In just 3 human lifetimes.

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Supercar

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Wind Power 1 & 2

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Wind Energy 101

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Energy 101 - Wind Turbines from U.S. Department of Energy on Vimeo.

The Tides of Wind Power

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Good to see somebody over at NEI Nuclear Notes has his thinking cap on.

None of this should be construed as objections or as a way to sow doubt over a wind project on a nuclear site. Quite the contrary – an infrastructure project this big raises innumerable questions that will find answers as it moves along, but that doesn’t mean it should be stopped or unnecessarily hindered.

After all, we’re all electricity buffs, aren’t we?

You betchum!

The Wind and the Tide
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Tea bags, no jobs, please.

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re: "Do you simply hate our modern society? Are you feeling guilty about driving to work every day? I seriously don't get it."

Thanks to the Party of No-Way, No-How, & No-Jobs, & their Saudi billionaire foreign oil buddies, the U.S. economy is missing out on the biggest technological revolution since the electrification of America.

How Germany, Spain, and China Are Seizing the Energy Opportunity and Why the United States Risks Getting Left Behind.

Clean energy technology is becoming a $2.3 Trillion [that's capital 'T'] dollar industry in only 10 years.

By 2020, clean energy will be one of the world’s biggest industries, totaling as much as $2.3 trillion. Over the past year, other countries made huge investments to seize the economic opportunity provided by the historic shift from fossil-based energy to renewable, low-waste electricity and fuel. These investments weren’t made out of thin air, but were a result of intentional public policies, which in turn provided a strong stimulus for new public and private investment in new clean-energy markets, infrastructure, and human resources.

China, Germany, & Spain are already out of gates and heading down the stretch, while the obstructionist Republican Party of Tea-Bags-No-Jobs-Please has America still stuck in the stalls.

China, Germany, and Spain are early winners in the next great technological and industrial revolution. Many other countries such as Denmark, Japan, and South Korea that we do not discuss in this report are also forging ahead with ambitious clean energy economic strategies. The United States, which has yet to fully embrace a truly sustainable growth strategy for the low-carbon future, is not.

And so now, American renewable energy companies are relocating to the People's Republic of Communist China.

Less than two years after building a solar manufacturing plant in Devens, Massachusetts, Evergreen Solar—an early U.S. pioneer in solar photovoltaic technology—announced plans to move part of that operation to Wuhan, China.

So let's get the lead out & our horses out on the track & fire up those investors before the race is over & we go home even broker.

The race toward a clean-energy future is underway, and those nations that lead will reap enormous economic benefits. With the right investments and smart policies, the United States can be among them, a top player in the emerging global low-carbon economy.

Out of the Running?
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To frac or not to frac?

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Hydraulic Fracturing or "fracking" is a proven method for improving the productivity of natural gas or oil wells.

The technique of hydraulic fracturing is used to increase or restore the rate at which fluids, such as oil, gas or water, can be produced from a reservoir, including unconventional reservoirs such as shale rock or coal beds. Environmental concerns regarding hydrofracturing techniques include potential for contamination of aquifers with fracturing chemicals or waste fluids.

Animations:

• Hydraulic Fracturing
• Horizontal Drilling and Hydraulic Fracturing
• Oil and Gas Drilling

Fracking was exempted from EPA regulation during the Bush/Cheney era.

A 2004 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study concluded that the process was safe and didn't warrant further study, because there was "no unequivocal evidence" of health risks, and the fluids were neither necessarily hazardous nor able to travel far underground.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 further strengthened the industry's regulatory position, specifically exempting hydraulic fracturing from federal regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

• Hydraulic Fracturing
• Fracking and the Environment: Natural Gas Drilling, Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Contamination

Since then, water supply contamination has been widely reported.

The increased use of hydraulic fracturing has prompted more criticism of its environmental dangers. A 2008 investigation of benzene contamination in Colorado and Wyoming led some EPA officials to point towards hydraulic fracturing as a culprit. One of the authors of the 2004 EPA report states that it has been misconstrued by the gas-drilling industry.

