Clean Energy Stimulus

Time magazine published an article, "How the Stimulus Is Changing America," about the positive effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and noted the success of its "green" components.

Here the article mentions an entrepreneur who benefited from the $787 billion stimulus package:

The green industrial revolution begins with gee-whiz companies like A123 Systems of Watertown, Mass. Founded in 2001 by MIT nanotechnology geeks who landed a $100,000 federal grant, A123 grew into a global player in the lithium-ion battery market, with 1,800 employees and five factories in China. It has won $249 million to build two plants in Michigan, where it will help supply the first generation of mass-market electric cars. At least four of A123's suppliers received stimulus money too. The Administration is also financing three of the world's first electric-car plants, including a $529 million loan to help Fisker Automotive reopen a shuttered General Motors factory in Delaware (Biden's home state) to build sedans powered by A123 batteries. Another A123 customer, Navistar, got cash to build electric trucks in Indiana. And since electric vehicles need juice, the stimulus will also boost the number of U.S. battery-charging stations by 3,200%.
"Without government, there's no way we would've done this in the U.S.," A123 chief technology officer Bart Riley told TIME. "But now you're going to see the industry reach critical mass here."

Note, Mr. Riley points out that his business depended on government assistance. Fine, but let's keep that in mind when Republicans tell us that all we need is an "free market," unfettered by the government.

The article goes on:

That's why the Recovery Act is funding dozens of smart-grid approaches. For instance, A123 is providing truckloads of batteries for a grid-storage project in California and recycled electric-car batteries for a similar effort in Detroit. "If we can show the utilities this stuff works," says Riley, "it will take off on its own."

Stimulus money is being used for other worthwhile purposes as well:

The Recovery Act is weatherizing 250,000 homes this year. It gave homeowners rebates for energy-efficient appliances, much as the Cash for Clunkers program subsidized fuel-efficient cars. It's retrofitting juice-sucking server farms, factories and power plants; financing research into superefficient lighting, windows and machinery; and funneling billions into state and local efficiency efforts. (See TIME's special report "Obama's Agenda: Get America Back on Track.")
It will also retrofit 3 in 4 federal buildings. The U.S. government is the nation's largest energy consumer, so this will save big money while boosting demand for geothermal heat pumps, LED lighting and other energy-saving products. "We're so huge, we make markets," says Bob Peck, the General Services Administration's public-buildings commissioner. GSA's 93-year-old headquarters, now featuring clunky window air conditioners and wires duct-taped to ceilings, will get energy optimized heating, cooling and lighting systems, glass facades with solar membranes and a green roof; the makeover should cut its energy use 55%. It might even beta-test stimulus-funded windows that harvest sunlight. "We'll be the proving ground for innovation in the building industry," Peck says. "It all starts with renovating the government."

With an open mind, and a little courage, we could transform this country into a place that offers broad prosperity, and a healthy future for the planet. But, it's the open mind and courage part that I worry about.

Read the whole article, maybe it'll inspire you. Or, maybe you're already too poisoned by toxic rhetoric from the frightened right...

How CO2 and Other Greenhouse Gases Trap Heat

Below is a really simple, elegant, brief explanation of the Greenhouse Effect:

It is true that there are several important greenhouse gasses. CO2 is one of them, but methane (CH4) and water vapor are also important. CO2 is the one that human activity may influence the most and therefore gets a lot of attention in the climate debate, while water vapor changes due to natural phenomena - and as a consequence of possible manmade heating.

The thing that makes these molecules important for the greenhouse effect is their ability to absorb infrared light. When sunlight enters the atmosphere it is turned into heat in the surfaces it strikes and these surfaces re-radiate the energy as infrared light. Therefore, if the atmsophere becomes less transparent to infrared light, the heat cannot get out into space as easily as before and temperatures will rise in order to reestablish the temperature gradient needed to drive the infrared heat out past the obstacles.

You may think of a mountain stream where water flows downhill. If you push a boulder into the stream you will cause the water to rise behind the boulder, but after a while the same amount of water will flow past the boulder and downstream. Same thing with more IR absorbtion in the atmosphere. It will get hotter behind the obstacle (the IR-absorbing molecules in the air) but eventually a balance will be found where the same amount of energy flows into space as comes down from there.

In terms of the molecules themselves, it is the electronic structure that causes IR light to be absorbed. Atoms and molecules absorb light at specific wavelengths. Most molecules absorb light in broad bands or wavelength ranges, while atoms tend to absorb light in narrow regions or lines. The molecules therefore absorb over a wider range of frequencies and block more light this way. The details as to why the light is absorbed at infrared wavelengths and not in the X-ray range or vissible light, is complex to explain. It has to do with the structure of the molecules - the strengths of the bonds inside the molecule and the masses of the atoms in the molecule.

Masses on springs tend to oscillate with frequencies that are determined by how stiff the spring is and by how large a mass is attached. The same goes for the bonds (or springs) inside molecules - the vibrational frequency of molecules is determined by the spring strengths and the masses attached to the springs. Because of the many electrons interacting in complex molecules you get many possible modes of vibration and therefore many possible wavelengths at which light can be absorbed. This gives you the light-absorbing bands typical for molecular spectra.

