Tag: energy

California just reached ~95% renewable energy!

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Something remarkable happened over the weekend: California hit nearly 95% renewable energy.

I’ll say it again: 95% renewables. For all the time we spend talking about how to reach 100% clean power, it sometimes seems like a faraway proposition, whether the timeframe is California’s 2045 target or President Biden’s more aggressive 2035 goal. But on Saturday just before 2:30 p.m., one of the world’s largest economies came within a stone’s throw of getting there…

The 94.5% record may have been fleeting, but it wasn’t some isolated spike. Most of Saturday afternoon, the renewables number topped 90%, with solar and wind farms doing the bulk of the work and geothermal, biomass and hydropower facilities making smaller contributions. Add in the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant — which isn’t counted toward California’s renewables mandate — and there was enough climate-friendly power at times Saturday to account for more than 100% of the state’s electricity needs…

There are now 14 electric grid operators participating in the imbalance market, from Arizona Public Service in the Southwest to Idaho Power in the Northwest to Warren Buffett-owned Rocky Mountain Power in the Intermountain West. Several utilities joined this month, including the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which has long zealously guarded its independence. Several more are preparing to join, as far from California as NorthWestern Energy in Montana and El Paso Electric in Texas.

By 2023, the market will cover 83% of electricity demand in the West.

That’s one of the sound, realistic, productive ways to manage climate change and turn energy production into a healthier industry for human beings. Not that conservative denialists care a rat’s ass about any of this. Truth is … we can continue on with this level of progressive change with no participation from rightwingers. They can continue to sit on their hands … while the rest of this nation moves forward.

Navy is developing coatings for ships that may reduce fuel, energy costs 40-80%

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❝ It can repel water, oil, alcohol and even peanut butter. And it might save the U.S. Navy millions of dollars in ship fuel costs, reduce the amount of energy that vessels consume and improve operational efficiency.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is sponsoring work by Dr. Anish Tuteja, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Michigan, to develop a new type of “omniphobic” coating. This chemical coating is clear, durable, can be applied to numerous surfaces and sheds just about any liquid.

❝…In addition to omniphobic coatings to lessen friction drag, ONR is sponsoring other types of coating research to prevent corrosion on both ships and aircraft and fight biofouling (the buildup of barnacles on hulls). Similar coatings can also prevent ice from forming on ships operating in cold regions, or make ice removal much easier than conventional methods like scraping.

The Navy thinks it’s a big deal to consider coatings for the outside of ships, other devices. They should also consider coatings for the inside of pipes. About 30% of all energy consumed for everything from heating and cooling your home to performing similar functions – and more – aboard ship happens inside pumps and pipes connected by pumps. Just a suggestion.

Old King Coal doesn’t stand a chance

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❝ Despite plummeting wholesale electricity prices in some areas of the US as well as essentially flat electricity demand in recent years, natural gas and renewable capacity is still being built…

❝ In 2016, the Energy Information Agency notes, natural gas-fired electric generation in the US increased by 3.4 percent; non-hydroelectric renewables like wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal increased by 15.7 percent; and conventional hydroelectric power grew by 7.5 percent. Coal electric generation, on the other hand, fell by 8.4 percent in 2016.

RTFA for details. Still, unless you believe the rant of fools like Trump, you shouldn’t be surprised.

Trump & Republican Dirty Fuel Pimps Hand Over $20 Billion-a-Year of Taxpayer Subsidies

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❝ Millions of Americans may be struggling to pay routine household bills, but still US taxpayers are handing out a whopping $20 billion in fossil fuel subsidies a year.

This is the major finding of a new report Dirty Energy Dominance: Dependent on Denial published by Oil Change International today.

Subsidies are where the government gives financial incentives to artificially lower the cost of production or consumption of fossil fuels to encourage more drilling or oil, gas, or coal use.

❝ …The irony gets worse. There is something morally wrong with a billionaire-led Administration handing out money to rich executives, when this money could help America’s poorest and most at need.

The cost of the subsidies to American taxpayers is equivalent to the projected 2018 budget cuts from Trump’s proposals to slash 10 public programs and services, including supports for America’s most vulnerable children and families…

❝ The US spent on average $2.5 billion annually subsidizing the exploration of new fossil fuel resources in 2015 and 2016, even though the science clearly shows that fossil fuel expansion must stop immediately in order to meet internationally recognized climate goals.

