When it comes to supporting renewables, blue and red make green.
Among a dwindling number of politicians at the national level, there’s a pretend debate going on. Using all the scare tactics and rhetorical tricks they can muster, some apologists for the fossil fuel status quo would have you believe that we, as a nation, are divided about whether or not to move forward aggressively with clean, renewable energy like wind and solar.
But the simple truth is that there is no debate: The national verdict on renewables is already in. However they may have voted in the presidential election, Americans—of all political stripes, in red states and blue ones—are overwhelmingly voting yes on clean energy. Whether it’s because it’s good for the economy, the environment, consumers, or all three, citizens and their elected officials at the state level are throwing their full support behind the next energy revolution.
For evidence of clean energy’s bipartisan and cross-cultural appeal, one need look no further than the American heartland—the same part of the country that gave Donald Trump his victory—where governors, legislatures, and voters have come to see investment in renewables as something to be embraced wholeheartedly and unequivocally. In the weeks just after the election, while many of us were nervously wondering what our national energy policy would look like under a President Trump and a Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, three of these states undertook significant measures to protect, or even improve, their efficiency and renewable energy standards.
In Michigan last month, a legislative package that began its life as an attempt by some lawmakers to roll back the state’s clean energy goals ended up being transformed into a set of bills that not only preserves them, but actually makes them stronger. Just before Christmas—and after much bipartisan negotiating—Republican Governor Rick Snyder personally inserted himself into the debate and ultimately sealed the deal by putting his signature on laws that will increase Michigan’s renewable energy portfolio standard from 10 percent to 15 percent while simultaneously fostering greater efficiency.
In Illinois, Republican Governor Bruce Rauner recently signed the Future Energy Jobs Bill, passed by his state’s Democrat-controlled legislature and designed, among other things, to ensure that more than $200 million a year gets channeled into renewable energy investment. Under the new law, the state’s largest electric utility will also increase efficiency to reduce demand from customers by more than 20 percent by the year 2030. Both measures will greatly help Illinois reach its goal of getting a quarter of its energy from renewables by 2025.
Meanwhile, in Ohio, Governor John Kasich has just defied members of his own party by vetoing a bill that would have continued a deplorably cynical freeze on the state’s move toward renewable energy. In defending his veto, the Republican and 2016 presidential candidate cited the economic harm that would befall his state were it to abandon its sizable investments in the clean energy sector, which currently employs nearly 90,000 Ohioans.
Each of these happy developments represents another forceful refutation of all the shopworn clichés about clean energy: that it’s practically unfeasible, for instance, or that it’s somehow inimical to job growth, or that it’s something only tree huggers care about. More and more, these clichés are being revealed for what they are: desperate and outdated political posturing. Republicans in Washington, D.C., who stubbornly cling to them should take a lesson from their counterparts in heartland states—and not just the aforementioned ones, but also states like Texas and Iowa—and get with the program. If they don’t, they’re going to look even more out of touch with public sentiment than they already do.
Governor Cuomo Announces Approval of Largest Offshore Wind Project in the Nation BY LONG ISLAND NEWS & PR JANUARY 26 2017 Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced the Board of Trustees of LIPA voted to approve the nation’s largest offshore wind farm, and the first offshore wind farm in New York. Long Island, NY – January 25, 2017 – Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the Board of Trustees of the Long Island Power Authority voted to approve the nation’s largest offshore wind farm, and the first offshore wind farm in New York. The approval of the South Fork Wind Farm, a 90 megawatt development 30 miles southeast of Montauk, is the first step toward developing an area that can host up to 1,000 megawatts of offshore wind power. The wind farm, which is out of sight from Long Island’s beaches, will provide enough electricity to power 50,000 Long Island homes with clean, renewable energy, and will help meet increasing electricity demand on the South Fork of Long Island.
The vote comes two weeks after Governor Cuomo called on LIPA to approve the wind farm project and announced an unprecedented commitment to develop up to 2.4 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 in his regional State of the State address on Long Island. The 2.4 gigawatt target, which is enough power generation for 1.25 million homes, is the largest commitment to offshore wind energy in U.S. history, helping to bring this valuable resource to New Yorkers at a scale unmatched in the United States.“New York leads the nation in pioneering clean energy innovation, and this bold action marks the next step in our unprecedented commitment to offshore wind, as well as our ambitious long term energy goal of supplying half of all electricity from renewable sources by 2030,” Governor Cuomo said. “This project will not only provide a new, reliable source of clean energy, but will also create high-paying jobs, continue our efforts to combat climate change and help preserve our environment for current and future generations of New Yorkers.”
