A new analysis by the European Wind Energy Association finds that the European Union (EU) is going to exceed its target of producing 20% of its energy from renewable energy sources by 2020.
The reports looked at all forms of renewable energy. It found that 13 of the 27 EU countries are set to meet their target, 8 are set to exceed it and the remaining 6 are expected to fall short.
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I think it’s commonly known now that Obama is quite supportive of nuclear power. He mentioned it prominently in his State of the Union speech as a form of clean energy (“to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country….”). Now, he has announced over $8 billion in loan guarantees to build two new nuclear reactors in Georgia (“scheduled to be the first U.S. nuclear power plant to break ground in nearly three decades”) and has proposed $54 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear power plants.
Of course, it didn’t take long for environmentalists, economists and others to jump on all of this and call it a bad idea, (see: “Obama’s nuclear error: $54 billion in loan guarantees make little policy or political sense“, “5 Reasons Why Nuclear Energy is Even Worse than Clean Coal“, “Next in Line for a Bailout: The Nuclear Industry?“, “There’s a New Drive for Nuclear Power, But It’s Still a Financial Dead End“, “The loan arranger: Obama triples budget for nuke loan guarantee program… but hasn’t seen a single promising application in two years“).
Energy Secretary Steven Chu decided to respond to some of these concerns on Facebook, explaining the administration’s rationale for supporting nuclear.
Of course, the debate is not over. And now, to try to stop the new nuclear reactors in Georgia and others from being built, Friends of the Earth is running very eerie TV ads on the topic (one above and another one below).
“Even if nuclear reactors weren’t top terrorist targets,” the one above asks, “even if radioactive waste didn’t remain deadly for ten thousand years, even if you wouldn’t mind radioactive waste passing through your town, how would you feel about exposing your family to a potential radiation accident? Tell President Obama: ‘No bailout for new nuclear reactors. They’re just not safe.’”
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A lunch box staple is the core idea behind solar technology that could bring cost effective solar-heated hot water to cold climates. Solar Panels Plus has come up with a solar hot water heater based on evacuated tubes similar to those popularized by Thermos. Last year two of the company’s models were certified as eligible for Canada’s ecoENERGY for Renewable Heat program, but the real test will occur in southeastern Idaho, where Solar Panels Plus has installed a solar hot water system at the Homestead Family Restaurant in Blackfoot.
If the installation keeps the solar hot water coming in cold weather, it’s another big step forward for the ability of solar energy to compete with fossil fuels. Restaurants are hot water gobblers, and a low cost solar installation that works in cold weather would have a relatively short payback for high volume users — especially if it receives solar energy incentives from its utility, as was the case here.
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Surprisingly, after Obama’s announcement to give $8 billion to High Speed Rail (HSR) projects across the country, popular support for HSR has dropped, but it is still 88%. Not bad.
Of course, more money is needed to make HSR the reality people dream of.
A new survey shows that 83% of people think HSR and mass transit should be getting more money.
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As a short sequel to “Climate Skeptics’ Leading Scientist Funded by Dirty Energy“, this is a brief look at the close connection between Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (ok, not Kingpin, but close) and Fox News, one of the leading media outlets in the world regularly promoting climate denier and anti-clean energy “news” and information.
Prince Alwaleed is the world’s 5th richest man and has decided to put a large chunk of money into this US media company.
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By 2050, 69% of utilities expect that a combination of central power stations in tandem with distributed renewable energy (typically rooftop solar PV and small wind) will supply most of the nation’s electricity, according to a survey by Black and Veatch.
But a surprising 13% of utilities believe that an “Al Gore Electra-net” model of distributed rooftop power will be the dominant way we get our electricity in the US by 2050.
“Most of our respondents (69%) see a hybrid electric utility industry model embracing a combination of both central generation and distributed resources evolving by 2050. Such a system would include both centralized base-load generation and distributed renewable generation made feasible by advanced smart grid technology.”
Imagine if you believed your whole industry would be obsolete by 2050. That’s only forty years from now!
If you believed your industry would be gone in forty years, would you make long term capital investments in electric power generation? I sure wouldn’t. Expect more blackouts on the central grid as we get closer to the half-century!
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We’ve seen Toshiba’s SCiB (super-charge ion batteries) before at last summer’s Consumer Electronics Show, where they were providing the power storage for a battery-assisted bike. SCiB batteries are useful for a wide range of functions, from electric bicycles and hybrid and electric vehicles, to industrial equipment and renewable energy storage. Toshiba has now opened a US-based technical support center to aid in developing the SCiB, particularly for vehicles, grid storage, and wind and solar power applications.
The SCiB has characteristics that make it very appealing. It performs like an ultracapacitor with rapid charge times, reaching 90% charge in about 5 minutes. It is good for thousands of cycles without extensive capacity loss, and it has a life span of 10 years or more. And, of potentially particular interest for vehicle manufacturers, it is able to perform even at low temperatures down to -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit).
The SCiB batteries are based on lithium chemistry, as are many other batteries currently in use. However, according to Toshiba, in addition to the other beneficial features the SCiB offers, they also have an internal structure which helps prevent short circuits and avoid “thermal runaway” even if they do develop a short circuit.
Link: Toshiba
via: NA Windpower
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The state of New York has opened up its electrical grid allowing further net-metering with the passage of a bill in the state legislature following a “Net Metering Summit” in the state last year. Among other provisions, the new regulations cap interconnect fees for small facilities under 25 kW, and allow non-residential wind- and solar-power projects to participate in net-metering arrangements.