By the way, the phrase 'greenhouse' effect is missused for molecules, because the effect of the glass on a greenhouse is not chiefly to stop infrared light getting out, but to stop warm air from blowing away from the inside of the house.

Peter Thejll, Staff, Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Danish Meteorological Institute

This isn't wildly difficult to understand. It's like a two-way mirror: you can see through it in one direction, but not in the other. Sunlight (visible and ultraviolet) travels into the atmosphere in the direction you can see through, but once in, its on the mirror side and can't get back out (infrared). So, it hangs around as heat. Done.

If you can honestly say that you think global warming science is a hoax, then the next time you think about traveling, you should walk, because airplanes are part of the same hoax. So is all of modern medicine: lab tests, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics (x-rays!, MRI's, CAT scans) -- all a hoax, of course. Get in touch with a witch doctor if you get sick, or injured (by one of those hoax-ey cars or airplanes).

join the fight...

350.org

Tell Your Senators To Do Something

The Union of Concerned Scientists wants you to personalize and then send a letter to your Senators asking them not to interfere with the EPA's efforts to regulate greenhouse gasses, and to pass a real energy bill.

Here's my personalized section of the letter:

I am disgusted and dismayed that the Senate failed, once again, to create and pass useful legislation to mitigate global warming, and promote renewable energy.

I guess we could all just pray for divine intervention, because scientific reason and logic seem to have no bearing on the Congressional agenda. It's a good thing Galileo is not around these days. We'd probably cry havoc, and burn him at the stake.

Sadly, I don't think much good will come of praying for a solution when the the folks we elect are actively working to undermine real efforts to prevent the catastrophic effects of global warming, not to mention the long list of other environmental catastrophes that have resulted from our dim-witted reliance on coal and oil.

So, barring any hope for real lawmaking going on these days, it's more important than ever that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can at least try to limit global warming emissions under the Clean Air Act.

The EPA and the National Academy of Sciences confirm that global warming poses a significant threat to public health. Yet senators delay or block the EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate global warming emissions. That is gross malfeasance.

 Go ahead, click here to write to your Senators.

Yeah, We Can Stop Global Warming and Still Make Piles of Money

The Union of Concerned Scientists offers three informative, simple solutions for U.S. energy production that don't trash the environment, or leave a big bill for taxpayers to pick up for the clean up of nasty messes like the ones left behind by fossil energy producers.

I know BP, Shell, Exxon/Mobil, and our benighted Republican lawmaker say it can't be done. I wonder why they say that? (Hint: $$$)

Anyway, here's some links to the UCS articles you should read to be better informed about this tricky issue:

• Common Sense on Climate Change Solution #1: Make Better Cars and SUV's 
• Common Sense on Climate Change Solution #2: Modernize America's Electricity System 
• Common Sense on Climate Change Solution #3: Increase Energy Efficiency  
• Common Sense on Climate Change Solution #4: Protect Threatened Forests 
• Common Sense on Climate Change Solution #5: Support American Ingenuity

Cut 2030 Oil Consumption In Half

The Union of Concerned Scientists, smart folks, have devised a plan that cuts U.S. oil consumption in half by 2030. This is a big deal. It saves us 13.9 million barrels of oil per day. Let's say the price of oil stays flat, which it won't, but we'll assume here that it does. Take 13,900,000 barrels per day x $80, you get: $1,112,000,000 ($1.112 billion) per day in savings. Since 60% of oil imports currently come from other nations, that's $667, 200,000 that were not depositing in foreign treasuries...every day, or $20 billion a month we keep at home. Now, think for a second: we create a bunch of jobs building the new infrastructure and vehicles required for this plan to work, and we save $20 billion a month.

Can you think of something better we could do with $20 billion a month than give it to another country? I can. Education comes to mind...for our representatives who got us in this mess, and the people who voted for 'em. All those domestic jobs would be nice, too. And no more oil spills...ah, I'm just dreamin'.

See the plan at the UCS site: National Oil Savings Plan
and then sign the petition.

Keep Doing What We've Been Doing, Destroy the World...

Replace toxic coal and oil with renewable (non-nuclear) sources, and then dramatically increase energy efficiency (which dramatically decreases energy costs), and we end up with energy that: costs consumers little more than it does now, but it's less toxic to them; we get to keep the planet healthy; and we see 37 million new, well-paid jobs that can't be off-shored by 2030. Take into account fossil fuel jobs lost, we still see a net gain of 4.5 million jobs. And we generate $4.3 trillion in domestic revenue. That's domestic revenue not money sent to Canada and Saudia Arabia to buy oil (about 80% of imported oil comes from Canada), and we don't have to pay billions to clean up coal ash spills, and oil spills, and ruined mountains and streams in Appalachia, and dozens of other "externalities" that the fossil fuel industry let's tax payers pay for.

Which option do you think Congress will choose? That's easy, they choose business as usual, and destroy the planet. And that's because fossil fuel energy producers finance their elections. How about not re-electing these lobbyist-puppets if they don't get their act together and do something real to stop global warming? Nah, global warming's a hoax, right?

