New Coal and Nuclear Plants May Not Be Needed, U.S. Energy Official Says
New Coal and Nuclear PlantsMay Not Be Needed, U.S. Energy Official Says
e360 digest23 Apr 2009:
Renewable energy technologies have come far enough that the U.S. may not need to build any new coal or nuclear plants, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said. “We may not need any, ever,” Jon Wellinghoff said at a forum of the U.S. Energy Association. The development of smart grid technologies that better store capacity from wind, solar and biomass sources, he said, will eventually meet the nation’s energy demands — and make coal-fired and nuclear plants unnecessary……………………..Wellinghoff insists the existing concept of baseload capacity will be an “anachronism” as the technology develops to store power capacity, such as a system for concentrated solar plants that currently allows 15 hours of storage.
Yale Environment 360: New Coal and Nuclear Plants
May Not Be Needed, U.S. Energy Official Says
US lawmakers reject nuclear in renewable power goal
US lawmakers reject nuclear in renewable power goal
Wed May 20, 2009 By Ayesha Rascoe
WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers pushing to include greater recognition for existing nuclear power in a national renewable energy standard failed to win new breaks for the industry when a U.S. congressional panel on Wednesday voted down an amendment to a controversial climate change bill.
The sweeping bill, which seeks to cap greenhouse gas emissions, includes a renewable energy mandate that would require utilities to generate 15 percent of electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar by 2020………………………………
Under the legislation sponsored by Democratic Representatives Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, utilities’ renewable mandate would be reduced in proportion to the portion of any electricity sales from new nuclear plants, but not existing nuclear plants…………
……..Waxman argued that the bill was not discriminating against nuclear power, but that nuclear was not renewable energy because it requires uranium, a limited resource. Also, he said the renewable standard was aimed at promoting new power sources and technology.
7 Reasons to Support Comprehensive Clean-Energy Legislation
7 Reasons to Support Comprehensive Clean-Energy Legislation
1. Clean-energy legislation will create jobs by spurring investment in renewables and efficiency.
The legislation would place a cap on global warming pollution that would give companies and utilities an incentive to invest in low-carbon and energy-efficient technologies in order to minimize their emissions. These kinds of investments increase demand for renewable electricity and fuels, helping grow entire new businesses, and create jobs in struggling sectors of the economy such as manufacturing and construction.
Clean-energy investments also create more jobs than investments in traditional energy sources.
2. Boosting investments in low-carbon energy will help the United States regain the lead in the manufacture and sale of clean-energy technologies.
3. Action on clean-energy legislation has critical industry support.
4. Global warming is harming our health and the physical environment.
5. Comprehensive clean-energy legislation can provide a host of economic benefits.
6. Clean-energy legislation requires that polluters pay.
7. Opponents of action would continue the status quo of doing nothing, which cost the average family a $1,000 increase in energy bills over past eight years.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/05/clean_energy_reasons.html
Harvesting the Wind
Harvesting the Wind
Three young French designers hatch an ingenious plan to use existing infrastructure to create clean energy.
METROPOLISMAG.com By Suzanne LaBarre
Posted May 13, 2009 “……………………..Delon, who is 31 and an architect, is the recipient of Metropolis’s 2009 Next Generation prize, along with Julien Choppin, also a 31-year-old architect, and Raphaël Ménard, a 34-year-old engineer. Their project, Wind-it, addresses this year’s theme—which beseeched entrants to “Fix Our Energy Addiction”—with the effortless simplicity of a Pythagorean proof. The team proposes inserting wind turbines into existing electrical towers or, where infrastructure is broken or spare, building new towers that double as wind-power generators, thus introducing a fount of renewable energy into an aspect of civilization that’s as certain as taxes. With three potential sizes, the turbine towers could be integrated nearly anywhere: Lille, France, China’s Sichuan Province, or the streets of New York City. http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20090513/harvesting-the-wind
Oil Giants Say No to Renewable Energy
Oil Giants Say No to Renewable Energy
AllGov May 12, 2009
……………………………….According to Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, an industry trade group, the top five oil companies have spent around $5 billion over the last 15 years to develop sources of renewable energy—a mere 10% of the roughly $50 billion funneled into the clean-energy sector by venture capital funds and corporate investors during this period. “Big Oil does not consider renewable energy to be a mainstream business,” Eckhart told the New York Times. “It’s a side business for them.”
