General energy news

[flacaltenn]

What conservatives don't seem to get is the fact that renewables will always be here for humanity. No pollution, no health effects from that pollution, little environmental damage comparably and cheaper.

20 years from now solar will be seen as the conservative energy as it will be common sense. Simply economic.

20 years from now -- folks with common sense will be seeking you idiots out who claimed "no pollution" from renewables and forcing them to dump the waste stream from THIS into THEIR backyards..

THAT'S the massive battery barns that have to be built to cope with more than a few percent of flaky, intermittent renewables on the grid.. HUNDREDS of TONS of batteries with limited lifetimes and a list of toxic contents.. That little number there is about sufficient to handle a couple dozen wind turbines. Or the brown-out from a mid-size cloud passing overhead for a medium size commercial solar farm..

 

[PMZ]

What conservatives don't seem to get is the fact that renewables will always be here for humanity. No pollution, no health effects from that pollution, little environmental damage comparably and cheaper.

20 years from now solar will be seen as the conservative energy as it will be common sense. Simply economic.

20 years from now -- folks with common sense will be seeking you idiots out who claimed "no pollution" from renewables and forcing them to dump the waste stream from THIS into THEIR backyards..

THAT'S the massive battery barns that have to be built to cope with more than a few percent of flaky, intermittent renewables on the grid.. HUNDREDS of TONS of batteries with limited lifetimes and a list of toxic contents.. That little number there is about sufficient to handle a couple dozen wind turbines. Or the brown-out from a mid-size cloud passing overhead for a medium size commercial solar farm..

Q: How often do you have to replace the batteries?

A: Nickel Metal Hydride batteries (NiMH) are proving to be very long lived. Several cars with over 130,000 miles have been reported with virtually no range degradation. Estimates of 150,000 – 200,000 miles are predicted. Lithium Ion (LiIon) is thought by most experts to be the chemistry that will supplant NiMH. The testing of battery life is continuing, but it’s too early to tell how long LiIon will last.

Q: What if electric cars get their energy from dirty sources like coal – how clean are they then?

A: The Argonne National Labs have looked into this issue and report that the mix of power in the electrical grid, not all of which is coal, results in a 32% decrease in greenhouse gases with EVs. The other pollutants similarly meet the stringest standards for the cleanest gas cars today, even charging completely from an ordinary coal plant. Many states such as California are much cleaner, with a grid mix at 29% coal. EVs also allow you to use 100% clean renewable electricity from sources such as the sun or wind. In addition, EVs get cleaner as the electrical grid gets cleaner. Gas cars only get dirtier as they age. We support replacing all “fossil-fuel” electricity generation with clean and renewable generating methods.

Q: Aren’t all those batteries full of toxic chemicals and precious metals that will just end up in a landfill?

A: Not at all. Every car in the world has a lead-acid battery, the most toxic metal used for batteries. Even with its low value as scrap, the recycling rate for lead-acid batteries is about 98% in the U.S. EVs will use newer chemistries such as NiMH and LiIon. Both of these metals are inherently more valuable than lead, and since the batteries are quite large, the value of the spent battery packs will be such that the recycling rate will approach 100%. It is illegal to dispose of these batteries in a landfill and their value will ensure that is not their fate. Nickel, while mildly toxic, will be reclaimed during the recycling process. Lithium is even less toxic and more valuable than nickel.

Q: How viable are hydrogen cars? Many seem to think they are the "cars of the future.”

A: There are two types of hydrogen cars. Fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) are EVs, but instead of getting their electricity from batteries charged from the grid, they get their power from fuels cells using hydrogen as the energy carrier. FCVs use four times as much electricity on a per mile basis as a battery EV if the hydrogen is obtained through the process called electrolysis. So you would need four times the number of solar panels to go the same distance as you would in a battery EV. Hydrogen obtained through reformation of hydrocarbon fuels releases massive quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere, and even that dirty process uses more energy than merely charging a battery. FCVs have many seriously difficult and expensive engineering challenges to solve before they will ever be widely available, and even then, the energy required per mile will probably still be substantially higher than with battery EVs.

