Green World Rising

A new video produced by Leo DeCaprio and Thom Hartmann shows that with existing technology, our global human society can be completely free of our dependence on coal, oil, and natural gas in about two decades.

Clean, renewable sources of energy from wind, solar, geothermal, and hydro power derived from ocean tidal forces and river currents can provide all the power the world needs without generating any atmospheric pollution.  This new video, narrated by Leo DeCaprio presents that clean energy future very effectively. 

The impediments to this kind of life-affirming future are not technical. We can do it with technology that is already developed.  The obstacle to this kind of future is entirely political, driven by corporatists and elites who profit from the status quo and are unwilling to accept any change that threatens their income.

Bottom line: A clean energy future is imminently achievable, if the people demand it.

Here is a link to Green World Rising... http://www.greenworldrising.org/#!ep3-green-world-rising/ches

Elon Musk's Big Bet on Batteries

The advances in battery technology are very impressive.   It certainly appears that we are on the cusp of a transition away from dirty hydrocarbon fuels like oil to a world powered by clean, renewable sources of electricity like wind and solar. The sooner it happens, the better..

Ultimately,  battery electric cars will have a big place on our highways, but they will hardly be the only option. In fact, the plug in hybrid (PHEV) that combines an electric motor to power the wheels, batteries to store energy, and a small, on board fuel cell to recharge those batteries could turn out to be the best, long term solution for our all around transportation needs. Why? Because the solar panels on your house that can be used to recharge your car's batteries, can also be used to produce hydrogen, a clean, inexhaustible energy commodity that can  power a PHEV vehicle's on board fuel cell.   This technology is already nearing maturity. In a few years, fuel cells could be integrated into PHEV vehicles at a cost that's competitive with the gasoline engines we have relied on for a hundred  years.

Elon Musk is all about batteries. He is definitely pushing the technology envelope with his massive commitment to battery production.  We are now seeing credible predictions that a clean energy transition could be nearly complete by 2050.  That means, almost everything will run on wind and solar generated power.

More than anything at this point, we must find the political will to overcome the aggressive resistance already coming from obsolete technologies...  It can't happen too soon.



_________________________

Why Musk Is Building Batteries in the Desert When No One Is Buying

           
By Tom Randall - Sep 11, 2014 
         

Tesla’s planned 5-million-square-foot ‘gigafactory’ wouldn’t just be the biggest battery factory in the world. It would be one of the biggest factories in the world, period. But hours before CEO Elon Musk took the podium last week to tout the $5 billion facility came August sales numbers for electric vehicles and a spate of news stories about how U.S. interest for electric cars has stalled.

So what gives? Why would Tesla build capacity for half a million car batteries a year if no one is buying? Four charts below tell the story.

First the bad news.

August brought another month of electric-car sales that came up short of previous highs. Interest isn’t falling, but at four percent market share for combined sales of hybrids and plug-ins, people aren’t exactly clamoring for them. The dark blue shows hybrids, the light blue shows anything with a plug; stack them together and you've got what's known as the electrified-vehicles market.

But here’s the thing: the “stall” is happening entirely in the category of plugless hybrid vehicles (shown above in darker blue). These are gasoline engines backed by fuel-saving battery drive systems. The batteries are primarily nickel-metal hydride like those found in the standard Toyota Prius -- not the high-efficiency lithium ion batteries that Elon Musk wants to crush the market with.

Here’s what’s happening in the smaller subset of cars that don’t require liquid fuel to roll:

Time to plug in.

The chart above shows the exponential rise of U.S. plug-ins. The light purple signifies rising monthly sales, while the dark purple shows cumulative sales since December 2010.

The rise of the plug-in has been fast, but the category is still diminutive. Most car trackers put plug-in sales at a fraction of a percent of U.S. vehicles sales. But just as it’s misleading to lump in growth with hybrid gas cars, comparing plug-ins to all vehicles on the road isn’t apples to apples. Plug-in SUVs are only just starting to hit the market.

The chart below shows plug-ins as a share of U.S. car sales, excluding those larger vehicles.

Quiet, but with great acceleration.

For 2014, plug-ins average 1.5 percent of cars sold in the U.S. That’s still not a lot, and the trendline for market share appears more incremental than exponential. At this rate, plug power wouldn’t be the dominant form of fuel until the end of the century.

And that excludes the ever-popular SUV category. The BMW i3 and the Mercedes-Benz B Class are still rolling out. Tesla and Toyota recently ended their collaboration on a $50,000 plug-in version of a RAV4 after just 2,000 units sold in two years. Like the Nissan Leaf, the RAV4 was hampered by a limited battery range: 100 miles. Musk told reporters in Tokyo last week that he envisioned a larger project with Toyota than the RAV4 “maybe two or three years from now.”

Tesla's first SUV, the Model X, is set to go on sale in the first half of next year, complete with a third row, space-age falcon doors (pictured above), all-wheel drive and little compromise on the Model S’s 265-mile range. Here’s a sneak peak of pre-orders for the Model X, based on self-reported waitlist numbers tracked on a Tesla Motors Club forum (Tesla doesn’t release pre-order tallies). A reservation for the luxury Model X requires a $5,000 deposit.

Americans heart SUVs.

These reservation numbers are significantly higher, and picking up faster, than reservations of the Model S prior to its June 2012 ship date.

Still, to justify the gigafactory, it would take additional market forces to bend the curve skyward on plug-in market share. That’s exactly what Tesla is working on. The biggest obstacles to plug-in adoption are availability of charging stations, range, charge time and cost. Here’s where those things stand:

Charging stations: By the end of the year, there will be more than 5,000 electric charging stations operating in the U.S., according to the U.S. Energy Department. In the first half of 2014, more stations were opened than from 1970 to 2011 combined.

Range: Drivers want to know they can make their daily commute, get stuck in unexpected traffic and stop by the store for some emergency pickles without having to worry about being stranded. The best-selling Nissan Leaf, at $30,000, leaves room for worry with its 84-mile average range. The high-end Tesla Model S, at more than twice the price, has an EPA-rated range of 265 miles. That’s a lot of pickle stops.

