.
The feed-in tariff contracts with the solar or wind power provider to pay enough over the cost of electricity produced in other ways that the solar or wind power provider can build and deliver the renewable energy at a profit and that this rate lasts long enough the solar or wind power provider can build and deliver the renewable energy at a profit over the term of the contract.
But here’s why that works to avoid political fall out and economic disruption.
Let’s say these contracts cost double the price of energy produced by fossil fuels per unit of energy produced.
At the beginning when this only amounted to 1 % of Germany’s electricity, the increase in the net electricity bills to users was only 1%. (.99 + .02 = 1.01)
Then gradually it’s gone up to 16% where I’ve read it is now. Even if the costs did not come down, which I think they actually did do, the net increase in the net electricity bills to users was only 16% (.84 + .32 = 1.16)
So, even if we went to 100 % renewable, the total cost would only double. And the increases would be gradual.
But, when volume sales happen and new technologies come online, costs of virtually everything do gradually come down. So the increases will likely be less than that.
I think that if every nation and utility began using feed-in tariffs for renewable energy production of electricity and we used some of it for transport, an 80 % reduction in carbon dioxide release in 40 years may well be doable.
B. But what about the idea of making fossil fuel use cost more? Clearly that make sense as well because the sooner that cost is MORE than the cost of renewable energy, the more likely we are to get an 80 % reduction in carbon dioxide release in 40 years.
But if we cause fossil fuel costs to double or more in 12 months as happened recently to gasoline prices and other fuels as oil prices shot up, we’ll cause great harm to the economy and cause many individuals and businesses to suffer.
So, while causing fossil fuel use to go up in cost is not only desirable but ESSENTIAL, it’s also critical that the change be more gradual than that.
I think there are two ways to do the job but do it an economically safe pace.
1. Look first to charging the real costs of using fossil fuels to the providers.
a) As we’ve seen recently, coal ash dumped into rivers from coal mining and burning has ruinous effects. If the executives of the companies involved could go to jail for doing this; and/or the complete costs of cleaning up or preventing this damage were charged to the companies; and companies had to avoid this kind of thing as a cost of doing business, they’d have to charge more for their coal.
b) As we’ve seen recently, massive health care costs are created by health care and diseases caused or made worse by air pollution from burning coal and petroleum based fuels with in adequate pollution controls.
The producing companies have NOT been charged the costs of paying these bills or of installing enough thoroughly effective pollution controls to prevent it.
If over the next 15 years we gradually insisted that all the companies that burn coal or provide petroleum based fuels prevent these costs completely, by the end of that 15 years renewable energy may well cost less.
2. The key idea I think is to enact feed-in tariffs and extra financing for renewable energy production and build the new transmission grid first.
That way as the increased cost of fossil fuels begins to take hold, the renewable energy is already coming online at reasonable cost to cover our energy needs.
So, while we do need to make carbon based fuels cost more at least by adding their real and now unpaid costs to them, it will pay us to do it gradually. That is also the way it would make sense to add carbon taxes or delete existing tax breaks for those industries.
Lastly, by increasingly having coal and petroleum used for things other than burning directly such as making coal based but clean burning fuels to complement biofuels and by turning both coal and petroleum into sources of petrochemicals (as J. Paul Getty foresaw many years ago) the industries will have a safe place to land also as their income dries up from directly burning their fossil fuels.
C. We need to make an effort as great as the United States did to win World War II but on a planet wide basis to add all the renewable energy and energy efficiency we have the potential to use, or as close to it as possible and to do it for the next 40 years.
We need cost effective biofuels that can be produced in places that cause no environmental damage or compete with food production.
We need many more all electric and plug-in hybrid cars and trucks.
We need more wind power installations near existing populations and power grids.
We also need to build larger wind power farms in appropriate locations AND build the new transmission needed to get that electricity to the people and businesses who will use it but are not nearby. (This part of T. Boone Pickens’ plan is absolutely correct and should be implemented immediately.)
Both kinds of wind power should be built right away since it is already cost competitive with fossil fuels.
We need more installations of simple and reliable solar hot water or water pre-warming systems by both individuals for their homes and by businesses.
We need more solar photovoltaic installations by homeowners and by business for their buildings AND parking lot spaces.
And we need to build smaller solar photovoltaic power farms near existing populations and power grids.
We also need to build larger solar photovoltaic farms in appropriate locations AND build the new transmission needed to get that electricity to the people and businesses who will use it but are not nearby.
Similarly, we need to build smaller solar thermal farms near existing populations and power grids.
We also need to build larger solar thermal farms in appropriate locations AND build the new transmission needed to get that electricity to the people and businesses who will use it but are not nearby. Given the solar thermal potential of the whole South Western United States; almost all of Mexico; of central Australia; & and of North Africa, this is a truly huge part of the solution we need to also make sure to use. In the long run it may provide at least half the renewable energy we need. And, unlike solar photovoltaic power, solar thermal can provide electricity well after dark as well as after the sun is no longer near maximum brightness.
Ausra, the company that I’ve seen that has the best and most reliable solar thermal technology has temporarily, I read recently, stopped its efforts to build such large solar thermal farms.
It is my hope that they will plan to resume their efforts in this area once we have feed-in tariffs; a more normal banking climate or special renewable energy financing; and we’ve begun building transmission lines to these areas.
I think it’s essential we do that in the United States. Because if we do, the rest of the world will follow.
We also need to invest in LED lights; dramatically increase insulation and heat proofing of existing buildings; and insist on them in new buildings; and do everything else we can to make our use of energy more efficient without cutting our economy. In this category of things, some of them can be done within the first 5 years or even by a year from now.
They usually have a lifetime cost low enough to actually save money. And they often save money so well the payback is less than five years or even ONE year in some cases.
Since EACH of these things is doable, if we simply insist on doing them all, I think we CAN increase our renewable energy and energy efficiency AND replace enough fossil fuels by doing so to cut CO2 emissions 80 % while providing for economic and population GROWTH too.
And, if we show in the United States that it can be done & WE start doing it, we then can both bring the rest of the world along by example and providing the technologies and products (where we don’t import them ourselves.)
Plus, once that is moving well, we can consider adding import fees from countries based on how much carbon dioxide was used in creating their products.
One man said he thinks only such import fees will engage the full effort of China in fighting global warming. Based on my own reading of the Chinese, I think he badly underestimates their ingenuity, efforts already underway, and their ability to capitalize on things they see others doing well.
That said, they produce enough of the world’s CO2 each year now, once we begin actually doing ourselves what we want them to do, he may be right at that time. If he is correct then, I think that’s the time to use his solution.