Internal combustion engines (ICE) can be made to burn hydrogen instead of gasoline. Even these fairly simple conversions are expensive, and the energy required is again, much higher per mile than with EVs. In addition, ICE burning hydrogen (H2) cars still have some emissions albeit low but they cannot be considered ZEVs, not even taking into consideration how one gets the hydrogen.

The bottom line is that there is no advantage to using FCVs or H2 ICE technologies over battery EVs.


From http://www.evnut.com/ev_faq2.htm

 

[ScienceRocks]

We're capable of recycling the batteries... Like part way through the post above shows ....

 

[flacaltenn]

We're capable of recycling the batteries... Like part way through the post above shows ....

We are also capable of burning coal cleanly.. But there are reasons why this doesn't happen. And the toxic waste stream from 12 facilities in Cali that look like that picture is gonna be MASSIVE. Toss in the additional waste stream and mining operations and battery factories and you are designing an enviro holocaust of toxic material and escalating cost.

You post these little gems as tho they are "done deals". Instead of reading the tech news as simple road markers of capabilities that MIGHT make it to the general marketplace.

Cali is about blow BILLIONS on those battery barns because they JUST DISCOVERED they cant continue to add flaky unreliable renewables to the grid. They COULD have just asked the Germans and the Chinese. That picture is from CHINA. The largest battery storage facility ever built by man.. $500Mill facility.. And Cali ALREADY needs 12 of them.. Just to handle the solar and wind they already have.. That's Idiocracy.. They DIDN'T read the tech road markers, same mistake as you're making..

 

[PMZ]

We're capable of recycling the batteries... Like part way through the post above shows ....

We are also capable of burning coal cleanly.. But there are reasons why this doesn't happen. And the toxic waste stream from 12 facilities in Cali that look like that picture is gonna be MASSIVE. Toss in the additional waste stream and mining operations and battery factories and you are designing an enviro holocaust of toxic material and escalating cost.

You post these little gems as tho they are "done deals". Instead of reading the tech news as simple road markers of capabilities that MIGHT make it to the general marketplace.

Cali is about blow BILLIONS on those battery barns because they JUST DISCOVERED they cant continue to add flaky unreliable renewables to the grid. They COULD have just asked the Germans and the Chinese. That picture is from CHINA. The largest battery storage facility ever built by man.. $500Mill facility.. And Cali ALREADY needs 12 of them.. Just to handle the solar and wind they already have.. That's Idiocracy.. They DIDN'T read the tech road markers, same mistake as you're making..

What's a "flaky unreliable renewable"?

 

[ScienceRocks]

Fed Report Says Solar Leads All New U.S. Capacity Except Gas

The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) Office of Energy Projects reports new natural gas dominated the first three quarters of the year with 5.85 GW, representing 54.6% of new capacity. However, renewable energy sources accounted for 30% of all new domestic electrical generating capacity over the same period.

Among renewable energy sources, solar led the way for the first nine months of the year with 1.94 GW of added capacity. In calling attention to the new report, the Sun Day Campaign, a renewable energy advocacy group, points out that new solar capacity is 77.4% higher than that for the same period in 2012.

New wind capacity accounted for 961 MW, followed by biomass with 192 MW, hydropower with 116 MW, and geothermal steam with 14 MW.

The renewables tally, totaling 3.22 GW, is more than that provided thus far this year by the 1.54 GW provided by coal. There was only 27 MW of oil-fired capacity added, and no new nuclear power.

Renewable sources now account for 15.7% of total installed U.S. operating generating capacity - more than nuclear (9.2%) and oil (4.1%) combined.