Government giveaways in the form of permanent tax breaks to the fossil fuel industry – one of which is over a century old – are seven times larger than those to the renewable energy sector.

So, the Clown Show in Congress continues to cut subsidies to homeowners trying to save on energy costs with solar and other green alternatives – while perpetuating the taxpayer handout to oil and coal companies. Mail me a penny postcard when the crew in DC grows enough backbone to stand on their own and oppose the profit-hungry crooks they really work for.

Lessons from Germany’s Transition from Coal to Renewables

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❝ Seventy-seven-year-old Heinz Spahn—whose blue eyes are both twinkling and stern — vividly recalls his younger days. The Zollverein coal mine, where he worked in the area of Essen, Germany, was so clogged with coal dust, he remembers, that people would stir up a black cloud whenever they moved. “It was no pony farm,” he says — using the sardonic German phrase to describe the harsh conditions: The roar of machines was at a constant 110 decibels, and the men were nicknamed waschbar, or “raccoons,” for the black smudges that permanently adorned their faces.

Today, the scene at Zollverein is very different. Inside the coal washery where Spahn once worked—the largest building in the Zollverein mining complex — the air is clean, and its up to 8,000 miners have been replaced by one-and-a-half million tourists annually. The whole complex is now a UNESCO world heritage site: Spahn, who worked here as a fusion welder until the mine shut down on December 23, 1986, is employed as a guide to teach tourists about its history. “I know this building in and out. I know every screw,” he says fondly.

❝ Zollverein is a symbol of Germany’s transition away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy — a program called the Energiewende that aims to have 80 percent of the country’s energy generated from renewables by 2050. That program has transformed Germany into a global poster child for green energy. But what does the transition mean for residents of Essen and the rest of the Ruhr region — the former industrial coal belt—whose lives and livelihoods have been dramatically altered by the reduced demand for coal? The answer to that could hold some useful lessons for those undergoing similar transitions elsewhere…

The trade unions are stronger in Germany than in the United States. Progressive politicians are often voted into office – locally and nationally – in Germany. There has been legitimate, strong pressure exerted upon government and corporations alike in Germany. RTFA and see what a difference that has made in the transition away from the most polluting energy sources.

Obama’s energy efficiency policy saves taxpayers over $500 billion – of course Trump’s pimps oppose it!

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Just another Trump pimp who can’t figure out how to sign his name

❝ A leaked draft study of the electric grid requested by Energy Secretary Rick Perry found that federal energy efficiency policies are in the process of saving U.S. consumers and businesses more than a half trillion dollars.

So…the new administration is halting energy efficiency policies and gutting funding for energy efficiency improvements for American homes. Perry’s department is currently being sued by 11 states for stalling efficiency mandates for air conditioners and other high-energy products.

❝ Back in April, Perry ordered a study from Department of Energy (DOE) staff to back up his claims that solar and wind power were undermining the U.S. electric grid’s reliability. But a July draft obtained by Bloomberg debunked that attack. Instead, the authors found that “the power system is more reliable today” than ever.

❝ …ThinkProgress reported the study concluded a large fraction of America’s aging fleet of coal and nuclear plants are simply not economic to operate anymore.

The study has a long discussion of why coal and nuclear aren’t going to become economic anytime soon. For instance, it’s increasingly clear that, for the foreseeable future, natural gas prices will stay low — and that renewable sources of power like solar and wind will continue the stunning price drops they’ve seen in the past two decades, which have upended the global power market…

❝ No good policy goes unpunished in the Trump administration, however, so California and New York are leading a coalition of states in a lawsuit to force DOE to publish five efficiency standards that were finalized under the Obama administration but were undergoing a 45-day review period (typically used for catching typographical errors and other minor problems…) when Trump took office. Six months later, the new administration still hasn’t sent the rules to the Federal Registrar to be published.

Three Bronx cheers for Trump efficiency in government. Not only is he – and his True Believers – incompetent at introducing and passing legislation which might benefit average Americans, they refuse to carry through simple publication of improvements like this which would save consumers a half-trillion dollar$.