Read the press-release from ASES, and then read the report: Tackling climate change nets 4.5 million jobs

Fee and Dividend for Carbon Dioxide Reduction

Dr. James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has long warned of the disastrous and irreversible climate change that will occur if fossil fuels, especially coal, continue to be our primary energy source.

For the last year or two he has argued vigorously against cap and trade as a viable CO2 emissions reduction scheme, instead proposing a fee and dividend approach that would be paid by energy suppliers at the source (the mine, or port of entry), and transferred directly to consumers to compensate them for increased energy cost. Further, nations that export products to the U.S., but do not reduce CO2 emissions, would see import tariffs imposed on their products, with that revenue forwarded directly to consumers as well.

Up until now, I've been pretty sure that cap and trade was the only viable option for carbon reduction, since fee and dividend would surely be condemned by lobbyist-puppet Congressmen as a "vicious new energy tax designed to bankrupt American business, and finance Obama's ambition to turn America into socialist state." Well, Republicans did that with cap and trade, they vilified a purely market based solution. They called it tax and trade. Plus, cap and trade will be so watered down by Congress (caps set to low, offsets given a away to deep pocketed energy companies who finance campaigns), and it will be administered by the likes of Goldman Sachs, and their ilk, with big fees going to them, and little of the revenue returned to consumers who will suffer energy price increases (Hansen breaks it down). So, I figure, Hansen is probably right. Fee and dividend offers Congress the fewest opportunities to screw up, and dividends go to consumers, not Goldman Sachs.

Read James Hansen's  December 6, 2009 Op-Ed in the New York Times, "Cap and Fade". And then tell your representatives to do something real. Now. Your grandchildren will thank you. Too late is coming soon to a climate near you.

Another letter...

...this time to my good senators:

I urge you to support, even strengthen, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.

If we hope for future prosperity even remotely resembling what most Americans have come to expect, then we need a progressive and aggressive energy policy. Despite prevailing mythology, a policy that embraces renewable energy and rejects fossil fuel need not be expensive or untimely. The technology exists now to transition smoothly -- via the creation of myriad jobs implementing the transition -- from a dirty, archaic, inefficient carbon-based economy to a clean, modern, efficient renewable-based economy. It's easy, effective, and profitable. The only thing that stands in the way are intransigent corporate interests.

Please find the courage to lead this nation into the future. Thanks!

Really Bad Ideas for Saving the Planet

Blue Marble from Apollo 17 (Image courtesy NASA Johnson Space Center)

Arun Gupta, at The Indypendent (which seems very eager for life support donations at the moment), in his article, "Hacking the Planet," rounds up the most widely circulated ideas for "geoengineering" our way out of greenhouse gas induced climate change. Of course, all of these solutions would be unmitigated disasters (see article), but they will get traction because they avoid upsetting the corporate-energy balance of power, and the concepts are easy to relate (if you leave out the ugly, complicating details).

If you want real, simple, least-cost solutions, read some stuff from the Rocky Mountain Institute's library, such as: "Four Nuclear Myths: A Commentary on Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Discipline and on Similar Writings"

RMI's credentials are unimpeachable, and they actually use evidence-based science, complete with footnoted references, to arrive at their conclusions. Very refreshing. Especially, after hearing the blather that issues from the halls of Congress, Fox News, and the Heritage Foundation. (You don't get links to those places, you know where to find that noise if you must.)

The point is, we could prevent (have prevented? past-tense now required?) catastrophic global warming, without detrimentally changing our industrialized life styles (do you care where the electricity comes from if it's cheaper, and the lights stay on?), but we need to take the advice of disinterested parties who offer real solutions derived from proven technology, and ignore big energy industry representatives and snake-oil traders. The best solutions are simple, elegant, cheap, proven, and already profitably used elsewhere. So what's the problem? Maybe it's just too easy, and we're just too cynical. Fatally cynical.

Wind Energy Economics

The cost of wind, the price of wind, the value of wind

by Jerome a Paris

If you wonder at all about the economics of wind turbine electricity generation (and renewables in general) vs. coal, gas, nuclear (old school) electricity generation, you'd do yourself (and those who have to listen to you rant) a service by reading the above linked article in the Daily Kos by Jerome a Paris (Jerome Guillet's nom de guerre). His credentials are good (he works in finance), and his arguments are concise and well-supported by evidence. Read it. You'll rejoice at the author's clarity and balance.

Support S.1733...

A letter to my Senators:

The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S.1733) is a nice start. It's a bonus that it preserves the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse
gas emissions.

Still, it just won't be enough, and the repercussions of not doing enough are myriad: stagnating economy with few green jobs, crippling effects of global warming (desertification, water shortages, crop failures, crushing coastal storms and floods, mass extinctions, etc.), and further diminished national prestige.

The U.S.A. is a bull-headed laggard on global warming. Let's not be.
Please persuade Senators Kerry and Boxer to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas pollution (40% below 1990 levels!) so that the United States will contribute its share to reducing global atmospheric CO2 below 350 parts per million.

You know what to do. Now lets find the courage of our convictions and take this country to a prosperous, proud future.