Charge time: Home charging of a Tesla is still a commitment at 58 miles per hour of charge. The Tesla Supercharger stations, on the other hand, get 170 miles in 30 minutes. Musk has opened up the system’s design for other carmakers to adopt.

Cost: Tesla hasn’t released the official price tag for the Model X, but it’s expected to be in the same luxury range as the Model S, which starts at $60,000 for a version with smaller battery. Bringing down the cost of batteries will be key to plans for a more-affordable Model 3, still years away from market. Musk estimates the gigafactory will reduce the cost of lithium-ion battery capacity by 30 percent.

Musk’s diamond factory.

Last week, Tesla released sketches of the future plant. It’s powered by renewable energy and shaped like a diamond. So why has Musk designed a gigafactory to produce batteries for half a million cars a year (twice the number that's been put on the road by all companies combined)? Because it's increasingly looking necessary.

Deutsche Bank analyst Rod Lache last month increased his estimate for sales of the Model S and Model X to 129,000 units in 2017, from a previously estimated 83,000. Tesla can reach its 500,000 annual run rate before the end of the decade, Lache said, in time to put the gigafactory to full use. 

Tesla’s growth will be “much steeper, their mix will be much richer, and their costs will ultimately be much lower than we previously assumed,” Lache wrote in a report on Aug. 11.

This doesn’t mean you should rush out and buy Tesla stock. Just 11 out of 20 analysts tracked by Bloomberg give the company a “buy” rating, and the stock price is 261 times estimated earnings, compared with a 12.5 estimated P/E for Ford Motor Co. Even Musk admitted last week that the stock price is “kind of high” right now.

Still, it’s easy to get caught up in Musk’s vision for the future of cars. Defying skeptics, Musk has established the biggest U.S. solar company by market value, built a private space company that’s making deliveries to the International Space Station, and has conjured a $35 billion car company out of thin air.

Now the dude’s got diamonds in his eyes.




 

Birthing the Solar Age

This morning, I viewed an amazing video that reflects the exciting,  renewable energy paradigm  that is rapidly unfolding  around the world, but particularly in Europe, Japan, and China. It's happening in America as well, but progress is being  undermined by the utility industry and traditional providers of energy. The Koch Brothers own much of the tar sands oil production in Canada.. These two men, who are already worth about 50 billion dollars, are determined to use their money to block the progress of clean energy in America.

Despite the resistance of the energy old guard, the trends are inevitable. The cost of solar power has dropped precipitously over the last decade, to the point where energy from the sun can be produced  increasingly, for even less than energy from nuclear, coal, oil, or natural gas. 

The intransigence of deep pockets, dirty energy providers is the primary impediment to the rapid adoption of wind, solar, and other clean energy technologies. I'm happy to report that there is huge momentum among institutional investors to sell off the parts of their portfolios that are mired in dirty technologies. Now, if we could just get rid of the corrupt politicians in Washington that are brought and paid for by energy giants like Exxon Mobil.

Cost of Solar Energy

Check out this very encouraging video from Yale Climate Forum...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnUNnW2DH_M


Here's a bit of additional evidence of the swift emergence of solar energy from the Earth Policy Institute... http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2014/highlights47

DOE's EIA - Thoroughly Wrong on Clean Energy

What follows is a piece that I am reposting from CleanTechnica, one of the energy blogs I follow. If you want honest and up-to-date reporting on what's happening in energy, particularly clean energy, this is a blog you should be reading.

The Energy Information Agency (EIA) is part of the US Department of Energy. The EIA is tasked with turning energy data into reports and projections on the energy industry.  Unfortunately, EIA appears to be populated with insiders from the traditional fossil fuel and nuclear energy industries. They are adept at employing corrupt assumptions to draw indefensible conclusions. The energy forecasts they have put forward are wildly off base; thoroughly corrupted by a biased approach that favors the old ways over the new to a ridiculous degree. Read what follows. You will surely come to the same conclusion.

________________________________


The following is an open letter a few CleanTechnica readers wrote, after discussing recent EIA forecasts down in the comments section. As you’ll see, it’s in response to some absurd forecasts regarding US renewable energy adoption. Here’s one highlight:

it was forecast that we would reach 0.45 GW of Solar PV on the grid by 2035, in November 2013 we reached 7.11 GW according to the FERC.
Surely, in making new predictions it would be appropriate for the EIA to address how their models could produce a 25 year forecast which has already been surpassed 16 times over in less than 3 years.

Anyway, below is the letter, followed by some renewable energy charts I’m adding and some additional commentary.

To Dr. Ernest Moniz,  US Secretary of Energy

Dear Secretary Moniz

We are a group of concerned individuals with an interest in the future of our energy supply. We are aware of the importance of accurate data and forecasts in order to understand energy trends and shape future energy policy. After reading the recently released EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2014, we found it contains a number of forecasts which concern and surprise us.

 

Here is the Figure outlining the long term forecast under the AEO 2014 reference case for US grid power:
 

 

We were surprised to see that the DOE/EIA expects renewables to gain only a further 4% share of total electricity generation and reach only 16% of the total by 2040. That suggests an average annual increase of ~0.1% of the total demand annually by all renewables.

 

Consider that wind alone moved from 3.5% to over 4.5% of the total US electricity supply this last year according to EIA EPM data. Over 1% in one year from one technology. Solar is similarly starting to see accelerated installation rates, albeit from a lower base.

 

Considering that coal plant construction has slowed to a crawl with a paucity of projects in a long development pipeline, nuclear plant construction is sparse, and existing coal and nuclear plants closures are accelerating, it’s hard to see how they maintain such large shares and renewables gain so little.

 

When we look at the EIA predictions for individual non-hydro renewables it becomes clear how the low combined forecast arose. Note that none of these components or the forecasts made about them have been mentioned in any way in the discussion of the report. One has to delve deep into the interactive data browser to discover any of this.

 

AEO 2014 forecasts for individual non-hydro renewable technologies;

PV Solar installations stop in 2016 and do not resume for 12 years and even then at a rate significantly below current rates.

 

No thermal solar is constructed past 2014.

Construction of wind farms ceases in 2016 and does not resume for almost 20 years.

 

Municipal waste generation capacity additions grind to a halt in two years, never to occur again.

 

Wood and biomass suffer a similar fate.