My own belief is that by then it will not be necessary. But I agree with him that if it is, it would be effective.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 2-4-2009
NPR had a story in its online news saying that we almost need every developed and developing country to manage to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 80 % over the next 40 years or so, to halt global warming at a level short of global disaster.
And they quote a man who is working on the problem who makes the point, with which I agree, that overdoing taxes or other coercive devices to boost costs for fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide release are potentially undoable politically and economically dangerous as well.
His points are 3: We need to get the reductions anyway but we’ll need a different way to do it; innovation by dozens of new organizations that each do a little bit to solve the problem each working on their part of it at the same time may be needed; & the most critical part is using new technology to reduce the cost of renewable energy to the point it is cheaper than using fossil fuels.
The man they quote is Dan Sarewitz of Arizona State University who runs the Consortium for Science Policy and Outcomes based at Arizona State University. He is now trying to identify what institutions we need to drive that transformation in the coming decades.
His other goal is to make renewable energy as cheap as fossil fuels.
He believes there's little hope that the nations of the world will agree to tackle climate change unless that can be done. And, he says, “There's no time to lose.”
I agree with much of what they quote Dan Sarewitz as saying.
But I think there are some ways to get there that go beyond his views.
A. In an earlier post, I talk about how feed-in tariffs have proven to work in dramatically increasing the amount of renewable energy in a relatively short time. The evidence is dramatic. With a world location and area similar to just the Canadian province of British Columbia, Germany has used feed-in tariffs to install HALF of the worlds solar power. Note that they did this without severe harm to their economy AND at a time when the renewable energy produced electricity cost MORE than the electricity produced in other ways.
The feed-in tariff contracts with the solar or wind power provider to pay enough over the cost of electricity produced in other ways that the solar or wind power provider can build and deliver the renewable energy at a profit and that this rate lasts long enough the solar or wind power provider can build and deliver the renewable energy at a profit over the term of the contract.
But here’s why that works to avoid political fall out and economic disruption.
Let’s say these contracts cost double the price of energy produced by fossil fuels per unit of energy produced.
At the beginning when this only amounted to 1 % of Germany’s electricity, the increase in the net electricity bills to users was only 1%. (.99 + .02 = 1.01)
Then gradually it’s gone up to 16% where I’ve read it is now. Even if the costs did not come down, which I think they actually did do, the net increase in the net electricity bills to users was only 16% (.84 + .32 = 1.16)
So, even if we went to 100 % renewable, the total cost would only double. And the increases would be gradual.
But, when volume sales happen and new technologies come online, costs of virtually everything do gradually come down. So the increases will likely be less than that.
I think that if every nation and utility began using feed-in tariffs for renewable energy production of electricity and we used some of it for transport, an 80 % reduction in carbon dioxide release in 40 years may well be doable.
B. But what about the idea of making fossil fuel use cost more? Clearly that make sense as well because the sooner that cost is MORE than the cost of renewable energy, the more likely we are to get an 80 % reduction in carbon dioxide release in 40 years.
But if we cause fossil fuel costs to double or more in 12 months as happened recently to gasoline prices and other fuels as oil prices shot up, we’ll cause great harm to the economy and cause many individuals and businesses to suffer.
So, while causing fossil fuel use to go up in cost is not only desirable but ESSENTIAL, it’s also critical that the change be more gradual than that.
I think there are two ways to do the job but do it an economically safe pace.
1. Look first to charging the real costs of using fossil fuels to the providers.
a) As we’ve seen recently, coal ash dumped into rivers from coal mining and burning has ruinous effects. If the executives of the companies involved could go to jail for doing this; and/or the complete costs of cleaning up or preventing this damage were charged to the companies; and companies had to avoid this kind of thing as a cost of doing business, they’d have to charge more for their coal.
b) As we’ve seen recently, massive health care costs are created by health care and diseases caused or made worse by air pollution from burning coal and petroleum based fuels with in adequate pollution controls.
The producing companies have NOT been charged the costs of paying these bills or of installing enough thoroughly effective pollution controls to prevent it.
If over the next 15 years we gradually insisted that all the companies that burn coal or provide petroleum based fuels prevent these costs completely, by the end of that 15 years renewable energy may well cost less.
2. The key idea I think is to enact feed-in tariffs and extra financing for renewable energy production and build the new transmission grid first.
That way as the increased cost of fossil fuels begins to take hold, the renewable energy is already coming online at reasonable cost to cover our energy needs.
So, while we do need to make carbon based fuels cost more at least by adding their real and now unpaid costs to them, it will pay us to do it gradually. That is also the way it would make sense to add carbon taxes or delete existing tax breaks for those industries.
Lastly, by increasingly having coal and petroleum used for things other than burning directly such as making coal based but clean burning fuels to complement biofuels and by turning both coal and petroleum into sources of petrochemicals (as J. Paul Getty foresaw many years ago) the industries will have a safe place to land also as their income dries up from directly burning their fossil fuels.
C. We need to make an effort as great as the United States did to win World War II but on a planet wide basis to add all the renewable energy and energy efficiency we have the potential to use, or as close to it as possible and to do it for the next 40 years.
We need cost effective biofuels that can be produced in places that cause no environmental damage or compete with food production.
We need many more all electric and plug-in hybrid cars and trucks.
We need more wind power installations near existing populations and power grids.
We also need to build larger wind power farms in appropriate locations AND build the new transmission needed to get that electricity to the people and businesses who will use it but are not nearby. (This part of T. Boone Pickens’ plan is absolutely correct and should be implemented immediately.)
Both kinds of wind power should be built right away since it is already cost competitive with fossil fuels.
We need more installations of simple and reliable solar hot water or water pre-warming systems by both individuals for their homes and by businesses.
We need more solar photovoltaic installations by homeowners and by business for their buildings AND parking lot spaces.
And we need to build smaller solar photovoltaic power farms near existing populations and power grids.
We also need to build larger solar photovoltaic farms in appropriate locations AND build the new transmission needed to get that electricity to the people and businesses who will use it but are not nearby.
Similarly, we need to build smaller solar thermal farms near existing populations and power grids.
We also need to build larger solar thermal farms in appropriate locations AND build the new transmission needed to get that electricity to the people and businesses who will use it but are not nearby. Given the solar thermal potential of the whole South Western United States; almost all of Mexico; of central Australia; & and of North Africa, this is a truly huge part of the solution we need to also make sure to use. In the long run it may provide at least half the renewable energy we need. And, unlike solar photovoltaic power, solar thermal can provide electricity well after dark as well as after the sun is no longer near maximum brightness.
