Busting the carbon and cost myths of Germany’s nuclear exit, Guardian UK  Damian Carrington, 23 May 12  

That is what Germany chose to do after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, closing eight plants immediately – 7GW – and another nine by 2022. The shrillest critics predicted blackouts, which was always daft and did not happen.

But more serious critics worried that the three things at the heart of th eenergy and climate change debate – carbon, cost and security of supply – would all head in the wrong direction. Here in Berlin, I have found they were wrong on every count.

On security of supply, critics predicted that Germany would have to import energy to make up that lost by the closure of the nuclear plants. It’s an important issue for a nation that imports 70% of its energy. But what actually happened is that Germany simply exported less in 2011: 7TWh instead of 70TWh. “We are still a net exporter,” says Franzjosef Schafhausen, a senior civil servant.

This was helped by a large decrease in energy consumption of 5.3% in 2011, delivered by big increases in energy efficiency in buildings, homes and industry, as well as in part a milder winter. Aha, I hear you say, but Germany’s economy must have shrunk as well: it grew by 3%, in rather stark contrast to double-dip Britain.

Cutting energy use naturally cuts the carbon dioxide emissions that drive climate change, as did the increased deployment of renewable energy. In 2011, Germany’s emissions fell by 2%, confounding those who predicted a rise if nuclear was replaced by coal. Some was, but 60% of the lost nuclear capacity was replaced by renewable energy in a single year. And remember, even if carbon emissions had risen a little in Germany, the total emissions in Europe – capped by the emissions trading scheme – would remain the same. Germany also remains well on track for its 40% emissions cut by 2020.

If security of supply and carbon emissions did not suffer as the reactors cooled, surely the cost of electricity must have gone up? And it did, with wholesale spot prices rising 10-15% in the weeks following the Fukushima catastrophe. But a year on, they are now below pre-Fukushima prices by about 10-15%. That is due to fast increasing renewables – now 20% of electricity supply – which cut peak costs. Bärbel Höhn, a Green party MP and former state environment minister, says Germany industry now has lower power prices than the UK, France, Spain and Italy.

Schafhausen remains realistic about the future: “There is no doubt that the power price to the consumer will increase, but we will implement our energy transformation step-by-step and therefore have only a small increase.”

Germany had been planning its nuclear exit since 2002 and is now showing it can be done without hitches. In the UK, the possibility of no nuclear power is not even on the government’s table. But with big utilities one by one turning their backs on UK atomic energy, the question is can a forced exit be done without harming cost, carbon and security of supply?…..http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2012/may/23/energy-nuclear-power-germany?newsfeed=true

But the rhetoric obscures an unprecedented push to cut energy consumption  and increase the share of renewable energy generation underway at all levels of government as well as in the private sector.
Federal, state and local governments, coupled with local power and gas utilities, are pouring billions of dollars a year into a vast range of initiatives to boost efficiency and renewables.
Support for efficiency and renewables is split across thousands of
different programs, which has tended to hide the scale of the overall effort. As a result, many energy analysts fail to appreciate the scale of the shift underway. However, the sheer amount of support being given to clean technology and energy efficiency programs suggests a revolutionary transformation of the energy system will likely occur in the next two decades.
In 2010/11, the US government alone had 679 separate renewable energy
initiatives spread across 23 departments and agencies, according to a
report prepared for Congress by the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) (“Renewable Energy: Federal Agencies Implement Hundreds of
Initiatives”, February 2012).
Four agencies and their subcomponents were responsible for almost 60
per cent of renewable energy initiatives: the Department of Defense
and its service components (116), Agriculture (105), Energy (92) and
Interior (82).
But renewables were also being promoted in such unlikely places as the
Department of Labor (via Green Capacity Building Grants offered by the
Employment and Training Administration), the State Department
(Greening Diplomacy and the Global Bioenergy Partnership), Justice
(FBI Alternative Fuel Infrastructure) and the Bureau of Prisons (Solar
Panel Manufacturing and Training).
And these are just the initiatives designed to support renewables. The
inventory does not include initiatives to improve efficiency.
At lower levels, there are now almost 1100 programs to support
renewables offered by state and local governments, or power and gas
utilities, according to the Database of State Incentives for
Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE) compiled by the North Carolina Solar
Center and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council with funding from
the Department of Energy.
Of these, more than half are rebates on power and gas bills offered by
the utilities themselves in conjunction with local regulators.
In addition, there are over 1400 separate programs across the country
to promote efficiency, with more than three quarters of them being
offered in the form of rebates on utility bills to support
conservation measures……..
Not every program will succeed. Some will fail or prove a waste of
money, at least in narrow terms. ….
But $10 billion or more per year buys a lot of research, trial and
error, innovation, learning by doing and deployment…..
energy efficiency and renewables programs have the potential to
transform the profile of energy production and consumption.
The amount of money being invested on these programs, in aggregate,
strongly suggests an accelerated evolution that could start to produce
meaningful effects on power, gas and even oil consumption within the
next ten years.