Thanks.

Enough carbon-free power for 25 million homes?

Geothermal offers enormous potential, especially for baseload generation, with minimal downside. We already have 3000 megawatts of geothermal capacity, and we could have 30,000 megawatts (enough for the aforementioned 25 million homes). What's stopping us? Bad public energy policy, especially lots of indirect subsidies for coal and nuclear that renewable sources never seem to get (due to an underfunded lobby), plus the fact that utility profits are tied to the volume of electricity sold, which only encourages the construction of more coal plants (the cheapest source of electricity as long coal mines and power plants can pollute for free), and discourages efficiency improvements.

Here's an enlightening report on the state of geothermal electricity production:

Geothermal, the 'undervalued' resource, sees surging interest

What if the "The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009" isn't enacted?

Your electric bill (and the price of everything else that requires electricity to manufacture) will still go up. Probably more than if it does pass.

Why? Because instead of investing in efficiency -- which could create lots of jobs for wage-earners -- investment will be in new capacity: coal and nuclear power plants and grid expansion. New capacity from big, central plants costs more than efficiency improvements or distributed renewable sources so your bill will go up. In fact, electricity gained by through efficiency improvements cost around $0.04 a KW/hr, as opposed to at least $0.18 for nukes (not including security or waste disposal) and around $0.10 for coal.

If we care about global warming and foolishly choose nukes over renewables, we will also discover that we can't build nukes fast enough to mitigate global warming -- they're just too complicated. And if we build nukes, it will be with taxpayer dollars to guarantee construction loans for projects notorious for cost overruns and delays. Otherwise banks won’t finance them.

Renewables, on the other hand, can be constructed faster and cheaper, and with far less resistance from neighbors (no one wants a nuke in their backyard).

Also, building coal and nuke plants won’t create as many jobs, nor will they last as long. Big coal and nuke plants are capital intensive -- they require fewer, but much more expensive components than distributed, renewable power sources or efficiency improvements like better appliances, construction materials, manufactured homes, etc. which can be produced by American workers for years.

On the other hand, we can make efficiency improvements and build wind, photovoltaic, biogas, geothermal and micropower (cogeneration) sources fast enough (using American products and labor if we’re smart). And, remember: distributed power sources for efficient loads are cheaper and more reliable than big nukes and coal -- not even taking into account the waste disposal and security costs for nuclear, or the environmental cleanup and health costs associated with all that mercury, radioactive isotopes, and particulates rained down by coal plants.

You want some dollar numbers?

Here's some from this blog: "Cap & Trade: Doing Well While Doing Good"

Here are some from the Union of Concerned Scientists, "Clean Energy, Green Jobs (2009)"
Read the following from an unimpeachable source, the Rocky Mountain Institute:

Does a Big Economy Need Big Power Plants? A Guest Post

Mighty Mice (funny title, concise, enlightening information)

The Nuclear Illusion (longish, but convincing)

Rocky Mountain Institute: Top Federal Energy Policy Goals
(what we would do if we were really smart...includes some job creation numbers)

And, here's a good explanation of how Carbon Cap & Trade will work (from Greenwire):
Carbon allowances -- the glue in House energy package more...

Renewable Electricity Standard (RES)(S.433 & H.R.890):
A Modest Proposal
To Join The Rest of the Planet In The 21st Century

The members of Congress who found the courage to introduce landmark energy bills such as The Renewable Electricity Standard (RES)(S.433 in the Senate and H.R.890 in the House) should be cheered. These are honorable initiatives to move this country into the realm of 21st century electricity generation technology, and away from toxic coal, of which we burn about 2.85 million short tons per day. (If you don't think that's a lot, watch the Frontline program "Heat.")

This bill would bring U.S. electricity generation from renewable sources (primarily wind and biomass gas) up to 25% of consumption by 2025. Given the state of technology, and plentiful wind resources, this isn't much of challenge. And it will only reduce coal consumption by 8 to 11 percent (depending on whether or not states get various exemptions). Further, additional costs to power plant operators imposed by this bill are minimized when combined with the effects of greenhouse gas cap & trade provisions of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) and a proposed energy efficiency resource standard.

What this bill will do is reduce growth of coal consumption, and the toxic side effects of it: mercury and radioactive isotopes in the air, leaching fly ash on the ground, and decapitated mountains in our verdant Appalachians. It will create solid, unionized manufacturing, installation and maintenance jobs that can't be outsourced. And, it will slow global warming -- not enough -- but it's a start.

And, it won't cost ratepayers much: somewhere between 2.7 and 2.9 percent tacked on to their monthly bills. (Yes, it's true, new power lines may need to be constructed from windy places to the consumers, but new coal plants, and the added power line capacity that goes with them will cost money, too. So, upgrading the grid is not an excuse for not doing this.)

Tell your representatives to support this bill (along with the American Clean Energy and Security Act), and tell your neighbors it's a good thing that won't cost 'em a bundle.

I got my numbers from the Energy Information Administration, in the Executive Summary of the report: Impacts of a 25-Percent Renewable Electricity Standard as Proposed in the American Clean Energy and Security Act Discussion Draft

Incidentally, you can search for any Congressional bill at the Thomas Library of Congress more...