The LIPA Board approved a contract submitted by Deepwater Wind for the South Fork Wind Farm after a year-long process engaging the private sector for the best available clean energy generation ideas and detailed cost modeling. Other elements of LIPA’s South Fork energy portfolio include transmission enhancements and additional clean energy solutions such as battery storage and consumer electricity demand reduction……..
Karl R. Rábago, Pace Energy and Climate Center said, “It is gratifying to see years of advocacy for clean energy development bearing fruit in such a spectacular fashion. And it is inspiring to have the leadership in New York that made it happen.”
Heather Leibowitz, Director, Environment New York said, “Offshore wind needs to be a significant part of the energy mix. It is key to putting the Empire State on a path toward an economy powered entirely by renewable energy. The 90-megawatts of energy produced off east Montauk will get us one step closer to this goal.”
Kevin Law, President and CEO of the Long Island Association said, “The offshore wind farm proposed by Deepwater Wind is an important step forward in building Long Island’s clean energy economy, creating new jobs in this industry and diversifying our fuel sources which is why the LIA has supported this project.”
John R. Durso, President, Long Island Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO said, “LIPA’s decision to enter into an agreement with Deepwater Wind is good news for the Long Island labor movement. It is a first step in realizing the potential for a new American industry with Long Island at the epicenter. We thank New York State for their commitment to our energy future, an opportunity which includes union jobs. We are excited to put our skilled workforce on the job.”
About Reforming the Energy Vision
Reforming the Energy Vision is Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s strategy to lead on climate change and grow New York’s economy. REV is building a cleaner, more resilient and affordable energy system for all New Yorkers by stimulating investment in clean technologies like solar, wind, and energy efficiency and generating 50 percent of the state’s electricity needs from renewable energy by 2030. Already, REV has driven 730 percent growth in the statewide solar market, enabled over 105,000 low-income households to permanently cut their energy bills with energy efficiency, and created thousands of jobs in manufacturing, engineering, and other clean tech sectors. REV is ensuring New York State reduces statewide greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030 and achieves the internationally-recognized target of reducing emissions 80 percent by 2050. To learn more about REV, including the Governor’s $5 billion investment in clean energy technology and innovation, please visit www.ny.gov/REV4NY and follow us at @Rev4NY. http://www.longisland.com/news/01-25-17/cuomo-largest-offshore-wind-project-li-approved.html
LEADING COMPANIES MAKE BUSINESS CASE TO GO 100% RENEWABLE, The Climate Group, 24 Jan 17 Ilario D’Amato LONDON: Leading global companies have confirmed the strong business case for sourcing 100% renewable electricity in the newly published RE100 Annual Report 2017.
RE100, led by The Climate Group in partnership with CDP, brings together “a growing group of major, influential companies from around the world who are setting targets to go 100% renewable energy in their electricity procurement,” says Jim Walker, Co-Founder of The Climate Group.
Growing rapidly, RE100 now has 87 members across a wide range of sectors – including globally recognized businesses like IKEA, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Tata Motors.
The report shows how RE100 companies are now creating demand for approximately 107 terawatt/hour (TWh) of renewable power annually, which is around the same amount of electricity as consumed by The Netherlands.
“Why are companies doing this? The cost of energy is coming down, rapidly,” continues Jim Walker in a video produced by CBS EcoMedia. “When you are using on-site renewables, you are managing volatility and the price of your energy supply, you are generating your own electrons and you are buying it from yourself – you don’t have to buy it at a retail price, so it’s cheaper. Just makes good business sense. Also, it’s just the right thing to do – contributing to better air quality.”
34 RE100 members have reported that they are generating renewable energy at their facilities – with wind and solar photovoltaics clearly the most popular technologies.
“We did a deal with a Texas wind farm,” confirms Nick Gunn, SVP, Global Corporate Services, Hewlett Packard Enterprise: “We’re procuring now 112 megawatts of power from wind farms, which is actually enough to provide enough electricity for our entire IT infrastructure.”
“Businesses have a huge impact on the ability to inspire an energy revolution. The more companies like Hewlett Packard Enterprise demand renewable energy, the more creation of renewable energy sources there will be.