SolarIndustryMag.com: Fed Report Says Solar Leads All New U.S. Capacity Except Gas

Solar is starting to lead as parts of California and Az are reaching grid parity. Simply a home owner can now look at the his/her energy bill and come to the conclusion that solar maybe the better choice and allows them to have freedom. Can't do that for wind power. Globally solar is already more then 1/3rd the gw of wind and catching up as nations like Spain, Italy and India are at that stage. Japan is blowing the floor and China wants to go to 35 gw by 2020

If current trends of decreasing cost keep up=fast growth of the rate. I like nuclear but it is more expensive then solar/wind.

The limitless amounts of solar is mind blowing when you think about it.

 

[PMZ]

Fed Report Says Solar Leads All New U.S. Capacity Except Gas

The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) Office of Energy Projects reports new natural gas dominated the first three quarters of the year with 5.85 GW, representing 54.6% of new capacity. However, renewable energy sources accounted for 30% of all new domestic electrical generating capacity over the same period.

Among renewable energy sources, solar led the way for the first nine months of the year with 1.94 GW of added capacity. In calling attention to the new report, the Sun Day Campaign, a renewable energy advocacy group, points out that new solar capacity is 77.4% higher than that for the same period in 2012.

New wind capacity accounted for 961 MW, followed by biomass with 192 MW, hydropower with 116 MW, and geothermal steam with 14 MW.

The renewables tally, totaling 3.22 GW, is more than that provided thus far this year by the 1.54 GW provided by coal. There was only 27 MW of oil-fired capacity added, and no new nuclear power.

Renewable sources now account for 15.7% of total installed U.S. operating generating capacity - more than nuclear (9.2%) and oil (4.1%) combined.

SolarIndustryMag.com: Fed Report Says Solar Leads All New U.S. Capacity Except Gas

Solar is starting to lead as parts of California and Az are reaching grid parity. Simply a home owner can now look at the his/her energy bill and come to the conclusion that solar maybe the better choice and allows them to have freedom. Can't do that for wind power. Globally solar is already more then 1/3rd the gw of wind and catching up as nations like Spain, Italy and India are at that stage. Japan is blowing the floor and China wants to go to 35 gw by 2020

If current trends of decreasing cost keep up=fast growth of the rate. I like nuclear but it is more expensive then solar/wind.

The economics of energy are changing fast as predicted. Fossil fuels will lead the way to unaffordable.

 

[RGR]

What's a "flaky unreliable renewable"?

One that can't deliver 120 megawatts to a specific wire between 10PM and 2AM on a given night.

The folks that operate the power systems for the rest of us expect it to be that reliable. Most wind and solar systems cause problems because they are variable…i.e. unreliable. So is distributed power, if all the households in an area pump out megawatts on a given afternoon, this is good, in the overall mix. But tomorrow, when it is cloudy, they pump out less. So the grid would have to swing output, hard, to make up for this natural variability.

Natural gas can do this really, REALLY well.

So the game plan would be nukes and coal for base load, and instant on natural gas generation to make up for "unreliable" renewables. It is a reasonable complaint on the part of power engineers, this renewable stuff will make their lives more difficult.

They will complain and whine, like flacaltenn does, but I have faith that as time goes on, they will find better and better ways to handle the variability. Obviously they already are, as evidenced by wind power springing up all over the place.

 

[RGR]

The economics of energy are changing fast as predicted. Fossil fuels will lead the way to unaffordable.

What does that mean? Fossil fuels are currently affordable and don't look to change from that condition anytime soon.

 

[ScienceRocks]

So much for solar being uncompetive and dead Solar is picking up pace and growing very fast...

Japan Solar PV Industry Reaches 10 GW Milestone

New research conducted by NPD Solarbuzz and featured on their blog this past week shows that Japanese solar photovoltaic “PV” installations have now passed 10 GW for cumulative PV capacity, only the fifth country to reach the mark. Of the previous four — Germany, Italy, China, and the US — the latter two only reached the milestone within the past few months, highlighting Japan’s achievement.


2013 Sees Regular Growth

There is a litany of Japanese solar stories covered here on CleanTechnica to back up these numbers, not the least of which was a report published in March of this year that predicted the number of Japanese solar installations would overtake the US and Germany this year.