Cap & Trade: Doing Well While Doing Good
Cap & Trade is good for the U.S. economy, good for U.S. wage earners, and good for the planet.

Phasing out dirty, expensive, energy sources will cost some people money in the short term, but the costs to consumers can be mitigated through efficiency improvements (which are part of "The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009") and rebates to low-income households.

The EPA estimates the following
"Average Household Energy Expenditures
(excluding gasoline)":

2015: $1,950
2020: $2,020
2030: $2,200
2040: $2,200
2050: $2,150

and,

"Change in Average Household Energy Expenditures
(excluding gasoline)":

2020: 6.0%
2030: 8.5%
2040: 11.5%
2050: 15.0%

• In 2030 electricity prices increase by 22% in “scenario 2 – WM-Draft” and natural gas prices increase by 17%. In “scenario 3 – WM-Draft Energy Efficiency” electricity prices increase by 20% and natural gas prices (including allowance costs) increase by 13%.
• Actual household energy expenditures increase by a lesser amount due to reduced demand for energy. In 2030 the average household’s energy expenditures (excluding motor gasoline) increase by 9% in scenario 2 – WM-Draft” and by 8% in “scenario 3 – WM-Draft Energy Efficiency.”
• In ADAGE, energy expenditures represent approximately 2% of total consumption in 2020 falling to 1% by 2050 in all scenarios.
• The energy expenditures presented here do not include any potential increase in capital or maintenance cost associated with more energy efficient technologies.

These increased energy costs are not nothing, but they're not wildly unreasonable considering historical fuel price trends.(see: Household Energy Expenditures (pg. 31) section of the EPA's "EPA Preliminary Analysis of the Waxman-Markey Discussion Draft")

Delusional, socialist, redistribution of wealth? No, not really. We'll just be asking polluters to pay for the right to pollute. Something we've been asking other polluters to do for a long time, but usually after the fact through fines, which cost everyone a lot more when you factor in legal fees and reclamation costs, which also don't help consumers or create jobs. And remember, coal (and coal is primarily what we're talking about) dumps a lot more than C02 into the atmosphere -- there's mercury and radioactive isotopes, too. Not to mention all those heaps of fly ash leaching into our groundwater, and mountaintop-removal wiping out vast tracts of cherished Appalachian hill country and the wildlife and people that live there.

Incidentally, we've been through this sort of thing before: pack mules gave way to the Erie Canal and riverboats, the Erie Canal gave way to railroads, clipper ships gave way to steamships, coal locomotives gave way to diesel, the horse and buggy gave way to the automobile and the train, the telegraph (and shouting) gave way to the telephone. All of these transitions hurt someone. And cap & trade will hurt someone, too. But there is a big upside with the potential for good union-protected manufacturing jobs -- the kind of jobs that created the middle class after the last depression.

Other countries recognize this, and they are profiting from being getting in early. They will be technology development and export leaders. These leaders include China, as well as the EU. Currently, the U.S. is lagging, even though we were the first to develop and adopt many "green" technologies on a small scale. We just haven't kept up with the investment, and that's sad because since the start of the industrial revolution, we have been technological leaders in energy distribution, manufacturing, transportation and health care.

Now we are slipping behind in all these categories. Something our grandparents, who worked and fought so hard for middle-class prosperity, would be dismayed by. Getting on board with this next industrial revolution will be a great opportunity for this country to restore itself to world-class status not only in technological terms, but in terms of new employment opportunities -- many of which can't be outsourced and don't require a college degree, which I think at least a few among us would be grateful for.

May 22, 2009:
The House Energy and Commerce Committe passed the The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, by a vote of 33 to 25. Well, the Dems gave away 85% of the emissions allowances, and that's a lot revenue squandered, but the bill still puts a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, strongly encourages the implementation of renewable energy sources, and will increase the energy efficiency of commercial and residential structures, and that's good. All these things will lead to new, well-paid (unionized, I hope) jobs manufacturing, installing and maintaining the components of a new economic sector of our economy.

A Washington Post article mentions the following:

The Environmental Protection Agency estimated that the overall impact would be too small to significantly dampen economic growth. But the conservative Heritage Foundation has said it might cost a family $4,300 per year in a few decades.

"The actual paperwork isn't done at the retail level," said David Kreutzer, a climate policy specialist at the Heritage Foundation. "But it's going to jack the cost up, and they will have to pass the costs on to consumers."

Mr. Kreutzer appears to be backing down from that wildly inflated $4,300/year assertion. Probably because it was based on an inflated estimate of costs for future emission allowances -- inflated by a factor of about ten.

Here's a good explanation of how Carbon Cap & Trade will work:
Carbon allowances -- the glue in House energy package more...

Power grab...clean power

The U.S. needs passionate, courageous leadership in our pursuit of renewable energy or we'll end up as an also-ran in the race to secure market share in the manufacture of renewable energy generators such as windmills, photovoltaics, turbines for co-generation and geothermal, and components for creation and storage of biomass gases.