The company has the goal of raising the use of renewable energy from its current levels of 13% globally to 40% by 2020, with the ultimate target of achieving 100%. Its strategy focuses on reducing energy consumption and increasing energy efficiency, while both generating on-site clean energy and purchasing it through agreements with off-site.
“RE100 importance lies in two factors,” says Rachel Kyte, CEO of Sustainable Energy for All and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All. “One is that the purchasing of renewable energy in the long run positions companies to be at the leading edge of their own sector of industry. On the second hand, its importance lies in the message that sends to the financial sector.” “OUR HOPE IS THAT RE100 JUST BECOMES THE NORM. BY 2020, THIS IS WHAT EVERY BUSINESS DOES.”
CHINESE ASSOCIATION OF AUTOMATION Wind offers an immense, never ending source of energy that can be successfully harnessed to power all of the things that currently draw energy from non-renewable resources. The wind doesn’t always blow, though.
Researchers from North China Electric Power University and North China University of Science and Technology recently developed a model to help predict wind frequency and potential contributions to more traditional energy sources. The scientists published their paper in IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica (JAS).
“Reliable load frequency control is crucial to the operation and design of modern electric power systems,” wrote Yi Zhang, a doctoral student at the North China Electric Power University and an author on the paper. “Due to the randomness and intermittence of the wind power, the controllability and availability of wind power significantly differs from conventional power generation.”
Their method is based on “Model Predictive Control,” wherein checkpoints across a power grid can exchange information and adjust accordingly. The researchers decentralized this model, so that a problem in one area could be solved to benefit the entire grid. The computer algorithm predicts the variables that influence the grid (demand, supply, etcetera) and applies those constraints for any problem that any part of the system might encounter.
A traditionally controlled grid could, for example, redirect otherwise unused energy from sleeping citizens to a power-hungry hospital or some other entity that continues to require energy even during typical off times. In a decentralized system, like the one modeled by Zhang and her colleagues, the system works the same way, but instead of having to clear the redirection with every checkpoint, the variables are assumed and the action is nearly immediate.
To test their algorithm, the researchers compared the volume output and dependability of a four-part system – four plants sharing responsibility for generating power in different areas – with and without the incorporation of wind power.
In the analysis of a conventional power plant, the researchers found that their model required much less computational time compared to the traditional Model Predictive Control. That’s a major advantage, as the computing process is expensive in both time and energy.
When the researchers added the hard-to-predict wind turbines as a source of power in the model, it still worked as well. According to the scientists, the major flaw is that computational needs will increase to maintain system stability, which cannot be guaranteed in their algorithm.
“Our future work is focused on [pursuing] the implementation of [our algorithm] with guaranteeing stability and feasibility while reducing the computation and communication requirements,” Zhang wrote.
The Cost of Solar Power Has Fallen 25% in Only 5 Months, Futurism, Dom Galeon, Oct 2016 It seems that we have truly entered a new era in energy production—in renewable energy production, that is. Over the past new months, the cost of solar power has plummeted, and it seems that things are going to stay this way. Indeed, “there’s no reason why the cost of solar will ever increase again,” former Masdar Clean Energy director Frank Wouters noted in a recent interview with Electrek.The cost of building solar plants has declined by 25 percent in just five months, according to two recent bids in China and Dubai.
The reduction in price follows a broader trend of solar affordability brought on by cheaper solar panels.
If governments and innovators continue to invest in these energy sources in the way that they have been, Wouters statements are easy to believe.
In just 5 months, prices have dropped some 25%. This development is shown in the recent, and staggeringly low, construction bids on solar projects in China ($0.46/W for 500MW of solar power) and Dubai ($0.023/kWh for 1.2GW of solar power).
Several factors have driven these relatively inexpensive bids. In China, solar power is incentivized. To that end, decreasing hardware prices have largely fueled the drastic drop—solar panel costs, for instance, have declined remarkably since the first quarter of this year. And in Abu Dhabi, solar panels produce more power than usual because the city enjoys some of the best sunlight exposure in the world.
Still, Abu Dhabi isn’t the only location with ideal conditions.
Last year, Costa Rica powered itself purely with renewable energy for 299 days total. This year, they already surpassed 150 days. The success, as is true in the other recent successes, isn’t just due to the country’s size or location. The government is serious in its effort to eliminate the use of fossil fuels.