Ausra, the company that I’ve seen that has the best and most reliable solar thermal technology has temporarily, I read recently, stopped its efforts to build such large solar thermal farms.
It is my hope that they will plan to resume their efforts in this area once we have feed-in tariffs; a more normal banking climate or special renewable energy financing; and we’ve begun building transmission lines to these areas.
I think it’s essential we do that in the United States. Because if we do, the rest of the world will follow.
We also need to invest in LED lights; dramatically increase insulation and heat proofing of existing buildings; and insist on them in new buildings; and do everything else we can to make our use of energy more efficient without cutting our economy. In this category of things, some of them can be done within the first 5 years or even by a year from now.
They usually have a lifetime cost low enough to actually save money. And they often save money so well the payback is less than five years or even ONE year in some cases.
Since EACH of these things is doable, if we simply insist on doing them all, I think we CAN increase our renewable energy and energy efficiency AND replace enough fossil fuels by doing so to cut CO2 emissions 80 % while providing for economic and population GROWTH too.
And, if we show in the United States that it can be done & WE start doing it, we then can both bring the rest of the world along by example and providing the technologies and products (where we don’t import them ourselves.)
Plus, once that is moving well, we can consider adding import fees from countries based on how much carbon dioxide was used in creating their products.
One man said he thinks only such import fees will engage the full effort of China in fighting global warming. Based on my own reading of the Chinese, I think he badly underestimates their ingenuity, efforts already underway, and their ability to capitalize on things they see others doing well.
That said, they produce enough of the world’s CO2 each year now, once we begin actually doing ourselves what we want them to do, he may be right at that time. If he is correct then, I think that’s the time to use his solution.
My own belief is that by then it will not be necessary. But I agree with him that if it is, it would be effective.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Something you can do to help renewable energy....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 1-28-2009
We CAN have more renewable energy & jobs SOON.
Some of the things that impact our ability to have more renewable energy are out of your direct control.
But here are three things you can do.:
1. Write all of the politicians who are in your various districts and support feed-in tariffs and other kinds of financing for renewable energy installations. (See our last post on Weds, 1-21 for why that will also create up to 5,000,000 jobs and has been PROVEN to result in sharp increases in the amount of renewable energy actually installed and giving us energy.)
This is a bit more time consuming to do. But a lot of politicians don’t know this information yet; and some that do will only act on it if they think the voters will notice if they do or do not.
They also note personal letters more than mass efforts sometimes. So your one letter or email might actually work.
2. Do something little to save energy where you live, such as weather strip just ONE window that now either leaks a lot of cold air in the winter or hot air in the summer. You’ll not only save energy, you’ll be more comfortable too.
Or turn off the power on your TV by doing it at the power surge strip each time you leave or go to bed. Believe it or not, that cuts the total power your TV uses at least in HALF. Just remember to turn it back on at the power surge protector’s switch a few minutes before you want watch it.
If you can think up and do 20 such projects, by all means do. But it’s been proven over and over doing even ONE thing will help.
So do that during this upcoming week.
3. Start looking for opportunities to buy and install LED light bulbs & do it.
They are still a bit too expensive to be easy to buy upfront. But they are an unusually shrewd investment.
Even at today’s prices you’ll save as much as four times the upfront cost in savings on your electric bill before the bulb stops working.
LED lights save even more energy than compact fluorescents in any given size of light!
Even better, unlike compact fluorescents, LED lights contain no mercury.
Here’s why that’s important too. Since many of the people all over the world will simply dump compact fluorescents in ways that wind up adding their mercury to our waters and land, we already face increases in the mercury content of our food, particularly fish and seafood, from this source.
The sooner we can switch to LED light bulbs instead, we’ll not only save more energy, we’ll turn off this source of pollution of our planet.
Last, but far from least, now that incandescent bulbs are becoming illegal in many places, if we support the LED light bulb makers now, they may be able to make LED light bulbs that fit all the sockets in refrigerators and lamps all over the world BEFORE it becomes illegal to install incandescent bulbs in those sockets and nothing else will fit.
Try to buy even one LED light bulb within 30 days for where you live.
You can even make money selling LED light bulbs now.
See http://www.netprofitstoday.com/blog/the-perfect-time-to-go-and-sell-green/ .
Here’s a quote from that blog entry.:
“ For example, the prospect of saving up to 75% on lighting costs (typically representing approximately 25% of a home energy budget) convinced me to outfit 98% of the lights in my home with compact fluorescents when the product was first introduced. Now, 10-watt LED bulbs that last up to 50,000 hours and are equivalent to 100-watt incandescent bulbs are available for home use. Those who have already replaced 150-watt incandescent bulbs with the 10-watt LED spotlights are reporting better and brighter task lighting in addition to the benefit of increased savings.
Although the initial outlay of $60.00 to $100.00 per bulb seems pretty pricey, taking a longer-term view and applying some simple math reveals that each bulb $400 to $500 in electricity savings over the life of a bulb - based on a median cost of 10 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity. That’s not a cost — it’s a no-brainer investment. Replace ten incandescent bulbs, save $4,000.00 (or more), invest those savings in the solar retrofit and pretty soon the local hydro-electric utility will be sending you a check every month for the power that you send back to the grid!
Green Product Availability
Alas, not so fast. You can’t buy an LED light bulb that isn’t attached to a Christmas string for love nor money here in Backwater, British Columbia. So, this is where YOU come in. You can promote those bulbs as an affiliate. Do a search for “LED bulb” and “affiliate program” and merchants such as Smarthome (partnered with Linkshare) show up at the top of the Google search results. Smarthome reports that their average sale is over $200.00 and they pay 8-10% sales commissions.
Go beyond the bulbs and check out the plethora of energy-saving products that are available for promotion through those and other merchants with affiliate programs. Visitors who might be loathe to drop $70.00 on an LED light bulb can be sold a $34.00 sensor-activated switch that dims conventional and fluorescent bulbs by up to 50% and extends the expected lifespan by up to 35 times. While you’re at it, point that visitor to programmable thermostats that save 10 to 20% on the annual heating bill and cost as little as 40 bucks. For the still-skeptical, there are electricity usage monitors that display consumption by the kilowatt-hour and calculate electricity expenses by the day, week, month, or year and are an easy sell at $19.99. Put them on a list and they’ll come running back to your site for the real energy-saving tools once they gain perspective on their current usage and potential savings. “
I found lots of energy saving devices when I clicked on http://www.sarthome.com/ as Rosalind Gardner mentions above.
But to find the 10 Watt LED spotlights I had search on Yahoo.
I found this.: www.zgsm-china.com/LED-Spotlights.html .