If that happens, we'll miss what appears to be our last opportunity to restore a bit of our greed-decimated, off-shored manufacturing base and our last hope for broad economic prosperity, i.e. broad as in not just the rich get richer, but everyone gets a piece of the pie. Remember the post WWII years (or, remember reading about them at least)? Unions grew strong, wages increased all-around, the upper tax bracket was around 90%, and we saw the largest, broadest expansion of wealth in our history. We created the middle-class.

We can do that again if we secure the lead, or at least a major share, of the market for renewable energy products...now (not next month, next quarter, next year...now). Then there's the market for high-efficiency appliances and mass transit that we could dig into as well. Proudly manufactured in the U.S. of A. But, it will take leadership and courage. And, based on historical evidence, Congress can't manage those qualities so well. They need help. Encouragement. Threats (not to vote for 'em, that's all). So contact your Representatives and demand action. Demand they keep renewables in the 2009 budget, and insist that they keep nukes and "clean" (dirty) coal out.

To find contact info for your Congressional Representatives, visit: congress.org

Contact them...now! Let's get 'er done.

Want to read about how China and Europe are all ready eating our lunch? Read: "We Must Seize the Energy Opportunity or Slip Further Behind" more...

An Endless Parade of Energy Waves...

Ocean waves carry lots of watts waiting to be tapped.
Here's a practical application:

World's first wave farm now generating power for 1,500 homes

Tell me again why we're still burning coal and building nuclear reactors?

Electricity Generation: Centralization vs. Decentralization

An interesting and well made argument against decentralization of electricity generation:
"Small is ugly if it means we keep burning coal
Big is beautiful if it breaks our dead-dinosaur addiction"

Still, the writer doesn't say a lot about using a diverse combination of alternatives, which is where decentralization seems to come into its own. He sticks mostly with wind and photovoltaics, but that's probably because they are the most viable choices for quick delivery solutions. Also, it seems that if we reduce our household consumption substantially through efficiency gains, decentralization offers better opportunities for lower cost production and reliability (see below: "Renewables: Intermittency & Reliability," or possibly more to the point and more convincing: "Mighty Mice"). But that still leaves commercial consumption (for which co-generation offers benefits -- see below).

It will be a while before the decentralization vs. centralization clamor dies down. In the meantime, let's do both, centralized and de-centralized renewables -- they're by no means incompatible.

Renewables: Intermittency & Reliability

Whenever somebody favors nuclear power, the big advantage they mention is the reliability of nuclear compared to renewables such as wind and photovoltaics. "Sun’s not always shining," they’ll say. Or, "sometimes the wind just doesn’t blow. That’s when you need nuclear, for that constant base-load."

Well, aside from the fact that nuclear costs at least twice as much per delivered KWH as most renewable and cogeneration options, the problem of intermittency that nuclear proponents always ascribe to renewables is a myth.

It’s true that the sun doesn’t always shine (especially at night), and the wind doesn’t always blow, but the issue of intermittency is being overcome in the U.S. and Europe on a large, commercial scale every day (see below). When the sun’s not shining, the wind is often blowing. Peak loads are usually during the day, so when the sun is shining, and photovoltaics deliver, they match demand nicely. To be sure, renewables incur “firming and integration costs,” but so does any source (in case you're not sure, firming refers to filling in for a lost source of energy, like a becalmed windmill, and is also referred to as regulating reserve capacity). The point to remember, is that real world, large-scale applications have proven that renewables are not only cleaner, but cheaper than nuclear.

To any doubters, I suggest they read “The Nuclear Illusion” by Amory Lovins and Imran Sheikh of the Rocky Mountain Institute. It’s a convincing, credible, amply-footnoted argument against nuclear power from an economic, least-cost perspective. Yes, economic. Not a bleeding heart, tree-hugging, liberal perspective. Economic.

Another, much briefer, but helpful article, "Estimating the impacts of wind power on power systems—summary of IEA Wind collaboration," points out that with wind meeting 20% of electricity demand, firming and integration costs are about 10% of the wholesale value of wind-generated electricity, or in dollar terms, in a 2004 Minnesota study, "a total integration cost of $4.60/MWh was found, where $0.23/MWh was due to increased regulation." That's $0.0046/KWh added to the average delivered cost of wind generated electricity of under $0.07/KWh -- well under the "bus-bar" cost to consumers of nuclear power, which averages around $0.14/KWh with subsidies excluded.

OK, you say, but that's with wind providing only 20% of demand. What about providing the other 80%? Well, not long ago naysayers claimed we would never even hit 20% and in some areas we have. Some studies show that we could reduce our consumption by 60%. (Sounds mad, I know, but our power consumption is shamefully inefficient.) We can (and will) install more photovoltaics, geothermal, and biomass generators. On-site micropower and cogeneration will play larger roles -- economics will demand it. Lot's of new solutions will arise if we let a truly free market guide us, keep misguided subsidies out of the equation, and factor in all of the costs -- including environmental and security -- when we consider our energy options.

I’ll quote a bit here from "Nuclear Illusions" on reliability and intermittency of renewables (for readability, I took out the footnotes, but you can find them in the original linked source above.) So, without further ado:

How do the competitors’ (Renewables & Cogeneration) reliability compare with nuclear power’s?