In June 2009 two identical bills named the FRAC Act were introduced to both the United States House and the Senate. FRAC stands for Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act. The FRAC Act has been heard in both the House and the Senate. It has been referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works, where it remains to this day.

And public awareness of the environmental issues related to fracking is growing.

The award-winning film Gasland addresses many of the issues that "fracking" presents. The film shows water that can be lit on fire and interviews people who all have startlingly similar health issues that have all arisen following the start of hydraulic fracture drilling near their homes.

Water that can be lit on fire right out of the sink, chronically ill residents of drilling areas from disparate locations in the US all with the same mysterious symptoms, huge pools of toxic waste that kill cattle and vegetation well blowouts and huge gas explosions consistently covered up by state and federal regulatory agencies. These are just a few of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND.

10,000 nuke plants worth of wind power.

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New NREL studies show that the U.S. could generate 20% of our electric power with 300 GW (300 nuke plants worth) of wind power as early as 2024. And we are blessed with the wind resources to ultimately produce 10,000 GW (10,000 nuke plants worth).

The assessment of onshore wind energy potential found that the U.S. could produce almost 37 million gigawatt-hours yearly. According to the American Wind Energy Association, that’s nine times our current annual electricity consumption.

New Wind Resource Maps and Wind Potential Estimates for the United States

In a single year, the U.S. wind resource potential could produce 364.9 quadrillion btus, the energy equivalent of all proven oil and natural gas reserves in the U.S. as estimated by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). A renewable resource, wind resource will not be depleted and will continue to provide energy year after year.

U.S. WIND RESOURCE EVEN LARGER THAN PREVIOUSLY ESTIMATED

This new analysis confirms that America is blessed with vast wind resources that can energize our economy, create jobs, and avoid carbon for years to come -— if we give ourselves the policy tools to do so, including a strong national Renewable Electricity Standard with aggressive, binding near- and long-term targets. A national Renewable Electricity Standard would not only ensure that we tap our nation’s vast wind resources, but create thousands of new American jobs today, manufacturing the 8,000 component parts that go into a modern wind turbine. The wind resource is there, vast and inexhaustible, waiting for us. Meanwhile, the economy can’t wait, job creation can’t wait, and America can’t wait. We need Congress to act now and pass a comprehensive climate and energy bill that includes a strong national Renewable Electricity Standard.

Jobs, jobs, & jobs! What the hell are we waiting for? For China to take over Texas?
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I want my Bloom Box!

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Betcha John Doerr & Colin Powell are happy as hell to see a 60 Minutes' story about their NASA scientist reaping the techno-rewards of going to Mars without actually going to Mars.

Dr. K.R. Sridhar took in the ballpark of $400 million of venture capital over 8 years & converted the technology he developed for NASA's Mars-mission bound O2 generator into a clean-tech fuel-cell that generates electric power on planet Earth. Bake a little beach sand, cut a stack of ceramic squares, coat with green & black "secret sauce" inks, then inter-stack with cheap metal-alloy plates. Add fuel & air &, voila, electric power 7/24.

Stick a bank of these $700-800K per babies into your local substation or neighborhood park & hook 'em up to nat gas or a local landfill, & tell it to the electric company. No nukes, no coal burners, no grid.

Of course, with a 20% California green subsidy & 30% fed tax break, you can get half off or a twofer.

Bloom Boxes are already being field-tested by 20 major companies in California: Google, Ebay, FedEx, Walmart, Staples, etc.

Wanna bet who buys out Bloom Energy? GE? Siemens? ABB? India? China?

The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough?
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Science? Check! Technology? Check! Stimulus? Check in the Mail!!

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The science & technologies are already here. We only need the political will to stand up to fossil fuel interests here & abroad and shift sufficient incentives & investment towards cleaner & renewable energy sources.