 

 

We find it highly unusual that 5 statistical models using 5 data samples regarding 5 different energy technologies at varying levels of economic and technological maturity could produce such strikingly similar results. The implication is that the EIA’s official position is that all the major non-hydro grid-scale renewables will see 1-2 further years of capacity growth followed by 15-27 years of no further installations.

 

To provide further context on one of these technologies and the forecast for its future in the report, we know from the FERC Energy Infrastructure Reports that 2.63 GW of utility-scale Solar PV has been added to the US grid in the first 11 months of 2013. The AEO 2014 would have us believe that over the next 27 years only a further 10 GW will be added, an average of only 0.37GW per year, including a 12-year hiatus from 2015 to 2027 where no solar PV whatsoever is added.

 

Surely, if the EIA stands by these forecasts of dramatic and sudden deviations from accelerating trends in grid-scale renewable installations, they would warrant graphical publication in the report with an accompanying discussion justifying them?

At present, they are essentially hidden, hard to find for even those with a keen interest in the subject.

We also feel that the EIA has made thousands of forecasts in the past which never seem to be publicly visited again, for example in the 2010 AEO it was forecast that we would reach 0.45 GW of solar PV on the grid by 2035, in November 2013 we reached 7.11 GW according to the FERC.

Surely, in making new predictions it would be appropriate for the EIA to address how their models could produce a 25 year forecast which has already been surpassed 16 times over in less than 3 years. What changes have been made to the models to improve this terrible forecasting record? If none, then should the renewable forecasts come with a disclaimer that they are highly unreliable and have a history of massive underestimation of renewable growth, surely burying them deep in the data of the report is not an appropriate strategy.

 

Do the EIA and the DOE really stand by this report and its predictions as quality forecasts with a high probability of accurately representing future trends? We find it overwhelmingly unlikely that solar PV will soon simply stop being installed for 12 years given recent dramatic price decreases and acceleration of installations, yet the EIA report will allow a congress member to stand up and ask why the government is supporting a technology that is so uneconomical that the EIA believes it will be 12 years before any further installations will occur. We feel the other technologies we have mentioned are similarly highly pessimistically represented by this report.

 

We ask you to review these forecasts and question whether the DOE stands by them or whether they require significant review and revision before being fit for public release as the official forecast of the DOE.

 

Sincerely,

 

Dennis Heidner, Bob Wallace, and RobS

 

 

 

 

 

That doesn’t look like it’s going to flatline, does it?

Addendum/Update following some discussion with experts on Twitter: So, what is the underlying issue with the EIA’s forecasts? The key issues are the assumptions. One of the most important assumptions is that they don’t include any changes in policy going forward. (Meaning, policies in place today remain in place until they expire… and then no new policies are added.) So, fossil fuels and nuclear keep their subsidies (which are written into the tax code and don’t expire), but renewables lose theirs within a couple of years or so and then never regain them again, and never get any policy support again. This results in pretty good base forecasts off of which other forecasts based on different policy scenarios can be built, using a variety of different policy assumptions, but it also means that no responsible person or media outlet should treat the base EIA forecast as being anything close to what will happen in reality.

Furthermore, beyond the no-policy-change assumptions, the EIA uses a number of rather questionable cost and integration assumptions. These assumptions negatively impact the renewable energy forecasts. But that’s obviously a more complicated matter for a separate, longer discussion.
In the end, the biggest issue seems to be this: the mass media often reports on and references these EIA forecasts as if they are actual forecasts for what will occur in the future. This results in massive misinformation spreading far and wide. Part of the blame is certainly on the mass media, but part of the blame is also on the EIA for not being very clear about this when presenting its “forecasts” and sharing them with the public and media. For example, in the executive summary of the early release of the Annual Energy Outlook 2014, it is written that the projections are made “under the assumption that current laws and regulations remain generally unchanged throughout the projection period.” That can easily be read as saying that, when the laws expire, the EIA is assuming that the laws are renewed and continue as they are set today. But it actually means that there will be no laws renewed and no new laws supporting renewable energy development will be enacted, which is completely unlikely to happen. A member of the mass media could very easily misunderstand that line… if they look at it at all. 

And, again, there are a number of other technical assumptions that are very questionable and counter to renewables.

The end point: don’t treat the EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook base case projections as actual, realistic projections. They are primarily useful for forecasters as building blocks for their own more realistic forecasts.

Read more at http://cleantechnica.com/2014/01/10/horrible-eia-forecasts-letter-cleantechnica-readers/#2PuJphLy8zoygD5O.99

Ecotricty

Clean energy is definitely a growth industry.  One company in Britain has found a way to sell clean, wind energy at lower cost than conventional fossil fuel power plants.  Their TV commercials show that they are making money and having fun.

Here is a very engaging  ECOTRCITY commercial for clean energy...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYGoukR2UtI

A Great Quantity of Wind

I recently posted a blog that featured a video of the Dalai Lana of Tibet expounding on 'happiness' and, among others things, the very human habit of 'breaking wind'.

Just came across another truly exceptional human being with something to say abut the inglorious biological compunction to pass gas.  Ben Franklin, is one of history's most curious and consequential characters. In the year 1781, on learning that the Belgian Royal Academy of Science was soliciting ideas for new and practical avenues for scientific inquiry, Franklin responded with irreverent whimsy in the following letter...

Benjamin Franklin

____________________________

Benjamin Franklin

to The Royal Academy of Brussels  -  1781

 

GENTLEMEN,

I have perused your late mathematical Prize Question, proposed in lieu of one in Natural Philosophy, for the ensuing year, viz. “Une figure quelconque donnee, on demande d’y inscrire le plus grand nombre de fois possible une autre figure plus-petite quelconque, qui est aussi donnee”. I was glad to find by these following Words, “l’Acadeemie a jugee que cette deecouverte, en eetendant les bornes de nos connoissances, ne seroit pas sans UTILITE”, that you esteem Utility an essential Point in your Enquiries, which has not always been the case with all Academies; and I conclude therefore that you have given this Question instead of a philosophical, or as the Learned express it, a physical one, because you could not at the time think of a physical one that promis’d greater Utility.
Permit me then humbly to propose one of that sort for your consideration, and through you, if you approve it, for the serious Enquiry of learned Physicians, Chemists, &c. of this enlightened Age.
It is universally well known, That in digesting our common Food, there is created or produced in the Bowels of human Creatures, a great Quantity of Wind.