The nuclear industry’s central stated reason for omitting renewables, such as windpower (which accounts for nearly half the recent growth in decentralized renewables’ global capacity), from its list of admissible competitors with nuclear power is that windpower isn’t “24/7” or “reliable.”

Unlike some important sources of distributed renewable power—such as small hydro, geothermal, biofueled, and even much solar-thermal-electric generation—that can be dispatched whenever desired, windpower (and smaller but even faster-growing photovoltaics) do produce varying output depending on the weather. Yet this variability, often assumed to pose a fatal obstacle, becomes far less important in a renewable energy supply system using diverse technologies, because weather that’s bad for one source is good for another: stormy weather is generally good for windpower and hydro but bad for solar, while fine weather does the opposite. Diversifying locations helps too, because weather varies over areas that are often smaller than power grids. Technical reliability of single generating units is not the issue: modern wind turbines are ~98–99% available, far better than any thermal plant. The issue is rather the aggregate effect of some renewables’ variability. As we’ll now see, that effect is small. The United Kingdom has 2.6% the land area, 7.7% the 2005 grid capacity, and 9.9% the 2005 electricity usage of the United States. A 34-year, >15-million-site-hour analysis of UK wind data found excellent properties for reliable windpower and even better ones for its contributions to diversified renewable power supply. A review of more than 180 European analyses through 2005 confirmed that windpower’s variability even at penetrations of at least 20% for Europe, ~14% for Germany, or 30% for West Denmark are manageable at modest cost if renewables are properly dispersed, diversified, forecasted, and integrated with the existing grid and with demand response. Not one of more than 200 international studies has found significant costs or technical barriers to reliably integrating large variable renewable supplies into the grid.

U.S. utilities increasingly agree: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL-58450) notes that 2014 resource plans include 20% wind for SDG&E and 15% for Nevada Power—neither near a limiting value. Nine recent U.S. studies found that integrating windpower providing up to 31% of regional peak demand on Western utilities’ grids would incur firming and integration costs of 0.04–0.5¢/kWh, or ~1–15% of U.S. windpower’s 3.7¢/kWh 1999–2006 average price — far too little to disturb windpower’s two- to threefold cost advantage over new nuclear. Some renewables’ variability does require attention and proper engineering, but it’s neither a serious issue nor unique to renewables: the grid is already designed for the sudden and unexpected loss of big blocks of capacity from transmission or central-plant outages. Whenever renewable penetration levels of supposed concern have been approached in practice, they’ve faded over the hazy theoretical horizon. For example, as the West Danish system operator gained experience with windpower, he became confidently able to manage nearly five times more windpower than he had thought possible 7–8 years earlier. This horizon also continues to recede as distributed intelligence gradually permeates the grid and as more diversified combinations of resources are simulated. Recent University of Kassel field experiments have confirmed that just integrated wind, photovoltaics, and biogas generation could reliably provide all German electricity.

Power grids inherently cope with highly variable supply and demand. Demand varies from moment to moment as customers turn loads on and off; sudden variations, e.g. during the ads in popular televised UK sporting events, can ramp demand so rapidly (due largely to large water pumps when millions of toilets flush simultaneously, but euphemistically blamed on electric kettles) that utilities are hard-pressed to maintain stable supplies. Demand often varies widely from day to night and from summer to winter. Utility planners understand all this and design for it. Yet there is no technical difference between variations in demand and in supply; they are entirely fungible, and indeed onsite generation can be usefully considered a negative load.

Calm winds or cloudy skies last up to a few days in decent sites, but can be offset by complementary renewables at the same sites or by any renewables at more distant sites. (The distance needed for very uncorrelated output depends on regional geography and weather patterns, but is typically many hundreds of km.) Yet whether a given solar roof, wind turbine, or wind farm is working at a given moment is about as irrelevant to the system operator as whether a particular big office building’s chillers are on or off.

Moreover, all sources of electricity are unreliable—to differing degrees, for differing reasons, with differing frequencies, durations, failure sizes, and predictabilities. Major grid failures occur during regional blackouts, ice storms, and other disruptions. Individual power plants also break down: the average U.S. fossil-fuel-fired plant is unexpectedly out of service ~8% of the time. Power systems are designed to cope with all this too. Yet size does matter. Even if all sizes of generators were equally reliable, a single one-million-kilowatt unit would not be as reliable as the sum of a thousand 1-MW units or a million 1-kW units. Rather, a portfolio of many smaller units is inherently more reliable than one large unit—both because it’s unlikely that many units will fail simultaneously, and because 98–99% of U.S. power failures originate in the grid, which distributed generation largely or wholly bypasses. Research is increasingly showing that if we properly diversify renewable energy supplies in type and location, forecast the weather (as hydropower and windpower operators now do), and integrate renewables with existing demand- and supply-side resources on the grid, then renewables’ electrical supplies will be more reliable than current arrangements. That is, such a renewable- based power system, even if solar and wind form a large fraction of supply, will generally need less storage and backup capacity than we’ve already installed and paid for to cope with the intermittency of large thermal stations—which fail unpredictably, for long periods, in billionwatt chunks.