Leonardo DiCaprio highlights Israeli solar techhttp://www.israel21c.org/leonardo-dicaprio-highlights-israeli-solar-tech/ Actor and environmentalist puts international spotlight on Megalim Solar Power project. By Viva Sarah PressJANUARY 22, 2017,Hollywood actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio uses his instagram account to spotlight environmental challenges facing the world and environmental breakthroughs.
As such, his 13.8 million followers were sent a photo of Megalim Solar Power’s Ashalim power station now being built in the Negev desert.
“The arid landscape of Israel’s Negev Desert will look like a futuristic movie in the near future. The country is building the tallest solar thermal tower in the world above its dusty sands,” writes DiCaprio on his post alongside the photo.
The Ashalim project will comprise 55,000 mirrors which will feed solar heat into a 240-meter-tall solar tower — believed to be the highest in the world.
“The tower should be able to produce enough power for about 5% of Israel’s population when it’s concluded,” writes DiCaprio. “The sunlight will be reflected by the mirrors to a boiler at the top of the tower. The boiler will then be able to convert them and heat water to steam to turn the turbine in a conventional power plant.”
The Ashalim power station, scheduled to be up and running by the end of the year, will combine three types of energy: solar thermal, photovoltaic and natural gas.
“Responsibly developed wind energy offers a substantial, economically feasible, and wildlife-friendly energy opportunity for America,” according to the National Wildlife Federation.
Here’s why they offer such strong endorsements.
Scientists overwhelmingly agree that excess carbon pollution threatens birds across the globe. This looms particularly large in North America, where the National Audobon Society finds CO2 pollution could cause 314 different bird species to lose up to 50 percent of their habitats in the coming decades.
Fortunately, wind power remains the biggest, fastest, and cheapest way to reduce carbon pollution, cutting 28 million cars’ worth every year. Wind also contributes to a cleaner environment for America’s birds by eliminating pollutants like nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide that create smog.
Working proactively to keep impacts low
The U.S. wind industry works closely with conservation organizations and government officials to understand and minimize the impacts it does have to the greatest degree possible. Here’s one example of groundbreaking research on ways to do this:
How else do wind developers ensure conservation happens? Some examples of the different methods they use include:
Thorough site monitoring to notice any unexpected impacts.
Creating wildlife preserves.
Partnering to create the American Wind Wildlife Institute to tackle wind and wildlife issues, identifying areas that need research and then making sure it happens.
Performing extensive pre-construction surveys to minimize impacts, and following best practices to maintain small effects during project operations.
Factors like this contributed to the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority’s finding that wind has the lowest impact on wildlife and their habitats of any way to generate electricity.
It is true that wind does have some impact on bird populations, and the U.S. wind industry takes that very seriously. However, this should also be put into context: wind causes less than 0.01 percent of all human-related bird deaths.
The reality is no human activity is completely impact-free. With decades of siting experience and comprehensive environmental impact assessments done before construction, wind greatly lessens the effects it does have.
And because wind power directly combats the greatest threat to birds, helps create a cleaner environment and preserves habitats through its small footprint, it creates a future where birds of all kinds can continue to flourish.
Solar power and other renewable energy sources are increasingly affordable as technologies continues to become more efficient and effective, and the opportunities to scale solutions brings costs down even further. As much as the transition from a fossil-fuel based economy to one powered by renewables is becoming more widely recognised, what is sometimes lost is just how rapid the change has been. Furthermore, it appears the next natural step is a renewable energy source inspired transformation of the way in which we design our future buildings and cities.
During the last six years in the US alone, “solar power has exploded into the energy sector with the kind of industrial vigour not seen since the 1950s”, wrote David Beckham in GreenBiz earlier this month. In 2010, the US had the equivalent of one gigawatt of solar generation capabilities, for perspective on what that means in terms of power demands, Disney Land uses roughly that amount every two weeks – it’s also less than the Doc needed to get the DeLorean running again in Back to the Future! Capacity has ballooned to 30 gigawatts of solar power generation at the beginning of 2016 and is continuing to grow at a rapid pace, mostly thanks to the lowering of costs with the average solar cell now costings $0.35 per watt, compared with around $4 in 2016, all while increasing efficiency by 20%.