Energy from biomass heating fuel can be generated in a renewable, carbon-neutral system that leverages our natural resources to reduce our use of and dependence on imported fossil fuels.

Our collective goal should be to make heating with biomass as convenient as heating with oil or other fossil fuels, where turning on the heat is as easy as flicking a switch. The technology for such systems already exists, and, with legislative cooperation, education and technical support, and the responsible and efficient production of biomass fuel, we can help convert American homeowners and business owners to clean, green heat. US Renewable Energy Industry Needs the Heat in Biomass

Nat gas is the most likely alternative fuel to displace both coal & oil as wind & solar & other renewable energy systems along with smart grids are built out over the next few decades.

Natural gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels, and electric utilities that burn it to generate electricity belch out half the amount of carbon dioxide emissions they produce when when they burn coal. Exxon-Xto Deal Forces Congress to Reconsider Natural Gas

Unfortunately, widespread new construction of mega-nukes no longer makes economic sense, although we should probably keep our enterprising foot in that advancing technology.

Estimates for new reactor construction costs continue to sky-rocket. Conservative estimates range between $6 and $12 billion per reactor but Standard & Poor's predicts a continued rise. The nuclear power industry is lobbying for heavy federal subsidization including unlimited loan guarantees but the Congressional Budget Office predicts the risk of default will be well over 50 percent, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill. Beyond Nuclear Costs

Natural Capitalism

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Perhaps, some will appreciate how the Rocky Mountain Institute out of Snowmass, Colorado, marshalls the Four Principles of Natural Capitalism:

• Radical resource productivity: Using natural resources far more efficiently is both profitable and better for the environment.
• Biomimicry: Using nature as mentor, model, and measure yields superior design solutions that profitably eliminate waste, loss, and harm. Nature offers extraordinary design solutions honed by 3.8 billion years of rigorous testing; whatever didn’t work was recalled by the Manufacturer.
• Service and flow economy: Providing appropriate services in place of direct product consumption—decreasing costs, hassles, and material waste. The concept entails a new perception of value, a shift from the acquisition of goods as a measure of affluence to an economy where the continuous receipt of quality, utility, and performance promotes well-being.
• Reinvestment in natural capital: Sustaining, restoring, and expanding stocks of natural capital will help reverse world-wide planetary destruction, so that the biosphere can produce more abundant ecosystem services and natural resources.

And leads the charge to transform our prodigious, if not prodigal, consumption of fossil fuels with energy efficiency and renewables.

The power system that generates, transmits, and distributes our electricity has not changed significantly in a century. Our mission is to eliminate electricity’s contribution to climate change by immediately transitioning to energy efficiency and renewables. What’s exciting is that even in light of significant challenges such as climate change, this vision is vital and is within our reach. Many of the necessary elements have been shown to work or are on the verge of becoming technologically and economically viable. Leading the Journey to a Low-Carbon Electric System

Time for America to take the lead!

Americans in particular — the world's most promiscuous emitters of greenhouse gases and the ones best placed to do something about it — can set an example. A good start would be to remove the government subsidies for fossil fuels, which are huge, mostly hidden, and economically unsound. Another sensible step would be to tax carbon emissions, including gradually raising the tax on gasoline by a dollar or so (comparable to what nearly all other industrial nations pay, and compensated by lowering other taxes). That would also help to cover the actual costs of roads, traffic congestion, accident injuries and illness due to smog. Other economically beneficial policies could improve fuel efficiency in many areas, protect forests, and so forth.

Most important of all, regulation and "price signals" will stimulate development of technologies and practices that can advance human welfare with far lower greenhouse gas emission. The control of CFCs, for example, turned out to be far easier and cheaper than the regulated industries feared.

Without delay, nations should join — as nearly all but the United States have done — in working out systems for applying standards on the international scale, which is where climate operates. Indeed most nations have already joined in this process, and disdain the United States for standing aside when it should be the natural leader.