http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/americas-renewables-revolution

Ten million low-income people living in rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, will gain access to low-cost solar energy by 2015, in part due to a commitment made by solar energy provider Barefoot Power   to the Business Call to Action  (BCtA).

The BCtA is a global initiative that encourages private sector efforts to fight poverty, supported by several international organizations including the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

The Australia-based social enterprise Barefoot Power aims to expand access to its high-quality, energy efficient, affordable light-emitting diode (LED) lamps, home lighting systems and phone chargers, to more off-grid communities with expansion in Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria and India as a focus by 2015. The company has already captured the majority market share in East Africa.

Through the commitment made to BCtA, the company estimates that the 10
million consumers will reduce kerosene consumption by 100 million
liters and save up to US$600 million in fuel costs by 2015. By then,
Barefoot Power expects to help reduce carbon emission by up to one
million tonnes……
http://prwire.com.au/pr/29127/solar-energy-enterprise-to-provide-10-million-with-access-to-renewable-energy

The projects had a value of R28.1 billion, with R11.8bn in local content value.

Mike Peo, the head of infrastructure, energy and telecoms at Nedbank
Capital, said that yesterday’s announcement would ease any lingering
doubts regarding the government’s commitment to its integrated
resource plan.

“(The news) sends a clear message to local and international
stakeholders and investors – not to mention the general public – that
the vision of a South Africa powered to a larger extent by renewable
energy is destined to become a reality,” he said…..
A total of 7 059 jobs during construction and 328 jobs during
operations would be created by the projects announced yesterday.

Nine solar photovoltaic (PV) bids were selected with a combined
capacity of 417MW against the department’s allocation for PV of 450MW.

Seven wind projects were selected, representing 563MW against an
allocated 650MW.

The two small hydropower projects chosen would produce 14MW power and
there was one concentrated solar power (CSP) project with 50MW
capacity, fulfilling the 50MW allocation.

These projects, together with those chosen in window one, place South
Africa well ahead of its IPP procurement target. The two bidding
rounds had an allocation of 2 459MW of generation capacity and only 1
166MW remains to be procured in the upcoming three windows.

The department said the average prices offered by the PV developers
fell to 1.7c a kilowatt-hour (kWh) from 2.8c in the first bidding
window. Prices for wind projects fell to 89c a kWh from R1.14. The CSP
prices fell slightly from R2.68 to R2.51 a kWh…..
http://www.iol.co.za/business/business-news/renewable-energy-getting-cheaper-1.1301510

It’s possible to reduce today’s energy consumption for street and road lighting by as much as 60% with new technologies – LED, smart lighting, distributed wind energy and even lights out programs. 