Throw in increased volatility in fossil fuel prices – especially oil – and diminishing efficiency gains for non-renewable based technologies, and it should come as no surprise that there is increasing investment and innovation into solar power, not to mention demand, where more panels were installed in the US during 2016 than the previous 38 years combined. Furthermore, digital advances are enabling better understanding and control of complexity and data, a huge advantage for less consistent natural sources of power like solar and wind.
The flexibility of renewables enables designers and architects to adopt a new way of thinking and there are now a growing number of examples where the potential opportunities of integrating energy production into the design of buildings and cities from the outset are being exploited.
Joining up built environment construction and design with renewable energy to create a more diverse, distributed and resilient system of power production integrated directly into cities offers the possibility of producing a holistic solution to individual challenges, the AMIE prototype, produced by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), which integrates solar panels, into a connected home and electric vehicle is one great recent example.
Photovoltaic technologies designed for integration into building components produced by corporates like Californian-based Solaria, who have developed especially effective solar tech so that they can produce glass that can be used in typical window openings, is fully see through and generates electricity, are predicted to become increasingly common. Indeed, the level of development and scale of Solaria itself may surprise some.
“Architectural solar” is still in relative infancy, but if anything can be learned by the growth of solar power generation, which few would have expected to be economically viable by 2016 looking at the 2010 landscape, it is that technology with potential can and will be developed exceptionally quickly in a context where there is demand for the solutions it provides. The ORNL experiment and current solutions sold by Solaria may only be a beginning, but anticipating rapid evolution looks like a good bet.
Liebreich and McCrone: The shift to ‘base-cost’ renewables: 10 predictions for 2017 By Michael Liebreich and Angus McCrone on 20 January 2017“………… The good news is that renewable energy has – at least on a levelized cost of electricity, or LCOE, basis – clearly achieved the long-awaited goal of grid competitiveness. More than that, in many countries it now undercuts every other source of new generating capacity, sometimes by very considerable margins.
Last year saw unsubsidized price records of $30 per megawatt-hour for a wind farm in Morocco and $29.10 for a solar plant in Chile. These must be the lowest electricity prices, for any new project, of any technology, anywhere in the world, ever. And we are still going to see further falls in equipment prices.
Super-low-cost renewable power – what we are now calling “base-cost renewables” – is going to force a revolution in the way power grids are designed, and the way they are regulated…….
Putting super-cheap, “base-cost” renewable power at the heart of the world’s grids in this way will require a revolution in the way the electricity system is regulated. Renewable power’s progress to date has been achieved mainly by subsidizing or mandating its installation, while forcing the rest of the system to provide flexibility, within otherwise unchanged regulatory environments and power market rules. The additional system costs have been material but generally affordable.
That has taken renewable energy to 20, 30 or 40 percent of supply in many markets. ……..
………1. GLOBAL INVESTMENT TO STRUGGLE…….
2. GROWTH SPURT FOR BATTERIES, SMART METERS………
3. SOLAR INSTALLATIONS FALL IN CHINA BUT RISE WORLDWIDE…….
4. WIND BLOWS SIDEWAYS……
5. COAL AND OIL RALLIES PETER OUT……..
6. U.S. GAS PRICES REMAIN FIRM…..
7. EVS BREAK THE MILLION VEHICLE MILESTONE……
8. CORPORATE RENEWABLE ENERGY ON A TEAR….
9. RESILIENCE AND SECURITY RECEIVE OVERDUE ATTENTION…..
6.4 million Americans now work in the traditional energy and the energy efficiency sector, which added more than 300,000 net new jobs in 2016, or 14 percent of the nation’s job growth.
“This report verifies the dynamic role that our energy technologies and infrastructure play in a 21st century economy,” said DOE Senior Advisor on Industrial and Economic Policy David Foster. “Whether producing natural gas or solar power at increasingly lower prices or reducing our consumption of energy through smart grids and fuel efficient vehicles, energy innovation is proving itself as the important driver of economic growth in America, producing 14 percent of the new jobs in 2016.”
The solar industry is particularly shining bright.
“Proportionally, solar employment accounts for the largest share of workers in the Electric Power Generation sector,” the report, released on Jan. 13, states. “This is largely due to the construction related to the significant buildout of new solar generation capacity.” Overall, the U.S. solar workforce increased 25 percent in 2016.