It’s become even less than that for some companies. Royal Dutch Shell has decided to freeze its research and investments in wind, solar and hydrogen power, and focus its alternative energy efforts on biofuels. It also has sold off much of its solar business and pulled out of a project last year to build the largest offshore wind farm, near London.
BP, a company that has spent nine years saying it was moving “beyond petroleum,” has been getting back to petroleum since 2007, paring back its renewable program.
“In my view, nothing has really changed,” Rex W. Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, said after the election of President Obama. “We don’t oppose alternative energy sources and the development of those. But to hang the future of the country’s energy on those alternatives alone belies reality of their size and scale.”
http://www.allgov.com/ViewNews/Oil_Giants_Say_No_to_Renewable_Energy_90512
Can Clean Energy Revive Manufacturing?
Can Clean Energy Revive Manufacturing?
The New York Times By Kate Galbraith 4 May 09The manufacturing sector in the United States continues to shrink — but could the renewable-energy rush spur a manufacturing revival?
A number of solar-panel factories are coming online in the United States, as I reported on Sunday. Makers of wind turbines are also establishing factories in the heartland, where the factories’ proximity to wind farms on the Plains slashes the cost of shipping the giant machines from Europe…………………. many renewable-equipment manufacturers want to set up operations in the United States because they perceive it to be the largest market for the technologies in the years ahead. (Tax credits in the stimulus package for domestic production of renewable-energy equipment also help.) A key factor in bringing SolarWorld to Oregon, said Mr. Klebensberger, was the work force — and especially Oregonians’ “belief in change and how important renewables are.” Proximity to a cluster of semiconductor factories, some of whose workers SolarWorld has recently poached, was another attraction…………………….
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/can-clean-energy-revive-manufacturing/.
Europe’s green energy vision puts UK in dark
Europe’s green energy vision puts UK in dark
TIMESONLINE 29 April 09
It is a dazzling vision of a clean energy future. An entire continent powered by solar panels, wind and wave turbines, geothermal and hydroelectric power stations — and all stitched together by a European “supergrid” stretching from the sunbaked deserts of the south to the windswept North Sea, from the volcanoes of Iceland to the lakes of Finland.
It may sound like the stuff of science fiction but this is a vision that the European Union wants to make a reality. The concept is gaining ground among policymakers, including leaders such as President Sarkozy and Gordon Brown, who are concerned about Europe’s carbon emissions and its steadily growing dependence on Russian gas…………………………………
Ultimately, according to Professor Skea, an international deal at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December will be critical to achieving the political momentum required to achieve all of this.
Nevertheless, the BWEA’s Adam Bruce remains upbeat: “It’s certainly a challenge but these problems are not insurmountable. The more renewable energy you create the less it costs. People focus on the upfront capital cost but not the longer-term benefits.”
Native Americans: Power for the persecuted
Native Americans: Power for the persecuted DIAMONDBACKONLINE Matt DernogaIs- 4/28/09 “……………Native American reservations contain large quantities of natural resources, including energy. There is little to no access or control over as to how they are used – 65 percent of North America’s uranium lies on these reservations, as is 80 percent of all the uranium mining and 100 percent of all the uranium processing in the country.
The result has been high rates of cancer, respiratory ailments, miscarriages and birth defects. The water and soil are loaded with lead, radium, thorium and other toxins. People who work in the mines rarely receive clothing, protection, medical evaluation or compensation. There is almost no wealth to show for this exploitation, and our tax dollars subsidize it daily through our funding of uneconomical nuclear power…………….