The distributed energy market refers to small-scale energy produced primarily for on-site energy consumption meaning street lights, roof tops and ledges anything that requires a direct power source. In 2011, the size of the distributed renewable energy market was estimated around $70 billion dollars globally. It’s expected to top $150 billion by 2015. Because distributed energy is generated at the source of where energy is needed, the inefficient transmission lines are eliminated, creating a more direct source of  renewable energy, with the traditional grid being used as a supplemental energy source.

Small Wind Energy Goes Urban In Italy, Korea, Brazil And Texas ,  by Jennifer Hcks, 18 May 12, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferhicks/2012/05/17/small-wind-energy-goes-urban-in-italy-korea-brazil-and-texas-yes-texas/?ss=innovation-science  Streetlights usually operate at electricity rates like the ones we pay in our private homes. About one-third of a municipality’s electrical costs are for street lighting. So having that energy provided by some form of renewable energy, means that every cent is saved and for municipalities, whose budgets are being squeezed, that’s something serious to consider.

Take Trondheim, Germany for example. The city has 21,500 street lights
(1,100 on highways, 2,800 on county roads, 16,600 urban roads, 300 in
parks, 700 on private roads). Their 2006 lighting budget to run and
maintain, including the cost of the energy for those 21,500 lights was
€1,881.250 m euros a year.

It’s possible to reduce today’s energy consumption for street and road
lighting by as much as 60% with new technologies – LED, smart
lighting, distributed wind energy and even lights out programs. By
example, the city of San Jose, California was able to trim down their
$4 million annual electric bill for streetlights just by converting
their street lights to LEDs. The city of Calgary replaced all of their
street lighting with efficient lights which ended up saving the city
about $2 million a year. The City of Oslo in Norway, installed
intelligent street lighting which led to an energy savings of 70%.
And if you could power a street light with a renewable energy like
wind, why wouldn’t you? That is exactly what some cities around the
world are doing, going beyond replacement of street lights with LED
but using small wind – through distributed energy – to power their
city street lights and other small-scale energy needs.

Energy politics aside, the buzz around wind energy is mostly around
reducing dependency on fossil fuels or getting off the grid. But
sometimes those big leaps don’t start that big, they start at a local
level  – either from a personal desire to make a change in your own
electric bill or a city choosing to take a stand and install a hybrid
city lighting system.
The distributed energy market refers to small-scale energy produced
primarily for on-site energy consumption meaning street lights, roof
tops and ledges anything that requires a direct power source. In 2011,
the size of the distributed renewable energy market was estimated
around $70 billion dollars globally. It’s expected to top $150 billion
by 2015. Because distributed energy is generated at the source of
where energy is needed, the inefficient transmission lines are
eliminated, creating a more direct source of  renewable energy, with
the traditional grid being used as a supplemental energy source.

Urban wind solutions from newcomers are also on the rise.  Italy’s
Enatek is building micro wind turbine’s for urban roof tops (Forbes,
August 2011) and Southwest Windpower in Arizona (the founders modified
a Ford alternator to create their first wind generator) put a roof top
wind turbine on house in San Francisco’s Mission district.
All around the world, you see cities (and homeowners) turning to small
wind energy solutions to power city lights or control commercial
electricity costs.  In fact, the installed capacity for small wind by
country at the end of 2012, and this might surprise you, goes like
this: US, China, UK, Germany, Canada, Spain, Poland, Japan, Italy,
Sweden and South Korea…..
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferhicks/2012/05/17/small-wind-energy-goes-urban-in-italy-korea-brazil-and-texas-yes-texas/?ss=innovation-science

The maker of the iPhone and iPad  said on Thursday it was buying
equipment from SunPower Corp and startup Bloom Energy to build two
solar array installations in and around Maiden, North Carolina, near
its core data center.

Once up, the solar farm will supply 84 million kWh of energy annually.

The sites will employ high-efficiency solar cells and an advanced
solar tracking system.

Later in 2012, Apple also intends to build a third, smaller, bio-gas
fuel-cell plant.