Pic of the day

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Click to enlarge — AP

This 2013 file photo shows an 80-foot thick coal seam at Cloud Peak Energy’s Spring Creek strip mine near Decker, Montana. As far as US energy barons like the Koch Bros. are concerned it may as well be gold.

CERN’s potential new particle discovery is a game changer

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❝The team at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland may have discovered a new particle. In its first set of significant results since the upgrade earlier this year, LHC researchers have observed large spikes in energy that could be the result of particle collisions between a new boson even larger than the Higgs.

If it turns out that the data does indeed represent a new particle it would be “a total game changer,” Gian Francesco Giudice, a CERN theorist who wasn’t involved in the discovery, told Nature. “The Higgs boson pales in comparison, in terms of novelty.”

❝The results appear to confirm speculation about a new discovery at the LHC that has been circulating on social media for the last couple of days. Judging by the results, the particle — if it is a new discovery — would be about four times larger than the top quark, the heaviest particle so far discovered. And it would be six times bigger than the Higgs.

The announcement comes after the researchers spotted unexpected spikes in energy that reflect a collision between super-high energy protons. The different teams working at the LHC have similar results — they both saw an excess number of pairs of photons each carrying around 750 gigaelectronvolts (GeV) of energy. They believe this could have come from the decay of a new 1,500 GeV particle…

❝The reason CERN has published the results — which it wouldn’t normally do with so little evidence — is that both the Atlas and CMS teams saw the same thing. Atlas saw 40 incidences of the 750 GeV energy pairs, and CMS saw 10.

But it could just be a statistical bump, which occurs all the time. “We expect about ten times as much data next year, which should help resolve this question – but quite likely throw up new ones,” Dave Charlton continued.

The researchers expect to verify whether this represents a new particle or just a bump in 2016.

Between Congressional beancounters and a guy named Clinton in the White House offering wimp-class support, the attempt to build a superconducting super-collider in the United States failed. It would have been three times more powerful than the Large Hadron Collider v1.0.

We had lots of money and time left after that to devote to the Crusades in the Middle East, Homeland Insecurity and the War on Terror, though. American politicians surely know how to organize priorities, eh?

158 families own the 2016 presidential election — or so they think

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They are overwhelmingly white, rich, older and male, in a nation that is being remade by the young, by women, and by black and brown voters. Across a sprawling country, they reside in an archipelago of wealth, exclusive neighborhoods dotting a handful of cities and towns. And in an economy that has minted billionaires in a dizzying array of industries, most made their fortunes in just two: finance and energy.

Now they are deploying their vast wealth in the political arena, providing almost half of all the seed money raised to support Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. Just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million in the first phase of the campaign, a New York Times investigation found. Not since before Watergate have so few people and businesses provided so much early money in a campaign, most of it through channels legalized by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision five years ago.

The majority of it guided by ideology not economics. BTW.

These donors’ fortunes reflect the shifting composition of the country’s economic elite. Relatively few work in the traditional ranks of corporate America, or hail from dynasties of inherited wealth. Most built their own businesses, parlaying talent and an appetite for risk into huge wealth: They founded hedge funds in New York, bought up undervalued oil leases in Texas, made blockbusters in Hollywood. More than a dozen of the elite donors were born outside the United States, immigrating from countries like Cuba, the old Soviet Union, Pakistan, India and Israel.

But regardless of industry, the families investing the most in presidential politics overwhelmingly lean right, contributing tens of millions of dollars to support Republican candidates who have pledged to pare regulations; cut taxes on income, capital gains and inheritances; and shrink entitlement programs…

In marshaling their financial resources chiefly behind Republican candidates, the donors are also serving as a kind of financial check on demographic forces that have been nudging the electorate toward support for the Democratic Party and its economic policies. Two-thirds of Americans support higher taxes on those earning $1 million or more a year, according to a June New York Times/CBS News poll, while six in 10 favor more government intervention to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly seven in 10 favor preserving Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are.

RTFA. Please. A solid piece of research.

I doubt it will hold any surprises; but, it may also reinforce your resolve to continue the change that the majority of Americans endorse. Even if that bothers the nouveau riche.