………..The reservations on the Great Plains have a windpower potential that tops 300 gigawatts, half our annual electric generation. Everyone wins with a clean energy economy, but I can’t think of a group in this country who would benefit more than Native Americans.
This would explain why I’ve been seeing and hearing a lot more of groups like the Indigenous Environmental Network. A good climate bill, a green energy bill and a new electric grid only benefit indigenous people if they are involved in the legislative process. We can’t abuse their renewable resources like we’ve abused their traditional resources. They need to be a partner, not a tool. The less we understand about their culture and history, the harder this will be.
Electricity ‘super grid’ could supply 500 million people
Electricity ‘super grid’ could supply 500 million people Belfast Telegraph 25 April 2009 * Print Print * Email EmailSearch Search GoBookmark & Share * Digg It * del.icio.us * Facebook * StumbleuponWhat are these?Change font size: A | A | AAn electricity ‘super grid’ could extend the potential for renewable energy from green sources right across Europe, it was claimed today.Irish Environment Minister and Green Party leader John Gormley said different conditions in different parts of Europe – and even North Africa – could provide energy to a potential market of 500 million people.
A Europe-wide link up could solve the problems of uncertainty of supply from sources such as wind and wave power.
He said: “With imagination, vision, determination – and with Europe’s help – our energy could be made up of solar energy from Seville, tidal power from Rathlin island and Torr Head; geothermal power from Reykjavik; hydro electric electricity from Norway; wind power from Denmark; wave power from the Kerry coast and biomass crops from Germany.”
Taking his inspiration from President Obama’s Jobs and the Green New Deal, he added: “An energy super grid is one element that could advance the Green New Deal – a proposal to create ‘green collar jobs’ for five million Europeans by mobilising 500 million euro of private and public investment over the next five years.”
Interior secretary: Wind could replace coal power
Interior secretary: Wind could replace coal power CNET News April 8, 2009 Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is optimistic about the potential of wind power to help wean the U.S. from dependence on foreign oil. “The idea that wind energy has the potential to replace most of our coal-burning power today is a very real possibility,” he said. “It is not technology that is pie-in-the sky; it is here and now,” Salazar said, according to an AP report, at a meeting in Atlantic City, N.J., Monday.
……………………………………Exactly the same problems nuclear has always had. This company just stores the waste. “Nuclear storage dumps” are not a solution, just another problem put ..
Interior secretary: Wind could replace coal power | Green Tech – CNET News
Google Earth now mapping sites for renewable energy developers
Google Earth now mapping sites for renewable energy developersPath to Green Energy tool could speed up solar, wind projects by avoiding environmentalist-developer fights.statesman.com By David R. BakerSAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLEMonday, April 06, 2009 – “………………………. A new mapping tool on Google Earth shows renewable power developers where they can — and can’t — build.
With grants from Google’s philanthropic wing, the National Audubon Society and the Natural Resources Defense Council pulled together maps of endangered species habitats, national parks and other forms of protected land and loaded all that data into Google Earth.
Zoom in on the Mojave Desert, a favorite spot for solar power projects, and you can see every bit of land that is off-limits to developers………………….
…………..The map includes habitat data for more than 170 species. Its creators want to add more states and species as well as information showing places that have the most sunshine and the strongest winds.
Google Earth now mapping sites for renewable energy developers
Renewable Energy Could Solve Economic, Environmental and Social Problems:
Scientific American By Douglas Fischer 26 March 09 ASPEN – Shifting the United States to clean-burning renewable fuels has the potential to cut through a thicket of thorny social ills and solve long-standing problems across the entire spectrum of American life, from manufacturing to national security to clean water, the country’s top environmental cop said on Wednesday.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson spoke before 150 scientists, lawyers, industry executives, activists and others gathered at this alpine town for a three-day conference on the country’s energy future.
She said weaning the country from fossil fuels remains a top priority of the Obama administration because it offers such a broad suite of solutions across all aspects of American life: rewarding innovation, discouraging pollution, investing in jobs and encouraging energy independence………………………………
“It’s extraordinary to be at a time where one answer answers so many extraordinary big issues,” she said.