According to the report, solar—both photovoltaic and concentrated—employed almost 374,000 workers in 2016, or 43 percent of the Electric Power Generation workforce. This is followed by fossil fuels, which accounts for 22 percent of total Electric Power Generation employment, or 187,117 workers across coal, oil and natural gas generation technologies.
Wind generation is seeing growth in employment with a 32 percent increase since 2015. The wind industry provides the third largest share of Electric Power Generation employment with 102,000 workers at wind firms across the nation.
The reason behind this growth in the solar sector is due to the high capacity additions in both distributed and utility-scale photovoltaic solar, the report said. In fact, construction and installation projects represented the largest share of solar jobs, with almost four in ten workers doing this kind of work, followed by workers in solar wholesale trade, manufacturing and professional services.
In a sign of promise for the booming industry, solar employers reported that they expect to increase employment by 7 percent this year.
Solar is becoming the cheapest form of electricity production in the world, according to statistics from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Last year was the first time that the renewable energy technology out-performed fossil fuels on a large scale.
Saudi Arabia to focus on solar, wind in $US50bn clean energy plan REneweconomy By Ilias Tsagas on 18 January 2017 PV MagazineSpeaking yesterday at an Abu Dhabi’s Sustainability Week (ADSW) event, Saudi Arabia’s energy, industry and mineral resources minister Khalid Al-Falih announced a new grand energy plan for the country. The new program is set to commence in a few weeks’ time, when Saudi Arabia’s government will launch the first round of bidding for a new renewable energy tender, energy minister Al-Falih announced at the World Future Energy Summit 2017 (WFES) in Abu Dhabi.
The energy minister did not, however, provide any details regarding the capacity that will be auctioned in the tender.
He did inform the attendants that Saudi Arabia’s new master program for the energy sector will require between USD 30 to 50 billion investment, which will need to come via the private sector.
Solar and wind power will be the preferred technologies in the auctions, but geothermal and waste projects will also be considered, just with a smaller role to play.
Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s biggest oil producer, is aiming for renewable energy installations, primarily of solar and wind, of 9.5 GW by 2023, but this is just the starting point, the country’s energy minister told the ADSW.
By 2030, the country will generate 70 percent of its electricity from natural gas and 30 percent from renewables and other sources, promised Al-Falih.
This solar strategy is an integral part of the company’s stated goal of a net-zero energy facility, through which it will produce as much — or more — energy than it consumes.
Dive Insight:
Another energy-saving strategy at the gigafactory, according to 2015 statements from JB Straubel, Tesla’s chief technical officer, was to eschew natural gas pipelines in the structure’s design so that there could be no future possible concessions regarding the company’s no-emissions policy.
Construction on the Nevada gigafactory — expected to be fully functional in 2018 — is progressing, and battery production is already underway. It is widely believed that the solar panels Tesla will use to build its rooftop solar farm will come from SolarCity, which Tesla purchased last year. Soon after the acquisition, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that SolarCity would begin to market a relatively low-cost solar roof shingle that mimicked the look of high-end slate and terra cotta roofs, removing the aesthetic barrier of traditional, industrial-looking solar shingles and panels.
Tesla’s solar ambitions, however, extend far beyond the U.S. and solar rooftops. In November, TechCrunch reported that Tesla and SolarCity were behind a solar microgrid project — funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior and the American Samoa Economic Development Authority — that aims to eliminate the island’s reliance on costly diesel generators by providing 72 hours of full power from a solar array that recharges with seven hours of sunlight.
King CONG vs. Solartopia, The Progressive December 5, 2016, Harvey Wasserman “………Some 10,000 arrests of citizens engaged in civil disobedience have put the Diablo nuclear reactors at ground zero in the worldwide No Nukes campaign. But the epic battle goes far beyond atomic power. It is a monumental showdown over who will own our global energy supply, and how this will impact the future of our planet.
On one side is King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes, and Gas), the corporate megalith that’s unbalancing our weather and dominating our governments in the name of centralized, for-profit control of our economic future. On the other is a nonviolent grassroots campaign determined to reshape our power supply to operate in harmony with nature, to serve the communities and individuals who consume and increasingly produce that energy, and to build the foundation of a sustainable eco-democracy…….
with this dangerous and dirty power have come Earth-friendly alternatives, ignited in part by the grassroots movements of the 1960s. E.F. Schumacher’s Small Is Beautifulbecame the bible of a back-to-the-land movement that took a new generation of veteran activists into the countryside.