Their site in English also pointed out that LED lights are far safer to use, particularly in uses where the light needs to be on and unattended for any length of time since they run dramatically cooler than compact fluorescents or incandescent light bulbs.
My hope is that major United States based companies that make light bulbs such as GE and Sylvania will make decent LED light bulbs available soon if only online & that fit all the existing fixtures that have been using the incandescent light bulbs for which they were originally designed.
Why should the Chinese companies make all the money?
The 10 watt spotlights use a fifteenth of the energy of a 150 watt incandescent and can light a whole room.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 1-28-2009
We CAN have more renewable energy & jobs SOON.
Some of the things that impact our ability to have more renewable energy are out of your direct control.
But here are three things you can do.:
1. Write all of the politicians who are in your various districts and support feed-in tariffs and other kinds of financing for renewable energy installations. (See our last post on Weds, 1-21 for why that will also create up to 5,000,000 jobs and has been PROVEN to result in sharp increases in the amount of renewable energy actually installed and giving us energy.)
This is a bit more time consuming to do. But a lot of politicians don’t know this information yet; and some that do will only act on it if they think the voters will notice if they do or do not.
They also note personal letters more than mass efforts sometimes. So your one letter or email might actually work.
2. Do something little to save energy where you live, such as weather strip just ONE window that now either leaks a lot of cold air in the winter or hot air in the summer. You’ll not only save energy, you’ll be more comfortable too.
Or turn off the power on your TV by doing it at the power surge strip each time you leave or go to bed. Believe it or not, that cuts the total power your TV uses at least in HALF. Just remember to turn it back on at the power surge protector’s switch a few minutes before you want watch it.
If you can think up and do 20 such projects, by all means do. But it’s been proven over and over doing even ONE thing will help.
So do that during this upcoming week.
3. Start looking for opportunities to buy and install LED light bulbs & do it.
They are still a bit too expensive to be easy to buy upfront. But they are an unusually shrewd investment.
Even at today’s prices you’ll save as much as four times the upfront cost in savings on your electric bill before the bulb stops working.
LED lights save even more energy than compact fluorescents in any given size of light!
Even better, unlike compact fluorescents, LED lights contain no mercury.
Here’s why that’s important too. Since many of the people all over the world will simply dump compact fluorescents in ways that wind up adding their mercury to our waters and land, we already face increases in the mercury content of our food, particularly fish and seafood, from this source.
The sooner we can switch to LED light bulbs instead, we’ll not only save more energy, we’ll turn off this source of pollution of our planet.
Last, but far from least, now that incandescent bulbs are becoming illegal in many places, if we support the LED light bulb makers now, they may be able to make LED light bulbs that fit all the sockets in refrigerators and lamps all over the world BEFORE it becomes illegal to install incandescent bulbs in those sockets and nothing else will fit.
Try to buy even one LED light bulb within 30 days for where you live.
You can even make money selling LED light bulbs now.
See http://www.netprofitstoday.com/blog/the-perfect-time-to-go-and-sell-green/ .
Here’s a quote from that blog entry.:
“ For example, the prospect of saving up to 75% on lighting costs (typically representing approximately 25% of a home energy budget) convinced me to outfit 98% of the lights in my home with compact fluorescents when the product was first introduced. Now, 10-watt LED bulbs that last up to 50,000 hours and are equivalent to 100-watt incandescent bulbs are available for home use. Those who have already replaced 150-watt incandescent bulbs with the 10-watt LED spotlights are reporting better and brighter task lighting in addition to the benefit of increased savings.
Although the initial outlay of $60.00 to $100.00 per bulb seems pretty pricey, taking a longer-term view and applying some simple math reveals that each bulb $400 to $500 in electricity savings over the life of a bulb - based on a median cost of 10 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity. That’s not a cost — it’s a no-brainer investment. Replace ten incandescent bulbs, save $4,000.00 (or more), invest those savings in the solar retrofit and pretty soon the local hydro-electric utility will be sending you a check every month for the power that you send back to the grid!
Green Product Availability
Alas, not so fast. You can’t buy an LED light bulb that isn’t attached to a Christmas string for love nor money here in Backwater, British Columbia. So, this is where YOU come in. You can promote those bulbs as an affiliate. Do a search for “LED bulb” and “affiliate program” and merchants such as Smarthome (partnered with Linkshare) show up at the top of the Google search results. Smarthome reports that their average sale is over $200.00 and they pay 8-10% sales commissions.
Go beyond the bulbs and check out the plethora of energy-saving products that are available for promotion through those and other merchants with affiliate programs. Visitors who might be loathe to drop $70.00 on an LED light bulb can be sold a $34.00 sensor-activated switch that dims conventional and fluorescent bulbs by up to 50% and extends the expected lifespan by up to 35 times. While you’re at it, point that visitor to programmable thermostats that save 10 to 20% on the annual heating bill and cost as little as 40 bucks. For the still-skeptical, there are electricity usage monitors that display consumption by the kilowatt-hour and calculate electricity expenses by the day, week, month, or year and are an easy sell at $19.99. Put them on a list and they’ll come running back to your site for the real energy-saving tools once they gain perspective on their current usage and potential savings. “
I found lots of energy saving devices when I clicked on http://www.sarthome.com/ as Rosalind Gardner mentions above.
But to find the 10 Watt LED spotlights I had search on Yahoo.
I found this.: www.zgsm-china.com/LED-Spotlights.html .
Their site in English also pointed out that LED lights are far safer to use, particularly in uses where the light needs to be on and unattended for any length of time since they run dramatically cooler than compact fluorescents or incandescent light bulbs.
My hope is that major United States based companies that make light bulbs such as GE and Sylvania will make decent LED light bulbs available soon if only online & that fit all the existing fixtures that have been using the incandescent light bulbs for which they were originally designed.
Why should the Chinese companies make all the money?
The 10 watt spotlights use a fifteenth of the energy of a 150 watt incandescent and can light a whole room.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
We CAN have more renewable energy & jobs....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 1-21-2009
We CAN have more renewable energy & jobs SOON.
How soon? Maybe in a single year and for sure within 4 years – NOT 20 years -- and up to 5,000,000 jobs.
Archimedes once said given a fulcrum and a lever long enough he could move the whole earth.
I’d heard that such a lever to create more renewable energy had been invented in Germany &/or put into use there.
I’d also wondered why my state, California, and the United States weren’t both already using it.
Thanks to Craig Lewis of GreenVolts in San Francisco, I know now I was incompletely informed.