The two solar farms will cover 250 acres, among the largest in the
industry, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer told Reuters. Apple plans on
using coal-free electricity in all three of its data centers, with the
Maiden facility coal-free by the end of 2012….. Greenpeace, which
has also targeted Amazon.com and Microsoft with clean energy
campaigns, hailed the move.

“Apple’s announcement today is a great sign that Apple is taking
seriously the hundreds of thousands of its customers who have asked
for an iCloud powered by clean energy, not dirty coal,” Greenpeace
International Senior IT Analyst Gary Cook said in a statement.
http://technologyspectator.com.au/industry/it/apple-power-main-data-centre-using-renewable-energy

The system can power two or three laptops continuously and store
enough energy for five hours to cover periods of no generation. The
components may sound a bit heavy for civilian standards, but are
probably quite light for the military, weighing in at 100 pounds (45.3
kg). They are stored in two cases weighing about 70 pounds (31.7 kg)
each…..
Besides offering safety and practicality, the innovation also makes
environmental and economic sense. The U.S. Army is a massive consumer
of energy, guzzling 90 percent of all the energy consumed by the
federal government. Therefore, embracing renewable energy can make its
operations more sustainable.

The Army is not the only group embracing clean tech, though. Recently
the U.S. Navy ran tests on a mix of petroleum and algae-based marine
diesel, that powered a ship sailing between Everett, Washington and
San Diego.   http://www.gizmag.com/us-army-microgrid-renewable-energy/22542/

27 of its Massachusetts stores will have solar panel arrays installed by 2014, representing a total capacity of 10 megawatts. Walmart director of energy, David Ozment, said he expects the solar power systems to produce enough electricity to provide 10-15 percent of each store’s energy requirements….  The systems add to Walmart’s already significant on-site renewable energy portfolio. As of last month, the company had 115 rooftop solar arrays in seven countries, collectively generating 71 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually.

In California, nearly 75% of Walmart-owned locations will have commercial solar power installations by the end of next year.

In April, Walmart announced it is utilising 1.1 billion kilowatt hours of electricity from US renewable energy sources annually; representing approximately 22% of the electricity consumed by the company’s buildings globally. Walmart aims to be powered by 100% renewables….  The systems add to Walmart’s already significant on-site renewable energy portfolio. As of last month, the company had 115 rooftop solar arrays in seven countries, collectively generating 71 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually.

In California, nearly 75% of Walmart-owned locations will have commercial solar power installations by the end of next year.

In April, Walmart announced it is utilising 1.1 billion kilowatt hours of electricity from US renewable energy sources annually; representing approximately 22% of the electricity consumed by the company’s buildings globally. Walmart aims to be powered by 100% renewables.

 includes VIDEO  http://www.todaysthv.com/news/article/210528/288/Germany-plans-to-go-nuclear-free-within-a-decade   Germany plans to go nuclear free within a decade, May 10, 2012

Germany’s answer is renewables! Aside from solar power, the country embarked on an ambitious quest to build dozens of off shore wind parks with thousands of turbines in the North and Baltic Seas. Most of the assembly happens in the northern town of Bremerhaven and local officials say the rush into renewables has led to an economic boom here. Nils Schnorrenberger says, “We had an unemployment rate of 25 per cent six years ago. Now it is 14 per cent and the companies gave 2000 people jobs just here in Bremerhaven.”..

. Ever since the Chernobyl disaster, Germans have had a troubled relationship with
nuclear energy with regular protests against new plants and nuclear waste transports. Since Fukushima, however, the country’s decision to quit atomic power seems irreversible, even in the face of challenges and uncertainties ahead. http://www.todaysthv.com/news/article/210528/288/Germany-plans-to-go-nuclear-free-within-a-decade

Saudi Arabia Plans $109 Billion Boost for Solar Power Bloomberg, By Wael Mahdi and Marc Roca – May 10, 2012

“We are not only looking for building solar plants,” al- Odan said in an interview in Riyadh yesterday. “We want to run a sustainable solar energy sector that will become a driver for the domestic energy for years to come.”…