As mentioned earlier, IMS Research — a part of IHS – predicted earlier this year that “[the] Japanese [PV] market is set to grow by 120 percent in 2013 and install more than 5 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity … with installations expected to exceed 1 GW in the first quarter alone.” At the end of May, IHS followed up their earlier report, revealing that not only had Japan reached the 1 GW mark for installations in the first quarter, but that they had installed 1.5 GW, “a stunning 270 percent in the first quarter of 2013″, and were on track to become the “world’s largest solar revenue market in 2013″. While the Japanese Agency for Natural Resources and Energy reported that Japan had added 1,240 MW of solar installations in April and May.



Again borrowing from Colville’s piece on the Solarbuzz website, Japan’s PV industry has benefited greatly from renewed interest in the sector, resulting in;
•Cumulative solar PV installed in Japan broke through the 10 GW barrier during August 2013 and exceeded 10.5 GW at the end of August.
•Until the end of 2012, the Japanese PV market had been heavily weighted towards the rooftop segment, with 97% of PV capacity.
•During the first eight months of 2013, the ground-mount segment has accounted for 27% of new solar PV capacity installed.
•Over the first three quarters of calendar year 2013, Japan is forecast to install more PV capacity than during the entire three-year period spanning 2010 to 2012.
•At the end of August 2013, rooftop solar PV installations remain the dominant type of PV installations by project number and by MW volume, with 89% of market share by capacity. The remaining 11% is spread across the ground-mount and off-grid segments.

Japanese Solar in the Future

Looking forward, new figures from the Mercom Capital Group reiterate their earlier estimations of a global installation forecast for solar PV of approximately 38 GW by the end of the year, including 8.5 GW installed in China, 7 in Japan, and another 4.5 in the US.

Read more at Japan Solar PV Industry Reaches 10 GW Milestone | CleanTechnica

US Passes 10 GW Installed Solar PV Capacity Milestone

America’s solar market has broken through the clouds to shine as only the fourth nation to pass the 10 gigawatts (GW) installed solar capacity milestone.


Fast-growing solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment levels since 2010 pushed the US into the ultra-exclusive 10 GW club, reports NPD Solarbuzz in the latest North America PV Market Quarterly report.

“The US has now joined an elite group of maturing solar PV markets,” said Christopher Sunsong of NPD Solarbuzz. “Only Germany, Italy, and China have more installed PV capacity than the US.”



Solar Growing Fast With No Slowdown In Sight

Solar PV has become one of America’s fastest-growing energy sources in recent years. NPD reports the solar PV market has expanded at a compound annual growth rate of 50% since 2007, and 83% of the 10 GW capacity was installed within the past 14 quarters. During the first half of 2013, more than 1.8 GW of new solar PV capacity was installed in the US.

But instead of peaking, NPD predicts installations will accelerate over the next 18 months. Cumulative solar PV installations are forecast to grow an additional 80% by the end of 2014, putting the US on track to pass 17 GW installed solar PV capacity.

This dramatic growth is attributed to the drastic decline of solar system prices that began in 2011. The average cost of an installed system has fallen from $6 per watt in 2011 to $4.25 per watt residential and $3 per watt utility-scale solar PV projects today.

Read more at US Passes 10GW Installed Solar PV Capacity Milestone

 

[PMZ]

So much for solar being uncompetive and dead Solar is picking up pace and growing very fast...

Japan Solar PV Industry Reaches 10 GW Milestone

New research conducted by NPD Solarbuzz and featured on their blog this past week shows that Japanese solar photovoltaic “PV” installations have now passed 10 GW for cumulative PV capacity, only the fifth country to reach the mark. Of the previous four — Germany, Italy, China, and the US — the latter two only reached the milestone within the past few months, highlighting Japan’s achievement.