This renewable energy lever is about 100 times more effective than I’d realized or heard. It has the capacity to not only bring new renewable energy online, it has the capacity to add as much as 5,000,000 million jobs in the next two years if we do it well nationally here in the United States.
So why on earth aren’t we using it yet?!!
By the way, it also makes lending on renewable energy projects as safe for the lender as a 100 % cash backed loan -- just like lending you $2500 because you use your $2500 savings account as collateral.
It’s called a feed-in tariff. And the most effective version requires that the utility “must take” the power generated and “fed-into” the grid and pay what it cost the renewable energy provider to create it, which will often be more than what the utility pays now for power they already generate on a larger scale with fossil fuels.
Martin Roscheisen, CEO of Nanosolar has also suggested that the federal government mandate a rate paid for renewable energy from such must take feed-in tariffs must be at that rate or higher.
This rate can be set initially at a rate that is doable by most well run solar projects but gradually decreased as the costs come down to reward innovation and better technology and management. (My idea.)
Just how well does this work in practice?
I’d heard Germany did well with Feed-in Tariffs but I had NO IDEA how well.
It seems that Germany, which is about as far North as British Columbia and has about as much solar potential, has HALF of all the world’s solar power production now. It also gets 16% of its energy from renewable sources between the solar and the wind power they’ve installed because of their feed-in tariff.
Since the United States, between being farther South, much larger, and having deserts with more land area than Germany by themselves, has at least 20 times and maybe more like 100 times more solar potential between photovoltaic and solar thermal, AND has nearly that much more wind potential, we may be looking at more like getting 80 % of our energy from renewable sources here.
Germany did create about 250,000 jobs with their feed-in tariff according to something I read. So, if our solar potential is as little as 20 times bigger than Germany, I think it’s a good bit more, we will create 5,000,000 jobs or more if we adopt feed-in tariffs here!
It goes farther than that. Here in the Silicon Valley solar companies with solar projects that have been approved and contracted for are LOSING jobs and laying people off. One, OptiSolar laid off half its workforce. It seems that the banks won’t finance the projects now.
Mark Twain once said that if a cat sits on a hot stove once, it won’t sit on a hot stove again. But it won’t sit on a cold stove either.
So far the banks in the United States have not been any smarter than Mark Twain’s cat.
Because they lent money to high risk borrowers in large volume, they got burned. So now they won’t loan money to the low risk and low moderate risk borrowers, both individuals and businesses, they are in business to serve either.
For renewable energy projects, feed-in tariffs make lending on renewable energy projects so extremely safe even the most in-shock and brain dead banks will lend on it.
This means that feed-in tariffs can not only create jobs and new renewable energy installations on a very large scale, it can prevent job LOSS and might even turn the whole economy around.
So, why on earth hasn’t California and several other states already begun using feed-in tariffs? Why haven’t other states done it?
We know in part why the United States hasn’t done it. But that administration left yesterday.
The power of feed-in tariffs is so great that isn’t the entire answer though.
Most of the people in charge haven’t known we’d need to create 5,000,000 jobs to jump start our economy or that we’d need to create new renewable energy as badly as we now know we do.
And, none of them have had a clue that feed-in tariffs would do the job.
I’m writing this post because I want to publicize the fact that feed-in tariffs have proved they do the job in practice. They created half the world’s solar in Germany and added 250,000 jobs there.
Now our leaders on all levels know we need more renewable energy and jobs. I want them to know that it’s imperative they ensure we have feed-in tariffs for renewable energy to produce that renewable energy and jobs and that it’s virtually guaranteed to work.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 1-21-2009
We CAN have more renewable energy & jobs SOON.
How soon? Maybe in a single year and for sure within 4 years – NOT 20 years -- and up to 5,000,000 jobs.
Archimedes once said given a fulcrum and a lever long enough he could move the whole earth.
I’d heard that such a lever to create more renewable energy had been invented in Germany &/or put into use there.
I’d also wondered why my state, California, and the United States weren’t both already using it.
Thanks to Craig Lewis of GreenVolts in San Francisco, I know now I was incompletely informed.
This renewable energy lever is about 100 times more effective than I’d realized or heard. It has the capacity to not only bring new renewable energy online, it has the capacity to add as much as 5,000,000 million jobs in the next two years if we do it well nationally here in the United States.
So why on earth aren’t we using it yet?!!
By the way, it also makes lending on renewable energy projects as safe for the lender as a 100 % cash backed loan -- just like lending you $2500 because you use your $2500 savings account as collateral.
It’s called a feed-in tariff. And the most effective version requires that the utility “must take” the power generated and “fed-into” the grid and pay what it cost the renewable energy provider to create it, which will often be more than what the utility pays now for power they already generate on a larger scale with fossil fuels.
Martin Roscheisen, CEO of Nanosolar has also suggested that the federal government mandate a rate paid for renewable energy from such must take feed-in tariffs must be at that rate or higher.
This rate can be set initially at a rate that is doable by most well run solar projects but gradually decreased as the costs come down to reward innovation and better technology and management. (My idea.)
Just how well does this work in practice?
I’d heard Germany did well with Feed-in Tariffs but I had NO IDEA how well.
It seems that Germany, which is about as far North as British Columbia and has about as much solar potential, has HALF of all the world’s solar power production now. It also gets 16% of its energy from renewable sources between the solar and the wind power they’ve installed because of their feed-in tariff.
Since the United States, between being farther South, much larger, and having deserts with more land area than Germany by themselves, has at least 20 times and maybe more like 100 times more solar potential between photovoltaic and solar thermal, AND has nearly that much more wind potential, we may be looking at more like getting 80 % of our energy from renewable sources here.
Germany did create about 250,000 jobs with their feed-in tariff according to something I read. So, if our solar potential is as little as 20 times bigger than Germany, I think it’s a good bit more, we will create 5,000,000 jobs or more if we adopt feed-in tariffs here!
It goes farther than that. Here in the Silicon Valley solar companies with solar projects that have been approved and contracted for are LOSING jobs and laying people off. One, OptiSolar laid off half its workforce. It seems that the banks won’t finance the projects now.
Mark Twain once said that if a cat sits on a hot stove once, it won’t sit on a hot stove again. But it won’t sit on a cold stove either.
So far the banks in the United States have not been any smarter than Mark Twain’s cat.
Because they lent money to high risk borrowers in large volume, they got burned. So now they won’t loan money to the low risk and low moderate risk borrowers, both individuals and businesses, they are in business to serve either.
For renewable energy projects, feed-in tariffs make lending on renewable energy projects so extremely safe even the most in-shock and brain dead banks will lend on it.