Dozens of nonviolent confrontations erupted, with thousands of arrests. In June 1978, nine months before the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island, the grassroots Clamshell Alliance drew 20,000 participants to a rally at New Hampshire’s Seabrook site. And Amory Lovins’s pathbreaking article, “Energy Strategy:TheRoad Not Taken,”posited a whole new energy future, grounded in photovoltaic and wind technologies, along with breakthroughs in conservation and efficiency, and a paradigm of decentralized, community-owned power.
As rising concerns about global warming forced a hard look at fossil fuels, the fading nuclear power industry suddenly had a new selling point. Climate expert James Hansen, former Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman, and Whole Earth Catalog founder Stewart Brand began advocating atomic energy as an answer to CO2 emissions. The corporate media began breathlessly reporting a “nuclear renaissance” allegedly led by hordes of environmentalists.
But the launch of Peaceful Atom 2.0 has fallen flat.
As I recently detailed in an online article for The Progressive, atomic energy adds to rather than reduces global warming. All reactors emit Carbon-14. The fuel they burn demands substantial CO2 emissions in the mining, milling, and enrichment processes. Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen has compiled a wide range of studies concluding new reactor construction would significantly worsen the climate crisis.
Moreover, attempts to recycle spent reactor fuel or weapons material have failed, as have attempts to establish a workable nuclear-waste management protocol. For decades, reactor proponents have argued that the barriers to radioactive waste storage are political rather than technical. But after six decades, no country has unveiled a proven long-term storage strategy for high-level waste.
For all the millions spent on it, the nuclear renaissance has failed to yield a single new reactor order. New projects in France, Finland, South Carolina, and Georgia are costing billions extra, with opening dates years behind schedule. Five projects pushed by the Washington Public Power System caused the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. No major long-standing green groups have joined the tiny crew of self-proclaimed “pro-nuke environmentalists.” Wall Street is backing away.
Even the split atom’s most ardent advocates are hard-pressed to argue any new reactors will be built in the United States, or more than a scattered few anywhere else but China, where the debate still rages and the outcome is uncertain……..
Where once it demanded deregulation and a competitive market, the nuclear industry now wants re-regulation and guaranteed profits no matter how badly it performs.
The grassroots pushback has been fierce. Proposed bailouts have been defeated in Illinois and are under attack in New York and Ohio. A groundbreaking agreement involving green and union groups has set deadlines for shutting the Diablo reactors, with local activists demanding a quicker timetable. Increasingly worried about meltdowns and explosions, grassroots campaigns to close old reactors are ramping up throughout the United States and Europe. Citizen action in Japan has prevented the reopening of nearly all nuclear plants since Fukushima.
Envisioning the “nuclear interruption” behind us, visionaries like Lovins see a decentralized “Solartopian” system with supply owned and operated at the grassroots………
[In Germany] the transition is succeeding faster and more profitably than its staunchest supporters imagined. Wind and solar have blasted ahead. Green energy prices have dropped and Germans are enthusiastically lining up to put power plants on their rooftops. Sales of solar panels have skyrocketed, with an ever-growing percentage of supply coming from stand-alone buildings and community projects. The grid has been flooded with cheap, green juice, crowding out the existing nukes and fossil burners, cutting the legs out from under the old system.
In many ways it’s the investor-owner utilities’ worst nightmare,………
The revolution has spread to the transportation sector, where electric cars are now plugging into outlets powered by solar panels on homes, offices, commercial buildings, and factories. Like nuclear power, the gas-driven automobile may be on its way to extinction.
Nationwide, more than 200,000 Americans now work in the solar industry, including more than 75,000 in California alone. By contrast, only about 100,000 people work in the U.S. nuclear industry. Some 88,000 Americans now work in the wind industry, compared to about 83,000 in coal mines, with that number also dropping steadily.
Once the shining hope of the corporate power industry, atomic energy’s demise represents more than just the failure of a technology. It’s the prime indicator of an epic shift away from corporate control of a grid-based energy supply, toward a green power web owned and operated by the public.
As homeowners, building managers, factories, and communities develop an ever-firmer grip on a grassroots homegrown power supply, the arc of our 128-year energy war leans toward Solartopia.
While it may be hard to believe, nine lawmakers in Wyoming have introduced a bill that would forbid utilities from providing any electricity to the state that comes from large-scale wind or solar energy projects by 2019.