That the permitting this Air to escape and mix with the Atmosphere, is usually offensive to the Company, from the fetid Smell that accompanies it. 

That all well-bred People therefore, to avoid giving such Offence, forcibly restrain the Efforts of Nature to discharge that Wind.

That so retain’d contrary to Nature, it not only gives frequently great present Pain, but occasions future Diseases, such as habitual Cholics, Ruptures, Tympanies, &c. often destructive of  the Constitution, & sometimes of Life itself.

Were it not for the odiously offensive Smell accompanying such Escapes, polite People would probably be under no more Restraint in discharging such Wind in Company, than they are in spitting, or in blowing their Noses.

My Prize Question therefore should be, To discover some Drug wholesome & not disagreable, to be mix’d with our common Food, or Sauces, that shall render the natural Discharges of Wind from our Bodies, not only inoffensive, but agreable as Perfumes.

That this is not a chimerical Project, and altogether impossible, may appear from these Considerations. That we already have some Knowledge of Means capable of Varying that Smell. He that dines on stale Flesh, especially with much Addition of Onions, shall be able to afford a Stink that no Company can tolerate; while he that has lived for some Time on Vegetables only, shall have that Breath so pure as to be insensible to the most delicate Noses; and if he can manage so as to avoid the Report, he may any where give Vent to his Griefs, unnoticed. But as there are many to whom an entire Vegetable Diet would be inconvenient, and as a little Quick-Lime thrown into a Jakes will correct the amazing Quantity of fetid Air arising from the vast Mass of putrid Matter contain’d in such Places, and render it rather pleasing to the Smell, who knows but that a little Powder of Lime (or some other thing equivalent) taken in our Food, or perhaps a Glass of Limewater drank at Dinner, may have the same Effect on the Air produc’d in and issuing from our Bowels? This is worth the Experiment. Certain it is also that we have the Power of changing by slight Means the Smell of another Discharge, that of our Water. A few Stems of Asparagus eaten, shall give our Urine a disagreable Odour; and a Pill of Turpentine no bigger than a Pea, shall bestow on it the pleasing Smell of Violets. And why should it be thought more impossible in Nature, to find Means of making a Perfume of our Wind than of our Water?

For the Encouragement of this Enquiry, (from the immortal Honour to be reasonably expected by the Inventor) let it be considered of how small Importance to Mankind, or to how small a Part of Mankind have been useful those Discoveries in Science that have heretofore made Philosophers famous. Are there twenty Men in Europe at this Day, the happier, or even the easier, for any Knowledge they have pick’d out of Aristotle? What Comfort can the Vortices of Descartes give to a Man who has Whirlwinds in his Bowels! The Knowledge of Newton’s mutual Attraction of the Particles of Matter, can it afford Ease to him who is rack’d by their mutual Repulsion, and the cruel Distensions it occasions? The Pleasure arising to a few Philosophers, from seeing, a few Times in their Life, the Threads of Light untwisted, and separated by the Newtonian Prism into seven Colours, can it be compared with the Ease and Comfort every Man living might feel seven times a Day, by discharging freely the Wind from his Bowels? Especially if it be converted into a Perfume: For the Pleasures of one Sense being little inferior to those of another, instead of pleasing the Sight he might delight the Smell of those about him, & make Numbers happy, which to a benevolent Mind must afford infinite Satisfaction. The generous Soul, who now endeavours to find out whether the Friends he entertains like best Claret or Burgundy, Champagne or Madeira, would then enquire also whether they chose Musk or Lilly, Rose or Bergamot, and provide accordingly. And surely such a Liberty of Expressing one’s Scent-iments, and pleasing one another, is of infinitely more Importance to human Happiness than that Liberty of the Press, or of abusing one another, which the English are so ready to fight & die for. — In short, this Invention, if compleated, would be, as Bacon expresses it, bringing Philosophy home to Mens Business and Bosoms. And I cannot but conclude, that in Comparison therewith, for universal and continual UTILITY, the Science of the Philosophers above-mentioned, even with the Addition, Gentlemen, of your “Figure quelconque” and the Figures inscrib’d in it, are, all together, scarcely worth a

FART-HING.

Europe's Big Climate Commitment

Wow. The Europeans are getting it done where climate change is concerned. Twenty percent of the entire union's budget to cutting fossil fuel use is a serious commitment. In Europe, coal, oil, and nuclear are slated to be replaced by clean, sustainable sources of energy like wind, solar, geothermal, and hydropower.

Why don't we have the same commitment in the North America?  Ask Exxon Mobil, and the other corporate giants in the business of selling coal and oil.  They control America's energy policy.  Until their money and influence are neutralized, where climate change is concerned, America will be a reluctant follower, not a leader.


__________________________

Europe Devotes 20 Percent of Budget to Climate Spending

ens-newswire.com/2013/11/20/europe-devotes-20-percent-of-budget-to-climate-spending/

 STRASBOURG, France, November 20, 2013 (ENS) – At least 20 percent of the entire European Union budget for 2014-2020 will be spent on climate-related projects and policies, after the European Parliament Tuesday approved the budget for that seven-year period.

The 20 percent commitment triples the current share and could yield as much as €180 billion in climate spending in all major EU policy areas over the seven-year period. (One euro equals US$1.34 at today’s rate of exchange.)

The EU’s development policy will contribute to achieving the 20 percent overall commitment, with an estimated €1.7 billion for climate spending in developing countries in 2014-2015 alone.

Alain Lamassoure, chair of the European Parliament’s Budget Committee, speaks to media after the seven-year budget was approved, Nov. 19, 2013 (Photo courtesy European Parliament)

 

This is in addition to climate financing from the 28 individual EU member states.
After months of complex negotiations, agreement on this long-term financial framework marks a major step towards transforming Europe into a clean and competitive low carbon economy and helping developing countries adapt to the impacts of climate change, legislators said.
“We managed to get the priorities right,” said Alain Lamassoure of France, the current chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgets.