Like many threats, global warming calls for greater government activity, and that rightly worries people. But in the 21st century the alternative to government action is not individual liberty: it is corporate power. And the role of large corporations in this story until very recently has been negative, a tale of self-interested obfuscation and short-sighted delay. The atmosphere is a classic case of a "commons" — like the old shared English meadows, where any given individual could only gain by adding more of his own cows, although everyone lost from the overgrazing. In such cases only public rules can protect the public interest.

The Discovery of Global Warming

Trillions of Green for Green!

The world will be investing $trillions in energy development & infrastructure over the next couple decades anyway, so why not make it green?

Increasing public concerns about climate change -- and its potential economic and political security consequences -- are driving public policy and private investment to bring clean energy technologies from the fringes of the global energy industry to the center of activities as quickly as possible, a new analysis by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) has concluded.

The result of this rising public and private momentum is an increase in worldwide clean energy investment that could surpass US$7 trillion by 2030 in cumulative real 2007 dollars, according to the CERA report Crossing the Divide: The Future of Clean Energy.

"We are seeing a major shift in public opinion, reinforced by the expectation that carbon policies could fundamentally change the competitive landscape of the global energy business," said Daniel Yergin, CERA Chairman and IHS Executive Vice President. "This is providing a vital impetus that is moving clean technology across the great divide of cost, proven results, scale and maturity that has separated it from markets served by mainstream technologies and processes."

Global Climate Change Response Can Spur $7 Trillion in Clean Energy Investment by 2030: CERA Analysis

The WEA?

Simon Linnett, Executive Vice-Chairman of Rothschild, has called for a new international body, the World Environment Agency, to regulate carbon trading.

In a recently published paper, Trading Emissions, for the Social Market Foundation, Mr Linnett argues that the International problem of climate change demands an international solution.

Unless governments cede some of their sovereignty to a new world body, he says, a global carbon trading scheme cannot be enforced and regulated. Carbon trading must be globally regulated

GE to pump another $2-billion into green power

General Electric Co.'s energy investment business, buoyed by rising demand for alternative power, said yesterday it will increase its investment in renewable energy by 50 per cent, to $6-billion (U.S.) by 2010.

Alex Urquhart, president and chief executive officer of GE Energy Financial Services, cited record-high oil prices, an increased focus on environmental protection and improved technology for boosting interest in wind, solar, biomass, hydro and geothermal power.

In addition, large price spikes fade with the elimination of fossil fuels as an energy source, said Kevin Walsh, managing director and leader of renewable energy at GE Energy. "There are no fuel costs with wind and solar, no volatility," he said.

The most active investment in renewable energy for GE Energy is wind, representing about two-thirds of its portfolio, Mr. Urquhart said. The company's also invested in landfill gas-to-energy projects, solar power projects in California, a solar power plant in Portugal and other deals.

GE Energy also said yesterday it's investing in wind farm projects owned by Horizon Wind Energy LLC, a Houston-based developer that is a subsidiary of Energias de Portugal SA. The wind farms are in Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon and Texas.

The four wind farms will annually produce enough electricity to power more than 180,200 average homes in the United States and will avoid nearly 1.4 million tonnes a year in greenhouse gas emissions, compared with equivalent fossil fuel generation, GE Energy said.

With the Horizon deal, GE Energy has invested or committed to invest equity in 85 wind farms and increased its global wind equity holdings to more than 3,600 megawatts of generating capacity.

The Big Picture: Climate Chaos

"Climate Chaos" & "Resource Collapse" could make other emerging trends mute if we don't get on the stick.

As the New Guinea delegate at the Dec 2007 Bali conference so aptly put it...

There's an old saying: If you are not willing to lead, then get out of the way. I ask the United States: We asked for your leadership; we seek your leadership. But if for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us; please get out of the way.

I say we lead! Better a Blueprint than a Scramble.