This means that feed-in tariffs can not only create jobs and new renewable energy installations on a very large scale, it can prevent job LOSS and might even turn the whole economy around.
So, why on earth hasn’t California and several other states already begun using feed-in tariffs? Why haven’t other states done it?
We know in part why the United States hasn’t done it. But that administration left yesterday.
The power of feed-in tariffs is so great that isn’t the entire answer though.
Most of the people in charge haven’t known we’d need to create 5,000,000 jobs to jump start our economy or that we’d need to create new renewable energy as badly as we now know we do.
And, none of them have had a clue that feed-in tariffs would do the job.
I’m writing this post because I want to publicize the fact that feed-in tariffs have proved they do the job in practice. They created half the world’s solar in Germany and added 250,000 jobs there.
Now our leaders on all levels know we need more renewable energy and jobs. I want them to know that it’s imperative they ensure we have feed-in tariffs for renewable energy to produce that renewable energy and jobs and that it’s virtually guaranteed to work.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Mostly good news for renewable energy....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 1-14-2009
The news on renewable energy lately is mostly good.:
1. Yesterday, AP online news reported that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu was “warmly received” at his Senate confirmation hearing to be Energy Secretary.
And, he “confirmed as energy secretary he will aggressively pursue policies aimed at addressing climate change and achieving greater energy independence by developing clean energy sources.”
He “appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee where he received immediate support from both Democrats and Republicans.”
“Chu, …. told senators that climate change is "a growing and pressing problem" and the nation's dependence on oil represents a threat to the U.S. economy and security.
Of the risks from global warming, Chu said: "It is now clear that if we continue on our current path, we run the risk of dramatic disruptive changes to our climate system in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren." “
So, if the Senate’s initial response is any indication, Chu will be confirmed; and renewable energy and a variety of means to improve our energy efficiency throughout our economy, and a commitment to reducing CO2 emissions will get a huge boost when he takes office.
Specifically this article quotes Chu as saying.: “ "Improvements in energy efficiency is the one single factor that can most reduce our dependency on foreign oil,"”
My main concern when he was appointed is that he would get derailed by the traditional energy industries due to his seeming lack of political background. But, between his experience running the Lawrence Lab and his preparation for the job, he seems to have the ability to deal well with that.
He is apparently willing to allow some offshore drilling in less environmentally sensitive areas which will keep the representatives of the oil industry from voting against him now or derailing his programs later.
(He is following the lead of President-elect Obama in so doing.) And, despite it not being the very best choice for global warming, it will slightly improve our ability to be energy self-sufficient and pay less to import oil which many help our national security which he knows is also important.
And, since the Lawrence Lab he ran is and was involved in nuclear matters, he is aware that it will likely remain part of our energy mix.
“Chu said nuclear energy produces a fifth of the nation's electricity and 70 percent of the carbon-free electricity and "is going to be an important part of our energy mix." “
I still have safety concerns about nuclear power; but I like that he is aware that it DOES provide” carbon-free electricity.” And, he clearly made points with those senators who back it.
He realizes that we are now dependent on burning coal for electricity now and that so are China and India. Plus he was aware that senators from states where coal is a key part of their economies will be voting on his confirmation. So, as a near term solution, he strongly favors work on developing effective methods to burn coal but to retrofit some kind of devices that prevent CO2 from entering the atmosphere.
As an optimistic scientist, he has more faith than I that this is doable at all, let alone soon enough or inexpensively enough. But within 10 years, there may be breakthroughs that do the job. And, in the near term, he keeps the support of coal state senators and of India and China.
(As regular readers of this blog know, I favor turning coal into substitutes for natural gas and for gasoline and diesel fuel that we would burn anyway, which would help us wean our economy from its unsafe dependence only on natural gas and petroleum and improve our energy self-sufficiency. And, I favor replacing ALL coal burning plants for generating electricity with renewable sources or at worst nuclear power instead. So I hope those approaches also make progress.)
But I still find it very reassuring to see that Steven Chu is politically sound and looking for global warming solutions that will avoid short term harm to our economy. So my expectations of his performance have gone from liking his support for renewable energy and fighting global warming but fearing he would be ineffective to now believing he will be quite effective as well once confirmed and in office.
2. And, which will fit right in with new Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s emphasis on renewable and sustainable energy research and research to fight global warming, also in the past few days, Stanford University added a new $100 million donation to an earlier $75 million dollar donation by one of Yahoo’s founders to create a new research group on renewable and sustainable energy research, which in addition to doing new research will also plug in ALL related work done at Stanford AND begin to help train new young people into experts in this new field.
Since I live near Stanford and am affected by the economy of the Silicon Valley, I’m personally very please with this announcement. But it looks to be easily as important to the developing field of renewable and sustainable energy research and research on fighting global warming. In addition to the short term benefit we get from the research, in the longer run, & starting in just a few years, the new experts in the field developed at Stanford will also be hugely positive.
3. And yesterday, Massachusetts governor, Deval Patrick announced he has set a goal for Massachusetts to produce2,000 megawatts of wind electricity annually by 2020, which is enough to provide 10 percent of the state's current energy needs.
Massachusetts only produces seven megawatts of power annually now.
And, the entire United States now only produces a bit more than 21,000 megawatts a year now. Texas, thanks in part to T Boone Pickens, now produces 6,300 megawatts a year from wind, which is the most of any state.
So, for Massachusetts to put a new 1993 megawatts of wind power electricity generation in place is a significant increase by comparison.
And, governor Patrick has a start on his goal because there are already
300 turbines in various planning and permitting stages in Massachusetts, which will generate an estimated 420 megawatts of power.
4. Lastly, as a fan of cost-competitive solar photovoltaic power, I’ve liked the upbeat and accurate supporting scientific facts the CEO of Nanosolar periodically posts on Nanosolar’s blog. (They print thin film photovoltaic cells on something like a high speed continuous roll printing press to help speed manufacturing and bring costs down.)
About 4 weeks ago, as I recently discovered, he posted this.:
"1kg CIGS = 5kg Uranium
December 16, 2008
By Martin Roscheisen, CEO
The notion of a kilogram of enriched Uranium conjures up an image of a powerful (amount) of energy. Enough to power an entire city for years when used in a nuclear power plant, or enough to flatten an entire county when used in a bomb - that's presumably what many people would say if one asked them about their thoughts.
In our new solar cell technology, we use an active material called CIGS, a Copper based semiconductor. How does this stack up against enriched Uranium?
Here's a noteworthy fact, pointed out to me by one of our engineers: It turns out that 1kg of CIGS, embedded in a solar cell, produces 5 times as much electricity as 1kg of enriched Uranium, embedded in a nuclear power plant.