Speaking from the UN climate negotiations in Warsaw, Poland, EU Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard said, “Today is an incredibly important day for Europe and for the fight against climate change. At least 20 percent of the entire EU budget for 2014-2020 will be climate-related spending. This is a major step forward for our efforts to handle the climate crisis.

“Rather than being parked in a corner of the EU budget, climate action will now be integrated into all the main spending areas,” said Hedegaard.

“This underscores yet again Europe’s leadership in the fight against this crucial challenge,” she said. “I believe the EU is the first region in the world to mainstream climate action into its whole budget.”
The budget for 2014-2020 allows the EU to invest up to €960 billion up to 2020.

Other instruments for unforeseen circumstances outside the budget represent an additional €36.8 billion, bringing the total commitments to €996.8 billion.

With this budget in place, climate action will be integrated into all the major EU policies.
Climate-relevant assistance to developing countries will have a renewed focus on low-carbon energy, food security, resilience and adaptation, with €1.7bn estimated in the next two years alone. This is on top of climate finance from individual EU member states.

Under the EU’s new Common Agricultural Policy, approved in Parliament on Wednesday, at least 30 percent of the rural development funds must be used for climate-related projects, creating opportunities for investments in climate-smart agriculture.

Farms near Umbertide, Italy (Photo by Randy Brophy)

Under the new CAP, 30 percent of member states’ budgets for direct payments may be spent only if mandatory greening measures, such as crop diversification, maintaining permanent grassland and creating “ecologically-focused areas,” are carried out.

“The new CAP will strike a better balance between food security and environmental protection, better prepare farmers to face future challenges and be fairer and more legitimate,” said Agriculture Committee chair and lead negotiator Paolo De Castro of Italy, who represents the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats.

In the EU’s regional cohesion policy, earmarking for energy efficiency of 20 percent in the most developed regions and six percent for the less developed regions as well as for sustainable urban development is intended to ensure a strong focus on climate change action.

The research and innovation program, Horizon 2020, with an envelope of €63bn has a goal of 35 percent spending on research and innovation in energy, climate and clean technologies.
The new infrastructure instrument, called Connecting Europe Facility, will be climate friendly. It will fund transport infrastructure of €23bn and energy infrastructure of €5bn, mainly transmission grids for renewable energy.

Finally, the budget for the LIFE program, known as the EU’s Programme for the Environment and Climate Action, increases to over €3 billion, and a new subprogram for climate action receives a budget allocation of €760 million.

Year on year, the EU is building a pathway towards the US$100 billion goal in climate finance assistance to developing countries by 2020 agreed by governments under the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Accord.

As the world’s biggest provider of Official Development Assistance, the EU and Member States committed to provide €7.2 billion in ‘fast start’ finance for developing countries over 2010-2012 and exceeded this pledge by delivering a total of €7.34 billion, including €2.67 billion in 2012.

Last year, at the UN climate negotiations in Doha, Qatar, the EU and member states announced voluntary contributions for developing countries of €5.5 billion, and the latest assessment shows they are on track to deliver this amount in 2013.

 

The European Commission channels EU adaptation funding via the EU Global Climate Change Alliance. From funding four pilot projects in 2008, the Alliance has grown to support more than 45 national and regional programs across 35 countries.

In 2013 the Commission committed €47 million for financing nine new projects in Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Myanmar, Haiti, Malawi, Mauritania, Sao Tome e Principe and Tanzania.

The European Investment Bank, owned by the EU Member States, is one of the largest multilateral providers of climate finance among the international financial institutions. The EIB currently provides between €1.5bn and €2bn per year of climate finance for investments outside the EU.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2013. All rights reserve

 

 

 

 

Vindskip

Lade A S, a Norwegian ship design firm, has come up with a refinement on the sailing ship concept. Like the tall ships the plied the seas before the 20th century, vindskip is propelled primarily by the wind, using a hull design that works like a rigid sail. 

Lade A S Vindskip

Using this design, a vindskip can achieve a 60% reduction in fuel consumption and an 80% reduction in exhaust pollution.  That sounds pretty compelling to me.

Here is a link to a promotional video on the vindskip design...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZo33MQeFN4

Vestenskov - World's First Hydrogen Community

There is a village on the island of Lolland in Denmark called Vestenskov. It is poised to become the world's  first hydrogen powered and heated community.

Vestenskov

I have invested a lot of my own time and sweat equity into encouraging a pollution-free energy future that employs hydrogen as a clean, non-toxic storage medium for the wind, sun, and other renewable sources.  In Denmark there is a small community that will soon be a model for how that can work.  It's an example of how the European Union is moving aggressively toward clean renewables as a response to climate change.

There are many renewable hydrogen demonstration projects around the world. Vestenskov is the first that shows hydrogen at work on a community level.

In Vestenskov,  electricity from wind turbines located close by will be converted to storable hydrogen for use on demand in the community's residences and businesses.    Europe intends to replace coal and oil with clean energy systems that will not harm the environment.    We should be doing the same thing here in North America.   That makes a lot more sense than extracting dirty oil from Canadian tar sands.

Here is a link to a website that reports on the renewable hydrogen vision for Vestenskov. .    http://www.dac.dk/en/dac-cities/sustainable-cities/all-cases/energy/vestenskov-the-worlds-first-hydrogen-community/?bbredirect=true#!

If the Portugese can do it, why can't we?

The American corporate media all seem to tell the same story when it comes to clean, renewable types of energy like wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal.  When they tak about it at all,  the  stories are shaded to make it seem too expensive, not reliable, decades away from contributing more than minimally to America's energy needs.

I spent two decades writing and producing for the media on renewable energy. Put me on record: the corporate media are selling a line of B.S. when they diminish the potential of renewable energy.  In the Spring of 2013, wind and solar have become competitive economically with hydrocarbon fossil energy sources like coal and oil.

Right now in 2013,  Portugal, a lovely country on the western third of the Iberian Peninsula,  gets 70% of its electricity from renewable sources of energy. The Portuguese are on their way to eliminating their remaining coal-fired power production.