2013 Sees Regular Growth

There is a litany of Japanese solar stories covered here on CleanTechnica to back up these numbers, not the least of which was a report published in March of this year that predicted the number of Japanese solar installations would overtake the US and Germany this year.

As mentioned earlier, IMS Research — a part of IHS – predicted earlier this year that “[the] Japanese [PV] market is set to grow by 120 percent in 2013 and install more than 5 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity … with installations expected to exceed 1 GW in the first quarter alone.” At the end of May, IHS followed up their earlier report, revealing that not only had Japan reached the 1 GW mark for installations in the first quarter, but that they had installed 1.5 GW, “a stunning 270 percent in the first quarter of 2013″, and were on track to become the “world’s largest solar revenue market in 2013″. While the Japanese Agency for Natural Resources and Energy reported that Japan had added 1,240 MW of solar installations in April and May.



Again borrowing from Colville’s piece on the Solarbuzz website, Japan’s PV industry has benefited greatly from renewed interest in the sector, resulting in;
•Cumulative solar PV installed in Japan broke through the 10 GW barrier during August 2013 and exceeded 10.5 GW at the end of August.
•Until the end of 2012, the Japanese PV market had been heavily weighted towards the rooftop segment, with 97% of PV capacity.
•During the first eight months of 2013, the ground-mount segment has accounted for 27% of new solar PV capacity installed.
•Over the first three quarters of calendar year 2013, Japan is forecast to install more PV capacity than during the entire three-year period spanning 2010 to 2012.
•At the end of August 2013, rooftop solar PV installations remain the dominant type of PV installations by project number and by MW volume, with 89% of market share by capacity. The remaining 11% is spread across the ground-mount and off-grid segments.

Japanese Solar in the Future

Looking forward, new figures from the Mercom Capital Group reiterate their earlier estimations of a global installation forecast for solar PV of approximately 38 GW by the end of the year, including 8.5 GW installed in China, 7 in Japan, and another 4.5 in the US.

Read more at Japan Solar PV Industry Reaches 10 GW Milestone | CleanTechnica

US Passes 10 GW Installed Solar PV Capacity Milestone

America’s solar market has broken through the clouds to shine as only the fourth nation to pass the 10 gigawatts (GW) installed solar capacity milestone.


Fast-growing solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment levels since 2010 pushed the US into the ultra-exclusive 10 GW club, reports NPD Solarbuzz in the latest North America PV Market Quarterly report.

“The US has now joined an elite group of maturing solar PV markets,” said Christopher Sunsong of NPD Solarbuzz. “Only Germany, Italy, and China have more installed PV capacity than the US.”



Solar Growing Fast With No Slowdown In Sight

Solar PV has become one of America’s fastest-growing energy sources in recent years. NPD reports the solar PV market has expanded at a compound annual growth rate of 50% since 2007, and 83% of the 10 GW capacity was installed within the past 14 quarters. During the first half of 2013, more than 1.8 GW of new solar PV capacity was installed in the US.

But instead of peaking, NPD predicts installations will accelerate over the next 18 months. Cumulative solar PV installations are forecast to grow an additional 80% by the end of 2014, putting the US on track to pass 17 GW installed solar PV capacity.

This dramatic growth is attributed to the drastic decline of solar system prices that began in 2011. The average cost of an installed system has fallen from $6 per watt in 2011 to $4.25 per watt residential and $3 per watt utility-scale solar PV projects today.

Read more at US Passes 10GW Installed Solar PV Capacity Milestone

Of course there is a limit as to what percent of total power can be from intermittent sources without storage. We're a long way from that limit now.

As we approach it, we will need to think of the best combination of energy storage, and flexible demand. Demand flexibility can be incented by variable pricing. Reward off peak demand.

Lots of options.

 

[PMZ]

Of course all hydro power is energy recovered from the sun, which adds potential energy to water by evaporation, transport as vapor, and condensation into higher altitude reservoirs.

We can use the same general process for energy storage (exept it's probably more efficient to pump it compared to evaporate and condense it).