Though micropower’s unreliability is an unfounded myth, nuclear power’s unreliability is all too real. Nuclear plants are capital-intensive and run best at constant power levels, so operators go to great pains to avoid technical failures. These nonetheless occur occasionally, due to physical causes that tend to increase with age due to corrosion, fatigue, and other wear and tear. Some nuclear power failures are major and persistent: of the 132 U.S. nuclear units that were built and licensed to operate (52% of the original 253 orders), 21% were permanently shut down because of intractable reliability or cost issues (or in one case a meltdown), while a further 27% have suffered one or more forced outages of at least a year. When the remaining units work well, their output is indeed commendably steady and dependable, lately averaging ~90% capacity factor in the United States. However, even these relatively successful nuclear plants also present four unique reliability issues:

• Routine refueling, usually coordinated with scheduled major maintenance, shuts down the typical U.S. nuclear plant for 37 days every 17 months.


• In both Europe and the United States, prolonged heat waves have shut down or derated multiple nuclear plants when their sources of cooling water got too hot.


• A major accident or terrorist attack at any nuclear plant could cause most or all others in the same country or even in the world to be shut down, much as all 17 of Tokyo Electric Company’s nuclear units were shut down for checks in 2002–04 for many months, and some units for several years after falsified safety data came to light. Natural disaster can also intervene: a 7-unit Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) nuclear complex, the largest in the world—outproduced only by the Itaipu and Three Gorges Dams, and supplying 6–7% of Japan’s power—was indefinitely shut down by 2006 damage from an earthquake stronger than its supposedly impossible design basis, and remains down in spring 2008. Its output is being replaced by recommissioned and hastily finished oil-, gas-, and coal-fired plants; the operator’s extra cost in FY2007 alone was ~$5.6 billion.


• Unlike scheduled outages, many nuclear units can also fail simultaneously and without warning in regional blackouts, which necessarily and instantly shut down nuclear plants for safety. But nuclear physics then makes restart slow and delicate: certain neutronabsorbing fission products must decay before there are enough surplus neutrons for stable operation. Thus at the start of the 14 August 2003 northeast North American blackout, nine U.S. nuclear units totaling 7,851 MW were running perfectly at 100% output, but after emergency shutdown, they took two weeks to restart fully. They achieved 0% output on the first day after the midafternoon blackout, 0.3% the second day, 5.7% the third, 38.4% the fourth, 55.2% the fifth, and 66.8% the sixth. The average capacity loss was 97.5% for three days, 62.5% for five days, 59.4% for 7 days, and 53.2% for 12 days — hardly a reliable resource no matter how exemplary its normal operation. Canada’s restart was even rougher, with Toronto teetering for days on the brink of complete grid failure despite desperate appeals to turn everything off. This nuclear-physics characteristic of nuclear plants makes them “anti-peakers”—guaranteed unavailable when they’re most needed. The grid is designed to cope, and does cope, with such massive and prolonged centralstation outages, albeit with difficulty and at considerable cost for reserve margin, spinning reserve (spare capacity—generally coal-fired—kept running and synchronized for instant use), and replacement energy. The investments needed to manage central-thermal-plant intermittence (nuclear or fossil-fueled) have already been made and paid for. It is therefore hard to understand why the occasional and predictable becalming of wind farms or clouding of solar cells over a much smaller time and space, offset by higher output from statistically complementary renewable resources of other kinds or in other locations, is a problem. All generators—not just variable renewables—need reserves, backups, or storage to achieve a given level of reliability. It’s wrong to count these as a cost for variable renewables but not for intermittent thermal plants. Every source’s economics should duly reflect the amount of support they require for the desired reliability of retail service. The economic comparisons offered above for windpower (Fig. 1) make generous provision for these storage and backup costs (Fig. 1). In contrast, some other comparisons (even, astonishingly, one by the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering) assume that any variable renewable resource needs 100% backup. That’s clearly wrong. Reliability is a statistical attribute of a power system, not an absolute attribute of a single unit, so on a statistical basis, wind and solar power do merit substantial “capacity credits” whose size depends on regional conditions. Grid operators care about the overall delivered-service reliability of a portfolio of technologically and geographically diversified units, integrated into a grid with diverse power resources and demandresponse options, all appropriately forecasted (and optionally with storage, like the pumpedhydro- storage units sometimes associated with nuclear units but seldom attributed to them as a cost, or the overnight heat storage built into some modern solar-thermal-electric plants). Thus a forecasted temporary shortage of, say, windpower is of concern to the grid operator only if it occurs at a time of maximum load and if no other resource is available. Already today, in wind-rich regions of North Germany, Spain, and Denmark, variable renewable power production exceeds regional demand, and annually provides 20–39% of all electricity, with no integration problems nor significant integration costs. As the European Wind Energy Association’s integration report stated in 2005, “[L]arger-scale integration of wind [power] does face barriers; not because of its variability but because of a series of market barriers in electricity markets that are neither free [n]or fair, coupled with a classic case of new technologies threatening old paradigm thinking and practice.”

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