Germany and Denmark are also rapidly replacing fossil fuel power plants with clean, renewable sources of energy.  Nuclear power is on the way out in many European countries.  In fact, the European Union has embarked on a bold course that will substantially replace its dirty fossil powered energy production with clean, renewable technologies over the next few decades.  They have shaped public policy to make it happen, and they have authorized billions of Euros in funding to cover the cost.

If the Portuguese and their European brethren can do it, why can't we?  The reality is, we are all earthlings. That makes us subject to the same primary dynamics where energy is concerned. The cost of our dependence on  fossil fuels like coal and oil has become too high.  Moreover, our use of dirty hydrocarbon fuels is directly linked to global climate change, the greatest threat to human civilization ever known.

The Portuguese and the Europeans are showing the way. They are proof positive that a concerted transition away from coal, oil, and nuclear power can be done.  It needs to happen in the US as well. Why then is America mired in its dependence on fossil fuels?   Why can't we strive for the same brand of clean, renewable energy independence the Europeans are working toward? 

It all boils down to politics.  Big oil in America is the richest industrial cartel in the history of the world.  They use their money and influence to make the rules where energy is concerned.  They put their interest ahead of the welfare of the American people. That's not going to change until we the people demand that our government put our welfare ahead of corporations and the super rich.

I pulled the following article from the Think Progress website....

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Is 70 Percent Renewable Power Possible? Portugal Just Did It For 3 Months

 

By Ryan Koronowski on Apr 14, 2013 at 9:06 am

 

 

Portugal’s electricity network operator announced that renewable energy supplied 70 percent of total consumption in the first quarter of this year. This increase was largely due to favorable weather conditions resulting in increased wind and water flow, as well as lower demand. Portuguese citizens are using less energy and using sources that never run out for the vast majority of what they do use.

 

 



Alto Lindoso (Image credit: Energeias de Portugal)

Hydropower supplied most: Hydroelectric power supplied 37 percent of total electricity — a 312 percent increase compared to last year.

• Wind turbines broke a record: Wind energy represented 27 percent of the total share, which is 60 percent higher than last year. This is 37 percent above average and good for the highest amount generated by wind in Portugal, ever.
• 2.3 percent less energy used: Energy consumption has fallen every year since 2010 and is now at 2006 levels. Some of the drop this quarter was due to fewer working days and a warmer winter, but even controlling for those factors, there was still a drop of .4 percent.
• Not so much solar: Solar energy supplies only .7 percent of total energy demand, according to 2012 figures (Q1 2013 figures were not available for solar). This constitutes 225.5 MW in total photovoltaic capacity.
• Dropping the fossil fuel habit: Portugal’s electricity had 29 percent less coal and 44 percent less gas in it from 2012 figures. The country must import the fossil fuels it burns.
• For sale: Portugal exported what would have been 6 percent of total electricity consumption to other countries. It will also be able to sell a chunk of its allotted carbon credits offered by the EU’s carbon trading system.

Actually 70 percent isn’t unheard of for Portugal. For a few hours in 2011, Portugal was entirely run on renewable power. Yet this was the first time so much was sustained for a quarter.
Portugal’s investment in modernizing its electricity grid in 2000 has come in handy. Like in many countries, power companies owned their own transmission lines. What the government did in 2000 was to buy all the lines, creating a publicly owned and traded company to operate them. This was used to create a smart grid that renewable energy producers could connect to (encouraged by government-organized auctions to build new wind and hydro plants). In 2010, the New York Times reported on Portugal’s renewable energy push that started in earnest in 2005:

Five years ago, the leaders of this sun-scorched, wind-swept nation made a bet: To reduce Portugal’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, they embarked on an array of ambitious renewable energy projects — primarily harnessing the country’s wind and hydropower, but also its sunlight and ocean waves…. Nearly 45 percent of the electricity in Portugal’s grid will come from renewable sources this year, up from 17 percent just five years ago.

There was a massive amount of skepticism over the plan at the time. The Prime Minister at the time, José Sócrates, noted that the nation’s network of electric car charging stations elicited ridicule — including former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Burlusconi who jokingly offered to build him an electric Ferrari. While a totally electric version isn’t available, the fastest Ferrari ever was unveiled last month, and it’s a hybrid.
Some locals complained about higher utility bills or the green economy bypassing them, while others were thrilled. The Mayor of Moura explained that the reason his town got the nation’s largest solar plant was because it “gets the most sun of anywhere in Europe and has lots of useless space.”
So now that it demonstrated the ability to generate 70 percent renewable energy for 3 months, where does Portugal go from here? Oddly enough, it does not have much in the way of offshore wind capacity — only 2 MW. The recent economic situation and austerity programs have endangered not only jobs and commerce, but continued investment in renewable energy and electric vehicles. Yet saving on the cost of having to import fossil fuels will be helpful for decades to come, and as its economy improves, it will have a strong renewable electricity grid to rely upon.
Other countries have been making steps of their own on renewable power production. The U.S. had a record-breaking year for wind energy in 2012, growing by 28 percent. Sweden is looking to have no dependence on oil by 2020. Australia could be looking at 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. Global solar power world will soon be a net-positive energy source.

United Nations Embraces Sustainable Energy

A sigificant committment was made by the United Nations in December, 2012 when member nations unanimously adopted a declaration that 2014-2024 would be the 'Decade for Sustainable Energy' for all the world's people.

This declaration fits well with the 'Third Industrial Revolution' concepts that have been embraced by the European Union, and most recently by the new leader of China.  Unfortunately, energy policy in the U.S. has been captured by big coal and oil interests, who are encouraging climate change denial and resisting all initiatives that support emerging clean energy technologies.

It does seem, with polls showing overwhelming public support for climate change action, that things may change for the better soon in the U.S.  President Obama has indicated that action on climate change will be a big part of his second term agenda. I hope so.

Here is a link to a piece about the United Nations declaration... http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/01/u-n-aims-at-sustainable-energy-for-all-by-2024/

Invelox Wind Techology

Lester Brown from the Earth Policy Institute sees wind technology as the foundation for the world's emerging clean energy future.  What comes to mind when most folks think about wind turbines are tall towers with gigantic three bladed, vertically mounted sweep turbines. 

There are so many more ways to capture wind energy.