 

[RGR]

So much for solar being uncompetive and dead Solar is picking up pace and growing very fast..]

Nobody said it was uncompetitive (in the being used sense anyway) or dead.

There is no need to assemble straw men to pretend you are "winning" anything. There are reasons why simple charts of installed GW aren't the proof you might hope, and certainly don't have the kind of scalability that NG fired generation has. And we have plenty of NG around to boot, it is being touted as a clean fuel, can be used to power jet aircraft, run trucks, cars and other forms of personal transport, has a distribution system already built into many American homes, is wonderfully less expensive on a BTU basis than crude oil, and is basically the work creating elixir of the 21st century. Solar is….nice.

 

[PMZ]

So much for solar being uncompetive and dead Solar is picking up pace and growing very fast..]

Nobody said it was uncompetitive (in the being used sense anyway) or dead.

There is no need to assemble straw men to pretend you are "winning" anything.

I think that lots of people believe that it's uncompetitive, because it was in the past. The government investment in it was the impetus that drove it down the cost curve.

 

[flacaltenn]

What's a "flaky unreliable renewable"?

One that can't deliver 120 megawatts to a specific wire between 10PM and 2AM on a given night.

The folks that operate the power systems for the rest of us expect it to be that reliable. Most wind and solar systems cause problems because they are variable…i.e. unreliable. So is distributed power, if all the households in an area pump out megawatts on a given afternoon, this is good, in the overall mix. But tomorrow, when it is cloudy, they pump out less. So the grid would have to swing output, hard, to make up for this natural variability.

Natural gas can do this really, REALLY well.

So the game plan would be nukes and coal for base load, and instant on natural gas generation to make up for "unreliable" renewables. It is a reasonable complaint on the part of power engineers, this renewable stuff will make their lives more difficult.

They will complain and whine, like flacaltenn does, but I have faith that as time goes on, they will find better and better ways to handle the variability. Obviously they already are, as evidenced by wind power springing up all over the place.

Well u have the roadmap correct. But im not whining. Im trying to save our society big bucks by pointing out that solar is merely a peaker technology. Not an alternative, like Matthew is fraudently selling it. All those claims about installed capacity are blatantly false. As the amout PRODUCED by those methods is a small fraction of the hype. In addition, I suggest you look up my thread "Renewables now more expensive in Cali". Because the $Bills about to be spent to accomodate MORE flaky power on the the grid in that state, WAS PREDICTABLE and avoidable. In fact Japan, where they value engineering over hype, never allowed renewableson their grid without a token amount of battery storage.

 

[PMZ]

What's a "flaky unreliable renewable"?

One that can't deliver 120 megawatts to a specific wire between 10PM and 2AM on a given night.

The folks that operate the power systems for the rest of us expect it to be that reliable. Most wind and solar systems cause problems because they are variable…i.e. unreliable. So is distributed power, if all the households in an area pump out megawatts on a given afternoon, this is good, in the overall mix. But tomorrow, when it is cloudy, they pump out less. So the grid would have to swing output, hard, to make up for this natural variability.

Natural gas can do this really, REALLY well.

So the game plan would be nukes and coal for base load, and instant on natural gas generation to make up for "unreliable" renewables. It is a reasonable complaint on the part of power engineers, this renewable stuff will make their lives more difficult.

They will complain and whine, like flacaltenn does, but I have faith that as time goes on, they will find better and better ways to handle the variability. Obviously they already are, as evidenced by wind power springing up all over the place.

Well u have the roadmap correct. But im not whining. Im trying to save our society big bucks by pointing out that solar is merely a peaker technology. Not an alternative, like Matthew is fraudently selling it. All those claims about installed capacity are blatantly false. As the amout PRODUCED by those methods is a small fraction of the hype. In addition, I suggest you look up my thread "Renewables now more expensive in Cali". Because the $Bills about to be spent to accomodate MORE flaky power on the the grid in that state, WAS PREDICTABLE and avoidable. In fact Japan, where they value engineering over hype, never allowed renewableson their grid without a token amount of battery storage.

