Wind

Sun, 2012-10-28 05:00Farron Cousins
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Why Is North America Behind The Curve On Climate Change and Energy?

Just three short years ago, it appeared that North America was on the verge of finally kicking that nasty dirty energy addiction that was crippling our economies and our energy independence.  The United States had elected a president (Barack Obama) who set incredibly lofty goals for renewable energy targets, and green energy investments across the continent were higher than anywhere else in the world.

Read more: Why Is North America Behind The Curve On Climate Change and Energy?
Tue, 2012-10-23 05:00Steve Horn
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As You Sow: Coal Investments, Shale Gas, a Bad Bet

In a missive titled "White Paper: Financial Risks of Investments in Coal," As You Sow concludes that coal is becoming an increasingly risky investment with each passing day. The fracking boom and the up-and-coming renewable energy sector are quickly superseding King Coal's empire as a source of power generation, As You Sow concludes in the report.

As You Sow chocks up King Coal's ongoing demise to five factors, quoting straight from the report:

1. Increasing capital costs for environmental controls at existing coal plants and uncertainty about future regulatory compliance costs

2. Declining prices for natural gas, a driver of electric power prices in competitive markets

3. Upward price pressures and price volatility of coal

4. High construction costs for new coal plants and unknown costs to implement carbon capture and storage

5. Increasing competitiveness of renewable generation resources

Read more: As You Sow: Coal Investments, Shale Gas, a Bad Bet
Sun, 2012-09-23 18:21Laurel Whitney
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Amidst Record Drought, Report Shows Massive Water Requirements For Nonrenewable Fuels

If you haven't heard about the major droughts afflicting most of the US this summer, then you may just have your head in the sand (or more likely a water-parched dusty hole). In fact, the media department of the Drought Monitor website ran out of combinations for modifying the words "intensify" and "widespread" when referring to the drought in their headlines.

Indeed, if you have been keeping tabs on the situation, "megadrought" and "a new normal?" sound highly familiar by now. With farmers nervous about a modern-day Dust Bowl taking hold, the question on everyone's mind is, how long will it last?

This visceral threat of water scarcity puts a new report about the true cost of fossil fuels in perspective. "The Hidden Costs of Electricity: Comparing the Hidden Costs of Power Generation Fuels" evaluates, among other parameters, the water demands of fuel sources such as biomass, coal, nuclear, natural gas, solar, and wind.

In short, the nonrenewables like nuclear and coal use far more water to generate electricity than clean energy technologies like solar and wind. Take a look at how much water power plants need to function (mainly for the purpose of cooling):

Read more: Amidst Record Drought, Report Shows Massive Water Requirements For Nonrenewable Fuels
Mon, 2012-09-17 12:06Farron Cousins
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U.S. Government Significantly Underestimating Costs Of Climate Change And Dirty Energy

A new study released today shows that the U.S. government is using faulty calculations and outdated information to determine the costs of energy and climate change in America. The study was written by Chris Hope from the University of Cambridge and Laurie Johnson of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and published in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences.

Current government models would have us believe that fossil fuels provide the cheapest sources of electricity for the United States, but the new study says that the numbers being used are misleading, as they do not take into account all of the costs, specifically those related to climate change, that these sources of energy carry.

From NRDC:

Read more: U.S. Government Significantly Underestimating Costs Of Climate Change And Dirty Energy
Mon, 2012-06-25 21:51Brendan DeMelle
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Heartland Institute, ALEC and More Gearing Up to Undermine Renewable Energy

One of the environmental movement’s biggest accomplishments over the past decade has been convincing states to adopt so-called renewable portfolio standards (RPS). RPS require a state’s energy supply to diversify, gradually shifting away from fossil fuels and towards renewable sources like geothermal, wind and solar.

At least 30 states now have these measures which set deadlines to ensure that a certain amount -- sometimes as much as 40 percent -- of energy consumed in the state comes from renewable sources. As climate change, air pollution and the broad-based political attacks on renewable sources of energy grow worse by the day, these RPS are more crucial than ever.

But they’re in jeopardy.

State legislatures have introduced a handful of bills over the past year seeking to repeal state RPS altogether or to expand the definition of renewable energy in ways that will weaken their climate change benefits. In the past several months, two major conservative groups -- the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform  -- said they plan a full-scale legislative push to remove the mandates.

Read more: Heartland Institute, ALEC and More Gearing Up to Undermine Renewable Energy
Wed, 2011-05-11 16:07Laurel Whitney
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New Coal Cares™ Campaign Targeting Link Between Coal And Asthma Leaves Viewers Breathless

Peabody Energy seemed to have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day yesterday as they started to receive curious phone calls from consumers asking just how many Justin Beiber inhalers they were planning on giving away, and how courageous it was that a coal company was stepping up to acknowledge the role that pollution from their coal plants makes people sick, especially kids with asthma. Alas, the PR team at Peabody was quite confused on both accounts.

Around 9:00 am eastern time, a new “market-friendly public health initiative” hit journalists’ email inboxes announcing the launch of Coal Cares™, a campaign from Peabody Energy that would give away free novelty-themed inhaler actuators and also generously offer a $10-off coupon for the actual asthma medication, but only if you lived within 200 miles of a coal plant (news flash, you probably do).

Read more: New Coal Cares™ Campaign Targeting Link Between Coal And Asthma Leaves Viewers Breathless
Mon, 2010-12-20 13:37Mike Casey
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T. Boone Picken’s Flip-Flop on Wind: Need for RES, Grid Upgrades, and a Memo to Gas Industry That Fracking Is a Dead End

Cross posted from Scaling Green. 

Watch T. Boone Picken change his story in this recent commercial

Why throw wind power out of the plan when it’s experiencing explosive growth around the world?

1) According to Public Citizen Energy Program Director Tyson Slocum, Pickens “stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars” and “doesn’t see wind personally as a lucrative investment anymore.”

2) According to MSNBC, “Pickens now says Canada is more appealing because the country has renewable energy standards that require energy companies to buy certain amounts of wind power.”

3) Energy Boom notes that “construction of the wind farm was hampered by a lack of transmission lines to transfer the energy to city centers.”

Why the change? What’s different and what’s the same since Pickens ran his TV ads?

  • The legislation for both an RES and also a so-called “Clean Energy Standard”(CES) stalled.
  • The coal and oil industries used the Citizens United decision to buy a Congress filled with people who are either proudly dumb (Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois actually quoted Genesis at a hearing of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment as “evidence” that climate change is not a problem, since ‘The Earth will end only when God declares it’s time to be over”) or who are too bought to worry that China is aggressively promoting its clean energy industry and its domestic clean energy market
  • The need for an upgrade to the stayed the same, and that upgrade will stillrequire an enormous investment.
  • We sent the same or more oil money to foreign dictators who hate America.
  • But, the natural gas industry decided it could get away with contaminating America’s water supplies through fracking and wouldn’t get caught until it was far too late.

It’s hard to say what drove Pickens to change, but it’s also hard to get past the sense that he wasn’t really sincere when he said the Pickens Plan wasn’t about him making money: “I’m 80 years old and have $4 billion. I don’t need any more money.”

Pickens clearly has broken with wind power. But looking at all that noise he made back then, maybe when he talked about helping America he was just breaking wind.

Cross posted from Scaling Green. Follow Scaling Green on Twitter.

Read more: T. Boone Picken’s Flip-Flop on Wind: Need for RES, Grid Upgrades, and a Memo to Gas Industry That Fracking Is a Dead End
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