Or said differently, 1kg of CIGS is equivalent to 5kg of enriched Uranium in terms of the energy the materials deliver in solar and nuclear respectively.
The Uranium is burned and then stored in a nuclear waste facility; the CIGS material produces power for at least the warranty period of the solar cell product after which it can then be recycled and reused an indefinite number of times."
To be fair, nuclear power also has a breeder reactor version that allows for a lot more of the energy in the Uranium to be used. But I like Martin Roscheisen and the way he thinks and thought this an upbeat way to end this post.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 1-14-2009
The news on renewable energy lately is mostly good.:
1. Yesterday, AP online news reported that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu was “warmly received” at his Senate confirmation hearing to be Energy Secretary.
And, he “confirmed as energy secretary he will aggressively pursue policies aimed at addressing climate change and achieving greater energy independence by developing clean energy sources.”
He “appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee where he received immediate support from both Democrats and Republicans.”
“Chu, …. told senators that climate change is "a growing and pressing problem" and the nation's dependence on oil represents a threat to the U.S. economy and security.
Of the risks from global warming, Chu said: "It is now clear that if we continue on our current path, we run the risk of dramatic disruptive changes to our climate system in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren." “
So, if the Senate’s initial response is any indication, Chu will be confirmed; and renewable energy and a variety of means to improve our energy efficiency throughout our economy, and a commitment to reducing CO2 emissions will get a huge boost when he takes office.
Specifically this article quotes Chu as saying.: “ "Improvements in energy efficiency is the one single factor that can most reduce our dependency on foreign oil,"”
My main concern when he was appointed is that he would get derailed by the traditional energy industries due to his seeming lack of political background. But, between his experience running the Lawrence Lab and his preparation for the job, he seems to have the ability to deal well with that.
He is apparently willing to allow some offshore drilling in less environmentally sensitive areas which will keep the representatives of the oil industry from voting against him now or derailing his programs later.
(He is following the lead of President-elect Obama in so doing.) And, despite it not being the very best choice for global warming, it will slightly improve our ability to be energy self-sufficient and pay less to import oil which many help our national security which he knows is also important.
And, since the Lawrence Lab he ran is and was involved in nuclear matters, he is aware that it will likely remain part of our energy mix.
“Chu said nuclear energy produces a fifth of the nation's electricity and 70 percent of the carbon-free electricity and "is going to be an important part of our energy mix." “
I still have safety concerns about nuclear power; but I like that he is aware that it DOES provide” carbon-free electricity.” And, he clearly made points with those senators who back it.
He realizes that we are now dependent on burning coal for electricity now and that so are China and India. Plus he was aware that senators from states where coal is a key part of their economies will be voting on his confirmation. So, as a near term solution, he strongly favors work on developing effective methods to burn coal but to retrofit some kind of devices that prevent CO2 from entering the atmosphere.
As an optimistic scientist, he has more faith than I that this is doable at all, let alone soon enough or inexpensively enough. But within 10 years, there may be breakthroughs that do the job. And, in the near term, he keeps the support of coal state senators and of India and China.
(As regular readers of this blog know, I favor turning coal into substitutes for natural gas and for gasoline and diesel fuel that we would burn anyway, which would help us wean our economy from its unsafe dependence only on natural gas and petroleum and improve our energy self-sufficiency. And, I favor replacing ALL coal burning plants for generating electricity with renewable sources or at worst nuclear power instead. So I hope those approaches also make progress.)
But I still find it very reassuring to see that Steven Chu is politically sound and looking for global warming solutions that will avoid short term harm to our economy. So my expectations of his performance have gone from liking his support for renewable energy and fighting global warming but fearing he would be ineffective to now believing he will be quite effective as well once confirmed and in office.
2. And, which will fit right in with new Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s emphasis on renewable and sustainable energy research and research to fight global warming, also in the past few days, Stanford University added a new $100 million donation to an earlier $75 million dollar donation by one of Yahoo’s founders to create a new research group on renewable and sustainable energy research, which in addition to doing new research will also plug in ALL related work done at Stanford AND begin to help train new young people into experts in this new field.
Since I live near Stanford and am affected by the economy of the Silicon Valley, I’m personally very please with this announcement. But it looks to be easily as important to the developing field of renewable and sustainable energy research and research on fighting global warming. In addition to the short term benefit we get from the research, in the longer run, & starting in just a few years, the new experts in the field developed at Stanford will also be hugely positive.
3. And yesterday, Massachusetts governor, Deval Patrick announced he has set a goal for Massachusetts to produce2,000 megawatts of wind electricity annually by 2020, which is enough to provide 10 percent of the state's current energy needs.
Massachusetts only produces seven megawatts of power annually now.
And, the entire United States now only produces a bit more than 21,000 megawatts a year now. Texas, thanks in part to T Boone Pickens, now produces 6,300 megawatts a year from wind, which is the most of any state.
So, for Massachusetts to put a new 1993 megawatts of wind power electricity generation in place is a significant increase by comparison.
And, governor Patrick has a start on his goal because there are already
300 turbines in various planning and permitting stages in Massachusetts, which will generate an estimated 420 megawatts of power.
4. Lastly, as a fan of cost-competitive solar photovoltaic power, I’ve liked the upbeat and accurate supporting scientific facts the CEO of Nanosolar periodically posts on Nanosolar’s blog. (They print thin film photovoltaic cells on something like a high speed continuous roll printing press to help speed manufacturing and bring costs down.)
About 4 weeks ago, as I recently discovered, he posted this.:
"1kg CIGS = 5kg Uranium
December 16, 2008
By Martin Roscheisen, CEO
The notion of a kilogram of enriched Uranium conjures up an image of a powerful (amount) of energy. Enough to power an entire city for years when used in a nuclear power plant, or enough to flatten an entire county when used in a bomb - that's presumably what many people would say if one asked them about their thoughts.
In our new solar cell technology, we use an active material called CIGS, a Copper based semiconductor. How does this stack up against enriched Uranium?
Here's a noteworthy fact, pointed out to me by one of our engineers: It turns out that 1kg of CIGS, embedded in a solar cell, produces 5 times as much electricity as 1kg of enriched Uranium, embedded in a nuclear power plant.
Or said differently, 1kg of CIGS is equivalent to 5kg of enriched Uranium in terms of the energy the materials deliver in solar and nuclear respectively.
The Uranium is burned and then stored in a nuclear waste facility; the CIGS material produces power for at least the warranty period of the solar cell product after which it can then be recycled and reused an indefinite number of times."