Economics of Energy Transition

In a liberalised energy market, investors, operators and consumers should face the full cost of their decisions. But this is not the case in many economies or energy sectors. Many policies distort the market in favour of existing fossil fuel technologies.[55] Stern Review final report

Tax shifting involves lowering income taxes while raising levies on environmentally destructive activities, in order to create a more responsive market. It has been widely discussed and endorsed by economists. For example, a tax on coal that included the increased health care costs associated with breathing polluted air, the costs of acid rain damage, and the costs of climate disruption would encourage investment in renewable technologies. Several Western European countries are already shifting taxes in a process known there as environmental tax reform, to achieve environmental goals.[58]

Subsidies are not inherently bad as many technologies and industries emerged through government subsidy schemes. The Stern Review explains that of 20 key innovations from the past 30 years, only one of the 14 they could source was funded entirely by the private sector and nine were totally funded by the public sector.[60] In terms of specific examples, the Internet was the result of publicly funded links among computers in government laboratories and research institutes. And the combination of the federal tax deduction and a robust state tax deduction in California helped to create the modern wind power industry.[59]

But just as there is a need for tax shifting, there is also a need for subsidy shifting. Lester Brown has argued that "a world facing the prospect of economically disruptive climate change can no longer justify subsidies to expand the burning of coal and oil. Shifting these subsidies to the development of climate-benign energy sources such as wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal power is the key to stabilizing the earth’s climate."[59]

Some countries are eliminating or reducing climate disrupting subsidies and Belgium, France, and Japan have phased out all subsidies for coal. Germany reduced its coal subsidy from $5.4 billion in 1989 to $2.8 billion in 2002, and in the process lowered its coal use by 46 percent. Germany plans to phase out this support entirely by 2010. China cut its coal subsidy from $750 million in 1993 to $240 million in 1995 and more recently has imposed a tax on high-sulfur coals.[59]

While some leading industrial countries have been reducing subsidies to fossil fuels, most notably coal, the United States has been increasing its support for the fossil fuel and nuclear industries.[59] Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble

GOOG GOES GREEN!

So why would GOOG be serious about investing in promising new energy technologies? The amount of electric power consumed by these mega-data centers/server farms is staggering...

By last year, data centers scattered from northern Virginia to Washington State were consuming 1.5 percent of the nation’s electricity supply, the E.P.A. study says, straining the system in areas where power demand is high.

Companies tend to be secretive about how much it costs to run their servers, but several experts said that energy costs can be 40 percent of the cost of operating a data center. In three years, the cost of running a server can top its purchase price. A farm typically draws 10,000 watts or more, generating heat with each one. For every watt to run the computers, the farm may need nearly a watt for air-conditioning. It costs $4.5 billion a year for the electricity to run the nation’s server farms, according to the E.P.A., a sum ultimately picked up by consumers. Taming the Guzzlers That Power the World Wide Web

2007 A Turning Point in Human History?

This Year, right now, marks a turning point in human history. We have arrived at our generation’s defining challenge - and greatest opportunity - because the truth is clear: people cause global warming and people must fix it immediately.

The 1Sky solutions are based upon what our best scientists say is necessary to stabilize our endangered climate. Achieving this goal promises an accelerated transition to a cleaner, more secure energy future. This platform will help us hold public officials accountable for delivering substantive global warming solutions.

Mobilize America for Solutions: Launch a Clean Energy Job Corps as the first wave and create 5 million new jobs in the United States. The Corps will help us conserve 20% of our energy by 2015 with a sweeping national mobilization for climate solutions, healthy communities, and energy independence.

Secure Our Future: Cut global warming pollution 30% by 2020. This will establish America as a strong partner in the global campaign for solutions, while getting us on a realistic path to reductions of at least 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, the level that scientists say is necessary. Pass climate policies to trigger a clean energy revolution that revitalizes our economy, enhances our security, protects consumers, and provides new opportunities to realize the American dream.

Transform Our Energy Priorities: Reprogram fossil fuel and highway investments for clean energy and transportation choices. Start with a firm moratorium on new coal plants, unless and until they can permanently dispose of their global warming pollution. 1Sky Solutions