Solar and wind energy are super reliable but intermittent. There are two ways to mitigate that when mitigation is required which is many years from now.

Storage to shift the supply to when the demand dictates.

Demand shifting to when the supply dictates.

There is great potential for both approaches. And fuel and waste-less energy energy is a great motivation.

 

[RGR]

Well u have the roadmap correct.

Sure I do. You have explained it well, and as someone with my own kind of deliverable schedule, it makes reasonable sense from the engineering side.

Im trying to save our society big bucks by pointing out that solar is merely a peaker technology. Not an alternative, like Matthew is fraudently selling it.

The eco-hopeful would just as soon not pay attention to the practical side of things. I mean really, the instant the regular folks figure out that all of us are CO2 emitters and next up in the grand scheme of regulation in that regard, the less enthusiastic they might be. So Matthew is doing some pimping....not a surprise...he certainly can't sell the practical side of his solution because...it isn't the solution he thinks it is. Or he is just plain stupid and doesn't even understand why it isn't the solution he thinks it is.

In addition, I suggest you look up my thread "Renewables now more expensive in Cali". Because the $Bills about to be spent to accomodate MORE flaky power on the the grid in that state, WAS PREDICTABLE and avoidable. In fact Japan, where they value engineering over hype, never allowed renewableson their grid without a token amount of battery storage.

The Japanese have different problems then we do in the states. The resources available to their country versus ours is like night versus day.

 

[PMZ]

Well u have the roadmap correct.

Sure I do. You have explained it well, and as someone with my own kind of deliverable schedule, it makes reasonable sense from the engineering side.

Im trying to save our society big bucks by pointing out that solar is merely a peaker technology. Not an alternative, like Matthew is fraudently selling it.

The eco-hopeful would just as soon not pay attention to the practical side of things. I mean really, the instant the regular folks figure out that all of us are CO2 emitters and next up in the grand scheme of regulation in that regard, the less enthusiastic they might be. So Matthew is doing some pimping....not a surprise...he certainly can't sell the practical side of his solution because...it isn't the solution he thinks it is. Or he is just plain stupid and doesn't even understand why it isn't the solution he thinks it is.

In addition, I suggest you look up my thread "Renewables now more expensive in Cali". Because the $Bills about to be spent to accomodate MORE flaky power on the the grid in that state, WAS PREDICTABLE and avoidable. In fact Japan, where they value engineering over hype, never allowed renewableson their grid without a token amount of battery storage.

The Japanese have different problems then we do in the states. The resources available to their country versus ours is like night versus day.

Some people are science people and some more attuned to politics.

I believe that they have nothing in common. Science is about truth and politics about what factions want.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Fracking appears to fuck up the water table and cause earth quakes. Ban it.

Massachusetts seeks 10-yr ban on gas fracking after series of Texas quakes

An environmental committee at Massachusetts Statehouse has approved a bill, imposing a 10-year ban on fracking for natural gas. The move comes as a wave of earthquakes in Texas has raised new concerns over the controversial drilling technique.

The Massachusetts fracking moratorium bill is designed to protect the state’s drinking water from possible contamination and thus "ensure that the health and prosperity of our communities is maintained," according to one of the legislation's sponsors, Northampton Democratic state Rep. Peter Kocot, cited by AP.


To become law, the temporary ban on fracking has yet to be approved by the lawmakers and signed by the Democratic Governor, Deval Patrick.


The Massachusetts legislative move was taken on Friday, the day after Texas was stuck by a 3.6 magnitude earthquake, one in a row of similar episodes during the last three weeks. The finger of blame is being pointed at fracking. The series of small earthquakes caused no casualties, but left local Texas residents fearing worse could be in store.

http://rt.com/usa/fracking-texas-activists-concerned-510/

 

[ScienceRocks]

Time for majority leader Reid to push a bill banning fracking and coal ;0)