To be fair, nuclear power also has a breeder reactor version that allows for a lot more of the energy in the Uranium to be used. But I like Martin Roscheisen and the way he thinks and thought this an upbeat way to end this post.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Why to RAMP UP renewable energy when gas prices are low....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 1-2-2009
1. We didn’t see the risks in the real estate lending industry’s high risk lending style and how they thought they had passed it on to third parties.
Then after these practices had become so widespread they involved much of the banking industry and an even bigger percentage of the real estate lending industry, something pushed the first domino or two in the row and our credit markets collapsed or very nearly did.
This has caused many people a good bit of pain and stress, even driven some to suicide.
It very probably was mostly avoidable.
But now the incoming administration will print money and try to do the things that will be effective in fixing it—both preventing it in the future and helping our economy recover to where it should have been at that time.
2. In many parts of the United States and the world, now that renewable energy is less directly competitive with burning fossil fuels, the adoption of renewable energy and enthusiasm has slowed.
It’s imperative if we want to avoid an economic collapse that would make the current one look easy & mild by comparison to RAMP UP renewable energy even MORE—NOT less now.
Here’s why.
a) The world’s economy will likely return to good health. And that economic growth will bid the cost of energy back up even higher than it was a few months ago. Over the decades after that more economic growth per capita and population growth will happen to keep the demand for energy high and climbing.
b) But, that can only happen if we have more energy to supply the demand. And, fossil fuels are running out. So most people in the world will become poorer if we don’t bring on-stream enough energy to supply the increasing demand at a reasonable cost.
(We will probably add some nuclear power to the mix & perhaps we should. But we should ONLY do so if we manage the risks of doing that to a failsafe level which means that governments will need to subsidize those costs to make nuclear power even close to economically viable price-wise. And, the likelihood that this risk reduction will be badly underfunded instead makes this a MUCH less safe alternative to renewable energy.)
c) Since fossil fuels are running out and only available in some places, continuing the current system that relies only on fossil fuels runs the risk of sudden and near total discontinuation of supply. So it is totally imprudent to rely only on fossil fuels while not realizing we are gambling with total economic collapse.
d) We likely already have passed the point of CO2 release from burning fossil fuels where we will have large scale economic costs because of global warming. And, particulate air pollution from burning coal and not adequately filtering the smoke is already causing health harm and costs and harm to agriculture in many parts of the world.
When you add all this up, it means that if we want to have prosperity and economic growth instead of economic collapse or economic decline and world wide increases in poverty, we need to MASSIVELY INCREASE our investments in adding renewable energy and energy efficiency infrastructure to our economy—worldwide.
That also particularly true and important for the United States.
We are the world’s largest economic power and will be one of the largest for many years to come. If we do a good job and lead in this area, the rest of the world will likely follow and add some good technologies not invented here.
But the rest of the world cannot get the job done without us and may do too little if we continue to do as little as we have been.
So, since these things are the case, it seems me that while energy prices for fossil fuels are temporarily too low and renewable energy now is less cost competitive than it should be, to get the progress we need will take very strong assistance from the federal government here.
The good news is that the incoming administration of Barack Obama already sounds like it will invest some of its economic stimulus package into increasing renewable energy and energy efficiency in addition to repairing infrastructure and tax relief.
My hope is that once they do what they already plan that they examine what investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency have worked best or will at that time; & then do a second round of economic stimulus aimed only at investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency.
My concern is that we might easily have even worse economic problems if they do not do both these things well.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 1-2-2009
1. We didn’t see the risks in the real estate lending industry’s high risk lending style and how they thought they had passed it on to third parties.
Then after these practices had become so widespread they involved much of the banking industry and an even bigger percentage of the real estate lending industry, something pushed the first domino or two in the row and our credit markets collapsed or very nearly did.
This has caused many people a good bit of pain and stress, even driven some to suicide.
It very probably was mostly avoidable.
But now the incoming administration will print money and try to do the things that will be effective in fixing it—both preventing it in the future and helping our economy recover to where it should have been at that time.
2. In many parts of the United States and the world, now that renewable energy is less directly competitive with burning fossil fuels, the adoption of renewable energy and enthusiasm has slowed.
It’s imperative if we want to avoid an economic collapse that would make the current one look easy & mild by comparison to RAMP UP renewable energy even MORE—NOT less now.
Here’s why.
a) The world’s economy will likely return to good health. And that economic growth will bid the cost of energy back up even higher than it was a few months ago. Over the decades after that more economic growth per capita and population growth will happen to keep the demand for energy high and climbing.
b) But, that can only happen if we have more energy to supply the demand. And, fossil fuels are running out. So most people in the world will become poorer if we don’t bring on-stream enough energy to supply the increasing demand at a reasonable cost.
(We will probably add some nuclear power to the mix & perhaps we should. But we should ONLY do so if we manage the risks of doing that to a failsafe level which means that governments will need to subsidize those costs to make nuclear power even close to economically viable price-wise. And, the likelihood that this risk reduction will be badly underfunded instead makes this a MUCH less safe alternative to renewable energy.)
c) Since fossil fuels are running out and only available in some places, continuing the current system that relies only on fossil fuels runs the risk of sudden and near total discontinuation of supply. So it is totally imprudent to rely only on fossil fuels while not realizing we are gambling with total economic collapse.
d) We likely already have passed the point of CO2 release from burning fossil fuels where we will have large scale economic costs because of global warming. And, particulate air pollution from burning coal and not adequately filtering the smoke is already causing health harm and costs and harm to agriculture in many parts of the world.
When you add all this up, it means that if we want to have prosperity and economic growth instead of economic collapse or economic decline and world wide increases in poverty, we need to MASSIVELY INCREASE our investments in adding renewable energy and energy efficiency infrastructure to our economy—worldwide.
That also particularly true and important for the United States.
We are the world’s largest economic power and will be one of the largest for many years to come. If we do a good job and lead in this area, the rest of the world will likely follow and add some good technologies not invented here.
But the rest of the world cannot get the job done without us and may do too little if we continue to do as little as we have been.
So, since these things are the case, it seems me that while energy prices for fossil fuels are temporarily too low and renewable energy now is less cost competitive than it should be, to get the progress we need will take very strong assistance from the federal government here.
The good news is that the incoming administration of Barack Obama already sounds like it will invest some of its economic stimulus package into increasing renewable energy and energy efficiency in addition to repairing infrastructure and tax relief.
My hope is that once they do what they already plan that they examine what investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency have worked best or will at that time; & then do a second round of economic stimulus aimed only at investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency.
My concern is that we might easily have even worse economic problems if they do not do both these things well.
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