A new innovation I just became aware of was developed by a company called Sheerwind. They call their new design Invelox.  The diagram below comes from the Sheerwind webpage.  The Invelox design takes advantage of a physical principle called the Venturi Effect. 

Simply stated, if the wind is moving at 10 mph entering an ivelox machine; by the time it passes through the rotating internal turbines that wind is moving at 40 mph. Those spinning turbines are attached to a generator that turns the wind into mechanical energy.

Invelox Wind Turbine Prototype

Here's a comparison between a traditional sweep turbine and a Invelox.

 

 

 

The Invelox technology is scale able over a broad range from 5 Kw up to 7 Mw. Sheerwind expects to began deliveries in 2013.  The company claims their turbines will be able to deliver energy at 4 cents/KWh,  comparable to the most efficient fossil fuel power plants.

 

There is a huge market for clean, cost effective renewable energy technologies. If Sheerwind delivers as promised, the future should be very bright for their Invelox turbines.

 

Here is a link to Sheerwind's webpage...   http://sheerwind.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 



Energiewende in Germany

I'm pasting in below an article just out by Thomas Hedges about Germany's emerging transition to clean, renewable forms of energy.  At the moment, Germany gets 25% of its energy from clean, renewable sources like wind and solar. By 2050, it will be 80-100%  powered by clean renewables.  No other advanced nation comes close.  The only reason the U.S. isn't in the same place, doing the same thing is politics pure and simple. In Germany, energy policy is based mostly on what's best for it's citizens and their quality of life. In the US, energy policy is controlled by big oil, coal, and nuclear.  It's no wonder we have no cogent energy policy.

Germany's example proves we can do a whole lot better.


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Published on Thursday, November 15, 2012 by TruthDig.com

How Germany Is Getting to 100 Percent Renewable Energy

by Thomas Hedges

 

There is no debate on climate change in Germany. The temperature for the past 10 months has been three degrees above average and we’re again on course for the warmest year on record. There’s no dispute among Germans as to whether this change is man-made, or that we contribute to it and need to stop accelerating the process.

 

 

Solar panels cover the rooftops of a German farming village. (InsideClimate News/Osha Gray Davidson)

 

 

Since 2000, Germany has converted 25 percent of its power grid to renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and biomass. The architects of the clean energy movement Energiewende, which translates to “energy transformation,” estimate that from 80 percent to 100 percent of Germany’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2050.

Germans are baffled that the United States has not taken the same path. Not only is the U.S. the wealthiest nation in the world, but it’s also credited with jump-starting Germany’s green movement 40 years ago.

 

“This is a very American idea,” Arne Jungjohann, a director at the Heinrich Boll Stiftung Foundation (HBSF), said at a press conference Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C. “We got this from Jimmy Carter.”

 

Germany adopted and continued Carter’s push for energy conservation while the U.S. abandoned further efforts. The death of an American Energiewende solidified when President Ronald Reagan ripped down the solar panels atop the White House that Carter had installed.

 

Since then, Germany has created strong incentives for the public to invest in renewable energy. It pays people to generate electricity from solar panels on their houses. The effort to turn more consumers into producers is accelerated through feed-in tariffs, which are 20-year contracts that ensure a fixed price the government will pay. Germany lowers the price every year, so there’s good reason to sign one as soon as possible, before compensation falls further.

 

The money the government uses to pay producers comes from a monthly surcharge on utility bills that everyone pays, similar to a rebate. Ratepayers pay an additional cost for the renewable energy fund and then get that money back from the government, at a profit, if they are producing their own energy.

 

In the end, ratepayers control the program, not the government. This adds consistency, Davidson says. If the government itself paid, it would be easy for a new finance minister to cut the program upon taking office. Funding is not at the whim of politicians as it is in the U.S.

 

“Everyone has skin in the game,” says writer Osha Gray Davidson. “The movement is decentralized and democratized, and that’s why it works. Anybody in Germany can be a utility.”

 

The press conference the foundation organized with InsideClimate News comes two weeks after one of the biggest storms in U.S. history and sits in the shadow of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would unlock the world’s second-largest oil reserve in Canada. The event also comes one day after a report that says that the U.S. is on track to become the leading oil and gas producer by 2020, which suggests that the U.S. has the capability to match Germany’s green movement, but is instead using its resources to deepen its dependency on fossil fuels.

 

Many community organizers have given up on government and are moving to spark a green movement in the U.S. through energy cooperatives.

 

Anya Schoolman is a D.C. organizer who has started many co-ops in the district although she began with no experience. She says that converting to renewable energy one person at a time would not work in the U.S. because of legal complexities and tax laws that discourage people from investing in clean energy.

 

Grid managers in the U.S., she explains, often require households to turn off wind turbines at night, a practice called “curtailment.”

 

“It’s a favor to the utility companies,” she says, which don’t hold as much power in Germany as they do in the United States.

 

Individuals and cooperatives own 65 percent of Germany’s renewable energy capacity. In the U.S. they own 2 percent. The rest is privately controlled.

 

The largest difference, panelists said, between Germany and the U.S. is how reactive the government is to its citizens. Democracy in Germany has meant keeping and strengthening regulatory agencies while forming policies that put public ownership ahead of private ownership.

 

“In the end,” says Davidson, who spent a month in Germany studying the Energiewende, “it isn’t about making money. It’s about quality of life.”

 

This article was made possible by the Center for Study of Responsive Law.

 

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Germany is a European nation with far fewer renewable energy resources available than we have in the United States.   In Europe, cloudy days are far more common than sunny days.  In the US, we have large stretches of land, especially in the Southwest, where the sun shines far more often than not.  Yet, Germany's energy policy as made it one of the world's most prominent adopters of solar PV. 

We do not have an energy policy in the United States.  We need one desparately. We need it to be focused on transitioning our country away from dependence on fossil fuels and nuclear power to a portfolio of emerging clean, renewable resources.  The one missing ingredient is political will. Let's hope the newly re-elected President Obama will seize the moment and provide much needed leadership.



 

 

 

 

Wind or Sun to Water

A company of young innovators in France was created a splendid new technology. Eole Water, based in Sainte Tulle, France,  has developed a simple, robust, beauitfully rendered technology for sucking evaporated water out of the air, using an especially designed wind turbine.