“If you think climate protection endangers economic growth, wait ’till you see what climate change does.”
Renewable Energy Could Solve Economic, Environmental and Social Problems: Scientific American
We must learn to live with wind power
We must learn to live with wind power
The zealous backing given to wind farms this week by Ed Miliband, the Climate Change Secretary, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, has stirred up the usual protests about the beautiful British landscape being papered over with metallic monstrosities. But arguing against wind energy is, well, a waste of energy. Denouncing wind turbines in favour of another technology, such as nuclear, tidal and wave, solar or even “cleaner” coal is missing the point. The argument is over.
………………………….There are two standard objections to wind turbines. The first is that wind farms generate negligible amounts of electricity, and cost more carbon to produce than they save. This is a myth: the typical 3MW turbine powers 1,700 homes annually and “pays back” the energy – and saves the carbon emissions – expended to manufacture, transport, install and commission it in a mere six months.
The next objection is aesthetic: we don’t want turbines in our back yards, or in the picturesque areas we like to visit…………………………The future is not a vast forest of wind turbines obliterating every prized view,………………………..In fact, wind turbines can add sparkle to lacklustre locations.
Suddenly, progress on renewable energy
Las Vegas Sun Scot Rutledge, Mar 9, 2009
In just the past few weeks, Nevada has made staggering progress toward realizing a vision for a clean energy economy. We took giant steps forward toward creating high-quality, green jobs and revitalizing our economy by tapping into our abundant solar, wind and geothermal power.
First, we heard that NV Energy canceled plans for a dirty coal plant in White Pine County, and that it announced plans for at least one solar-powered plant here in Southern Nevada. Now, we hear that LS Power has indefinitely postponed another White Pine County dirty coal plant, saying this sort of power plant doesn’t make sense in today’s economic and political climate. In just a few short weeks, our state looked away from a past of dirty coal plants — one of the largest contributors to global warming — and toward a future of clean, renewable energy.
Also, Sen. Harry Reid announced plans for a bill to speed up the process of transmitting renewable energy from our remote rural areas — where it will be generated — to the cities that need it most. This is the missing link in making Nevada one of the world’s renewable energy leaders, and Sen. Reid should be commended for the vision he has established here in Nevada, and nationally, of a clean energy economy
At a time when unemployment is skyrocketing and our financial situation seems so dire in Nevada, we have an opportunity looking at us straight in the face: a clean energy economy that creates thousands of green jobs that can’t be exported overseas, reduces our greenhouse emissions and cuts our dependence on foreign oil. Thanks to Sen. Reid, NV Energy, LS Power and many other forward-thinking community leaders and businesses who are looking to a bright, green future.
Nuclear waste dogs US energy policy
Nuclear waste dogs US energy policy The Christian Science Monitor Yucca Mountain was supposed to be where the highly toxic material was sent. But Obama’s energy budget leaves it out.By Gail Russell Chaddock Christian Science Monitor 6 March 09
Washington – President Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2010 all but sinks prospects to store America’s nuclear waste at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain.
But it leaves wide open the role of nuclear power in building “a new economy powered by clean and secure energy” – and the question of what to do with existing, highly toxic nuclear waste.
“The nation has already accumulated 60,000 metric tons of spent nuclear waste, and the material is going to have to be isolated from the environment for hundreds and thousands of years,” says Edwin Lyman, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington.
“There’s no way to make the waste disappear. No matter what the French say, there’s no alternative to having a mined geological repository,” he says. The challenge is to find one that is technically and politically acceptable……………………….the budget document released by the White House last week makes no mention of nuclear power as an element in a transition to a low-carbon economy. Instead, it cites the need for increased support for solar, biomass, geothermal, wind, and low-carbon-emission coal power………………………….Since failing to complete a storage facility by 1998, as provided in the contract, the US Energy Department has faced open-ended court challenges over billions in liability payments to utilities now having to store toxic waste on site.
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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