The new law also helps move New York closer to its ‘45 by 15′ goal which targets the State meeting 45 percent of its electricity needs by 2015 through increased energy efficiency and renewable energy.
Net-metering provisions in state laws are one of the fastest ways to speed the adoption of residential and small-scale renewable power production from wind, solar, and other renewable sources. A statement from Adrienne Esposito, Executive Director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, noted that “Net metering propels us into the 21st century and moves NY forward as our electric meter moves backwards.”
via: NA Windpower
images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/moe/ / CC BY 2.0 and Martin Bodman / CC BY-SA 2.0
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If you are gardening, you have to pay attention to the plants you want to grow, but you also have to pay some attention to the weeds. We seem to be at the beginning of a true clean energy revolution, but even as we admire the nutritious, delicious-looking clean energy crops sprouting up, we have to spend a little time keeping an eye on the weeds.
Climate change and the breakthrough of clean energy technologies are linked, since climate change is a major factor spurring clean energy development and growth.
And one of the leading ways dirty energy titans of the past (and present) who do not want to lose their business or their income try to keep clean energy from growing is through continual attempts to undermine the scientific findings of some of the world’s greatest scientists.
Well, it is no surprise to find out that one of the climate skeptics’ leading scientists — probably the “independent” scientist most often used by the media to present the climate change deniers’ arguments — makes quite a bit of money working for dirty energy companies. But it took a little investigative research (not by me, I have to admit) to uncover this carefully guarded information.
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Yesterday the California legislature just raised the allowable limit on rooftop power from 2.5% of our grid to 5%, because we were in danger of exceeding the 2.5% – within a matter of months. The net-metering limit was about to be breached.
Net metering is like roll-over minutes on cell phones. It means our utilities must credit us for our excess generation while we are at work on sunny afternoons, so that our night time electricity use is credited by the afternoon’s excess electrons stored on the grid in our “account”.
Under prior law, any net energy generation remaining at the end of each 12-month period was granted to our electric utility. (We got no end-of-year roll-over kilowatt-hours.)
But yesterday that got better, for us.
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In 1993, based on wind energy technology of the time, Pacific Northwest Laboratory predicted that 10,777,000 GW hours of electricity per year could be produced from wind on US lands. Now, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) predicts that the US could generate about three times that much — 37,000,000 GW hours of electricity per year — due to technological improvements.
How does that compare to total electricity consumption? It is nine times total US electricity consumption, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).
These findings are based on the first full analysis of US wind power capacity in 17 years, conducted recently by NREL and AWS Truewind.
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“Mixed use” development is an exciting term in city planning. Mention it to a planner and chances are their eyes will widen, they will stand up straighter, and they will start talking with you in an excited tone about all the benefits of mixing land uses. When it gets down to it, these places are just more efficient, more vibrant and create a real sense of place.
Now, mixing wind and solar projects with landfills and brownfields may not create a great “sense of place” or make the place “vibrant” with life, but it can surely achieve that first benefit — more efficiency.
Thus, some are looking into the potential of such “mixed use” projects. A UK engineering firm is looking into invest £100 million ($152.5 million) to install up to 80MW of wind energy capacity at UK landfill sites. And the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is targeting former brownfields for solar, wind and other renewable energy projects.
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It ain’t over yet, but it seems that solar energy advocates in Arizona have managed to stall legislation that would have stalled clean energy investment in the state. Representative Debbie Lesko (R-9), the primary sponsor of the HB (House Bill) 2701, withdrew her support after hearing from individuals, groups and businesses including green jobs advocate Az4Solar, solar manufacturer SunTech, and solar installer SolarCity.
As reported by Eric Wesoff of greentechmedia.com, HB 2701 will count nuclear energy as a renewable source. That would fulfill Arizona’s renewable energy pledge because the state already gets about 25% of its power from nukes. In turn, that would put the kibosh on incentives for new solar installation and other forms of genuinely renewable energy in Arizona – which in turn would throw cold water on the growth of green jobs in Arizona. And that would be quite a letdown for a state that’s poised to lead the U.S. out of the fossil fuel dark ages and into a sustainable clean energy future.
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PlanetSolar is the largest solar-powered boat in the world. And it is now set to go on a voyage around the world.
The boat is 31 meters (101.7 feet) long and 15 meters (49.2 feet) wide and is fully powered by solar panels. It can carry up to 50 people.
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The fossil industry and its media mouthpieces have been pushing the idea that only the energy-only bill in the Senate can pass. Reuters, the NYT, the WSJ regularly come out with doctored quotes like this to push the idea that the climate and clean energy bill is dead, and that only the energy-only bill is passable.
They quote Republican Senators as saying that the climate bill is dead. They don’t mention that Republicans have never supported climate legislation, so this is not new news, and does not in fact represent the chances of legitimate climate and clean energy legislation passing with more Democrats than ever and the two Republicans (Collins and Snowe) who’ve always voted right on clean energy.
Regardless of the fossil industry stranglehold on the corporate media, however, a little covered action by the Obama administration last week quietly stuck the nail in the coffin of the energy-only bill. Under PayGo – fiscal responsibility was just signed back into law again last week.
As a result, with “pay as you go” rules back in effect, the congress now cannot pass any legislation that does not pay for itself – such as the energy-only bill.
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