SENATE FILE NO. SF0071 details the Electricity Production Standard for the state of Wyoming, and it’s a real doozy. It is being sponsored by two state senators and seven state representatives, all Republicans, of course.
Inside Climate News is calling the bill an attack on clean energy in Wyoming, and possibly the nation. And what’s really absurd is that it is coming at a time when the cost of using clean energy sources has plummeted across the country, as we seek to remedy the impacts of climate change.
There are only six permissible resources allowed for the generation of electricity in the state, coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, something called a “net metering” system, nuclear power and oil. Wind and solar are not included with the exception that they are for individual use only, reports the Star Tribune.
Utility companies are mandated to use the approved sources to meet 95 percent of the state’s electricity needs by 2018 and 100 percent of the state’s power needs by 2019. Bottom line — using power from utility-scale wind, solar and other renewable projects would be outlawed under this legislation.
Now utility companies can sell electricity generated by wind or solar power outside the state without paying a penalty. But they will be charged a fine of $10.00 per kilowatt hour if they give any electricity to state residents.
Wyoming’s dependence on coal
You could believe it when I say many of the lawmakers backing the bill are from top coal-producing counties in the state. Coal production has been the backbone of Wyoming’s economy since the 1970s and has provided the most stable source of tax revenues for the state over the past four decades.
And the proposed legislation is a last ditch effort to save a coal industry that has already been crippled because of plummeting oil, gas and coal prices over the past few years. This is one reason it was so important that Donald Trump win the election in November. With Trump, there was a very good chance that regulations would be rolled back, energizing the coal industry in the state.
Trump’s energy platform is primarily about deregulation, including a promise to kill the Clean Power Plan, which is under consideration by the courts. Under the plan, coal production in Western states would fall by 155 million tons between 2015 and 2040. And two-thirds of that coal comes from the Powder River Basin in northern Wyoming and Montana, according to a story in the Star Tribune in October 2016.
“Our analysis suggests that solar could now infringe on gas’ market share and in some cases challenge its peak margins, and that gas and renewables collectively will continue to gain market share at the expense of coal and nuclear,”
Levelized cost of energy survey shows wind, natural gas cementing economic edge SNL, 06 January 2017 By Lucas Bifera
A survey of levelized cost of energy, or LCOE, studies illustrates that onshore wind and combined-cycle gas have secured their place as the lowest-cost energy resources, with utility-scale solar not far behind.
Often used as a barometer for estimating the cost at which certain generation technologies can be deployed on an economic basis, LCOE has become a mainstay for policymakers, analysts and industry groups as a reference when comparing costs and benefits of various technologies on the grid.
Incumbent technologies like combined-cycle gas, onshore wind, utility-scale solar photovoltaic, nuclear and coal are uniformly included in studies…….the emergence of a cluster around onshore wind and combined-cycle gas across the different studies indicates an economic consensus, one that highlights the cost effectiveness of renewables on an unsubsidized basis and role of combined-cycle gas as the preeminent baseload resource.
“The demands of a developed economy will continue to require both traditional and alternative energy sources as the technologies driving renewable energy evolve,” observed George Bilicic, vice chairman and global head of power, energy & infrastructure group at Lazard, an investment bank that releases a widely-cited LCOE study each year.
But on an unsubsidized basis, renewables remain competitive across all studies, and in the case of the Bloomberg New Energy Finance analysis, wind resources in Texas have become the cheapest source of power across North and South America, consistent with Lazard’s finding that wind has a low end range of $32/MWh in the Midwest and $36/MWh in Texas.
“Wind capital costs will go up because they are building higher towers, but LCOE values will fall because they have better capacity factors,” said Josh Rhodes, postdoctoral fellow at the Webber Energy Group and co-author of a study from The University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute.
“I think we will see a major deployment of solar and wind to come online by [the end of] 2019 in order to take advantage of the full ITC and PTC,” Rhodes noted, looking outward.
Onshore wind and utility-scale solar additions appear poised to outstrip additions of natural-gas fired ……… the Energy Information Administration’s recent 2017 Annual Energy Outlook, which projects that between 2018 and 2022, as much as 54.2 GW of wind could come online, in addition to 13.4 GW of solar photovoltaic capacity.
Combined, that projected capacity is more than 40 times the amount of projected advanced natural gas-fired capacity projected in the same study, which EIA estimates at 1.6 GW.
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