Clean Energy is Patriotic

A response to a comment that ‘environmentalists are anti-American’.
Top military advisors have repeatedly stated that US dependence on fossil fuels is a serious vulnerability for our national defense for several reasons.
First, the relatively small amount of oil and natural gas reserves on US territory, 4% of the world total, means that the prices and reliable provision of these fuels are not within our control. Wind, solar, geothermal, hydrogen and algae fuel could all be manufactured in America, by Americans, and purchased for American security without giving favors to other countries or obligating us to meet their demands.
Second, the disruption of the climate mostly caused by burning fossil fuels is a threat to peace. Increasing droughts, floods, rising seas, acid oceans and fires are reducing food and water supplies and increasing instability, unrest and pressures to emigrate, a serious pressure on our military.
Through tax incentives, regulations and financial support the US should be promoting clean energy. Refusing to supply our troops the safety of solar panels and insulation instead of the generators and tanks of oil that have caused so many of their deaths; that is anti-American.
Refusing to back production of scientifically safer energy technology which would also improve national manufacturing capabilities and exports, simply because that would mean giving credibility to the other political party; that is anti-American.
Letting corporations mostly owned by non-Americans pollute our land and send profits elsewhere; that is anti-American.
Demonization of environmentalism is an advertising tactic promoted by industries that earn profits from outdated and dangerous products. It is thoroughly American to protect the purity of our waters, the healthiness of our air and the freedom of our businesses to successfully market new and improved products free from unfair competition by entrenched monopolies.

Grid systems balance power as wind and solar increase

How do we keep refrigerators running 24/7 as more solar and wind power is installed? Texas, California and Iowa are now getting 20% of their electricity from renewables; and the US average is 13% and growing.

Electricity needs to flow continuously. All power plants stop sometimes, for maintenance or accidents, and demand changes by the minute, with temperature changes or popular media events.

Grid operators are the quarterbacks; they keep it happening; they call the plays. Working in giant control rooms with huge arrays of dozens of screens monitoring electric input and output,  they balance the supply and move electricity to where it is needed. Weather reports help  grid operators plan. When the wind is dying down, or  clouds are on the horizon, operators pull power from other areas that are making plenty of electricity, or  turn on idled plants, and increase supply. The bigger the area served by a grid station, the more options it has for balancing the electric load.

Check out this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSiCRZcJnfE

Carbon Tax proposed to Congressional Committee

Three proposals listed in the House Ways & Means Committee report on tax reform call for a carbon tax: Center for American Progress (CAP) plan calls for a price on greenhouse gas emissions (CO2), an oil import fee of $5/barrel and elimination of US tax breaks for fossil fuels. and The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) calls for a tax on carbon at its source, an increase in motor fuel excise tax and elimination of tax preferences for fossil fuel production. The Roosevelt Institute Campus Network Budget for a Millennial America plan calls for an upstream carbon tax starting at $23/T and increasing 5.6% per year.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CPRT-113JPRT80634/pdf/CPRT-113JPRT80634.pdf

Smart Businesses Tackle Climate Change

The CEOs of 33 US companies have signed a Climate Declaration calling on America to take the lead in combating climate change.  They say the same policies that will help the climate are also smart business practices, – using less electricity, choosing clean energy technology and creating new export technologies.  They recommend a coordinated effort to stabilize the climate as also the way to maximize opportunities and remain a superpower in a competitive world.

Representing employment of half a million citizens and  $450billion/year in revenue, the corporate group emphasizes that the same policies that combat climate change are also smart business practices.

A recent study by PEW backs up the claim that there huge financial potential in green energy development. It found that clean energy investment has increased by 600% from 2004 to 2011. They project that installation of renewable energy over the next six years will result in additional revenue of $1.9 trillion.

http://www.ceres.org/bicep/climate-declaration

http://bit.ly/12gUVEY

 

Businesses Profit from City Solar

Lancaster CA has just updated its building code. Starting in 2014, all new single-family homes will have to include a solar system of at least 1.0 kW. The Republican mayor of Lancaster, R. Rex Parris, says the city wants to be the first to produce more electricity from sunlight it uses.

The city bought and installed solar panels on the roofs of 25 Lancaster schools that are now paying 35% less for electricity. Other solar installations have gone up on city hall, an arts center, stadium, and parking lots. There is a plan to create electric storage potential with more electric vehicles and batteries.

To get a permit to install solar in Lancaster takes 15 minutes.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/us/lancaster-calif-focuses-on-becoming-solar-capital-of-universe.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0

Solar Competition in a Darwinian Marketplace

Arno Harris, CEO of Recurrent Energy, a developer of large utility solar projects was asked by Russell Gold, energy reporter with the WSJ about bankruptcies among solar energy companies.

This was his response.

“Nobody wants to see that kind of trouble, we think about jobs lost, it’s extremely painful. However, you have to put it in context. This is fundamentally a very exciting transformation This is an industry that in the last 10 years has taken the cost of solar panels from $5 per watt to around $.50 per watt.  As result of this transformation, it has moved solar power from one of the most expensive sources of electricity to one of the second or third least expensive sources of electricity.

Inevitably, a part of that process is going to be the creation of a very Darwinian, challenging environment, in which those who cannot keep up with the cost structure necessary to stay competitive are going to get restructured, fall by the wayside, get reabsorbed.

We have to put this event in that context.  There are numbers of solar manufacturers demonstrating they do have cost structures that work in today’s prices. So that means that this industry can continue to deliver solar electricity at increasingly competitive costs.”

http://on.wsj.com/16NdWOg

Is the Rise in Global Temperatures Slowing Down?

An Economist article asks whether the flattening of the rise in world temperatures in the past decade, while carbon dioxide emissions were increasing, shows that the predicted rise of 4 to 6oC in this century is off base.

Response: No, unfortunately.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions do not heat the earth immediately. We are told that there is a 15-year time lag between their release and when temperatures begin to rise. So the leveling of world temperatures in the past decade makes perfect sense. In 1988 the economy contracted and for the next decade GDP was lower and so were CO2 emissions.

With CO2 emissions rising by 4 parts per million per year in the 2000s, it makes sense to expect a marked increase in  extreme weather by the mid 2020s and beyond.

Investors who wish to direct their energy portfolio into solar, wind, geothermal, grid, algae, batteries and other green technology, would be advised to lobby for a carbon tax to allow promising green upstarts to compete successfully against the aging fossil fuel industry.

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21574461-climate-may-be-heating-up-less-response-greenhouse-gas-emissions

http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicators#globalTemp

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/