The principle innovator behind Eole Water is Marc Parent. His vision was to create a stand alone system that could be set up in the world's most remote locations to produce both electricity and water.

The system works using evaporative condensation to collect up to 1,000 liters of water per day, while also generating up to 30 Kw of electricity.

The first commecial iteration of this technology is called the WMS 1000.  It is designed for set up in remote locations, without the use of a crane.   The WMS 1000 is mounted in a way that allows easy lowering of the mast for maintenance.

 

 

More than a billion people around the world do not have access to clean drinking water.  An even greater number do not have access to electricity.   There is an enormous need for Eole Water's technology.  The WMS 1000 is in final testing phaise. The next step is commercialization and distribution around the world. 

Eole Water is now adapting their technology for use with a 30 Kw solar PV array for places where sunlight is more abundant than wind.
 
Here is a link to a very engaging video that presents the Eole Water technology...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhe4jDWfFAY&feature=youtu.be


Bravo to Marc Parent and his colleagues at Eole Water. They have done a great thing for the world.

Here is a link to Eole Water's website...

http://www.eolewater.com/

Bridge of the Gods

Kite surfing is a relatively new sport. A participant straps on a short, wide fiberglass board with boots mounted on top.  Then they lock onto a kite that looks like a small parachute. Even in a moderate wind, it's a crazy combination that translates into lots of hugely fun speed and energy.

The Columbia river gorge is the mecca of sail boarding and  kite surfing. In July,  a major kite surfing competition called the Bridge of the Gods is held in Stevenson Washington, just over an hour northeast of Portland, on the Columbia.  It's a target rich environment for a photographer.

The Third Industrial Revolution Revisited

A while back, I wrote a piece for this blog about Jeremy Rifkin and his new book, The Third Industrial Revolution.  

Earlier this month, the World Hydrogen Energy Conference was held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The speaker at the conference's opening session was Jeremy Rifkin, and he talked about the energy transition that is already underway.in the European Union and other parts of the world.  We are starting to move away from fossil fuels toward a clean and sustainable energy model using, solar, hydro, biomass, and other renewable technologies that generate electricity.

Jeremy Rifkin spoke for about an hour at that meeting.  His talk there is now on You Tube in three parts. If you want to understand where we need to be going as a human society, I urge you to take the tinme to listen to what Jeremy Rifkin has to say.   He is a charismatic communicator and his message is incredibly compelling.    He speaks with great urgency. He says we have to be completely off carbon in thirty years. Completely, Totally. Unequivocally. He presents a plan for getting it done that is already being embraced in Europe and other parts of the world.

A big part of this transition depends on hydrogen's emergence as the principle means of storing and transporting renewably produced electricity.  

Jeremy Rifkin's talk at the 2012 World Hydrogen Energy Conference is delivered in three 'You Tube' files.

Here is part one...   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=372gPsNWGtU&feature=relmfu

Part Two...   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZH3iYSkQRM&feature=relmfu

Part Three...   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdbayOe8ReY

Amory Lovins

One of the world's most important visionaries, Amory Lovins has been a great teacher for me.  His perspective is always thoroughly considered and very smart. As a public voice, he has no equal in the energy arena. I am fortunate to have interviewed him twice. The last time was at his home at the Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass, Colorado.  What comes across when you are with Amory is his exceptional analytical capability, his intellectual integrity, and his eloquence in expressing his ideas. 

Here is a link to Amory's most recent TED talk...A fifty year plan for energy.

http://www.ted.com/talks/amory_lovins_a_50_year_plan_for_energy.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2012-05-02&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email

The Hydrogen Age

In 2007, I was the lead author on a non-fiction book titled, The Hydrogen Age.  At that point, I had invested about fifteen years of my life in efforts to expand public awareness of hydrogen as a critical part of any transition to clean, renewably produced energy.

The book was a critical success, especially with people in the clean energy business.  

 Technically, hydrogen is not a source of renewable energy, but instead is an energy carrier.  By taking electricity generated from wind turbines, solar panels, tidal and wave action, river currents, and geothermal steam and running it through an electrolyser, you can split water molecules into their constituent elements, hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen can then by stored for use on demand. It can be used to power internal combustion engines likes those in most cars or turbines like those in jet aircraft.  It can also be used in a device called a fuel cell to produce useful electrical energy.

The transition to a 'Hydrogen Economy' is moving ahead, particularly on the other side of the Atlantic, where the European Union and Germany in particular, are directing billions of Euros in a transition away from fossil fuel dependence to a sustainable economy, whose foundation is clean, renewably produced energy with hydrogen as its principle storage medium.[more on the European transition in my earlier blog entry - The Third Industrial Revolution]

In the US,  the move to clean, renewably produced energy is proceeding, but at a much slower pace. This is almost entirely because energy policy in the US is controlled by 'big oil' and other entrenched energy lobbies.  

By the year 2015, many of the world's leading automakers are expected to offer their first hydrogen fueled vehicles for sale in their retail showrooms. Things appear on very much on track for that to happen in Europe and Japan, and perhaps China, where efforts are underway to put the fueling infrastructure in place to support hydrogen powered vehicles.  Unfortunately, public policy in the US is badly corrupted. It favors old school energy interests over the common good. I very much hiope that will change.

Plan B 4.0

I am a huge fan of Lester Brown. He founded the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, DC. Years before he did that, he launched The Worldwatch Institute.

An agronomist by training, Lester Brown is an advocate for nature and the environment, with a broad view across all the science, technology, and governance policy that impacts life on Earth.

For a number of years, Brown and his colleagues at EPI have been publsihing the Plan B. series, a book that explains the  alarming status of global climate change, water resoure depletion, deforestation, food security, militarization;  all the mactro-scale issues and factors that are shaping life on Earth.  Brown and his team deliver a thoughtful, and most important, achieveable pathway to restoration and sustainability.  They call it,, Plan B. The most recent update is Plan B 4.0.

For those who want to educate themselves about the issues: for those looking for a reason to feel optimistic about the future, get a hold of Lester Brown's Plan B 4.0.   You'll find everything you need to know presented very effectively in this one volume. Highest Recommendation.

Here is the link to Plan B. 4.0

http://www.earth-policy.org/books/