Gary says, "That is an interesting statement even if it is false."
Well, it's even MORE interesting because it's TRUE. Apparently and miraculously, you did not go read the full story - some of that was explained: The EPA simply does not quantify all of the economic benefits of the rule; it measures only the benefits of reducing particulate matter. So, the economic benefits of reducing emissions of carcinogens, or heavy metals and respiratory irritants do not show up in the analysis. Nor do the benefits to the ecosystem. That doesn’t mean these benefits are worthless. Far from it. It just means that EPA’s typical benefits analysis is woefully incomplete compared with the actual benefits the American people will experience as a result of a robust rule. Our best guess, however, is that even the EPA estimates – a fraction of the benefits of this rule — will far outweigh the costs.
Dirty air that can be seen and felt (like in Phoenix and SoCal) has a lot of dust and particulate matter - that's what makes Phoenix air brown and Cali's air gray.
Those coal power carcinogens are small enough and invasive enough to be almost invisible. Doesn't mean they are not there just because you can't see them with your very own eyes, mi amigo.
It's not a debate on whether coal emissions are dangerous - everyone knows they ARE.
My solar panels don't emit squat, and give me clean power every day, all day long.
Our best guess, however, is that even the EPA estimates – a fraction of the benefits of this rule — will far outweigh the costs.
All speculation. Spending $billions on speculation. That is what is wrong with the AGW theorist. They make computer models and they theorize what they think could possibly happen. I don't believe in chasing red herring. Coming up with good alternatives to fossil fuel is fine. Just don't waste tax dollars doing it. Let the alternatives stand on their own value. Don't expect Chindia to stop using cheap coal to manufacture your solar PV cells and Wind generators. Remember the GHG spewed clearing land to grow crops for alternative renewable energy will take 93 years to mitigate that abuse.
You or I could be breathing coal dust emitted by a country on the other side of the globe. At least we know that any new coal generators built here will use the most modern scrubber technology. That is not the case with all the new plants being built in 3rd World countries. Personally I believe Nuclear is the best most reliable source. But they are politically out now.
Your solar panels already did their damage in the mining and manufacturing processes. I keep forgetting you are an out of site out of mind environmentalist.
PS Cutting Corporate taxes is a small part of the problem. Companies do not move from CA to TX to avoid corporate taxes.
Dirty air that can be seen and felt (like in Phoenix and SoCal) has a lot of dust and particulate matter - that's what makes Phoenix air brown and Cali's air gray.
When I did a research paper during my MS degree 6 years ago, I found that the trade we did with Asia countries, resulted in the CA ports being very busy. Freighters lineup to be unloaded, and sit idling. Freighters and such burn oil with no emissions equipment required. To haul that freight from the port, you have thousands of 18-wheelers; again no significant emissions equipment required. That is where most of the CA pollution comes from.
The climate is controlled > 99% by Nature and <1% by Man. Mankind can no more control the climate than we can stop an earthquake from happening, the continents moving, or stop a volcano from erupting.
If you look into CO2 emissions, and how much is emitted by man versus how much is emitted by Nature, you'll see mankind's emissions are a couple of %. Since water vapor is another GHG, you need look no further than Nature - the Sun which evaporates millions of gal. of water each hour and creates the clouds.
kernick says, "The climate is controlled 99% by Nature and
Sounds like a personal estimate, completely unproveable. You're perfectly allowed to have it, but that doesn't make it gospel. :shades:
What Man CAN control is the levels and types of his pollution.
kernick says, " That is where most of the CA pollution comes from."
Well, I agree that the freight ships are A source of pollution. Not the primary, however.
The necessary ingredients are: 1) the type of pollutants put out by automobiles, and 2) sunlight. The primary pollutants involved are a complicated mixture of oxides of nitrogen and hydrocarbons, both emitted by the millions of automobiles on our freeways and roads. In the presence of sunlight, reactions take place that form a new set of chemicals, including ozone, which is a corrosive substance, harmful to the health of humans and other living things. Since California has lots of cars and lots of sunshine, we also have lots of smog. Things get worse when you add in thermal inversions, typical of many parts of California, which trap the air with its pollutants, and lead to a concentration of pollutants.
So agreed in part. And, of course, not in other parts. :shades:
Well, I agree that the freight ships are A source of pollution. Not the primary, however.
As I said I did the report about 5 years ago. Here's a pretty good source. It's the transport of goods - as I said freighters + ttrains + 18 wheelers that move the stuff from the docks.
Here's the exact quote and NPR link:
"The pollution comes from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. That's where ships, trains and trucks — and their pollution — converge. Those ports are Southern California's biggest single source of air pollution. "
Found something earlier that mentioned CARB had put some restrictions on ships - their smaller "auxiliary engines" had to use cleaner diesel fuel starting in 2007.
I'm still not sure how they determine that is the main cause...it's only in one area, when the vehicle exhaust blankets (literally) every area along the coast in the whole state.
Regardless, cleaning up both the ships and the vehicles is good policy.
If you look at a topo map of So CA, it is essentially flat till you reach the San Bernardino MTs. The prevailing wind off the ocean carries the pollution inland until it hits the mountains. It accumulates in San Bernardino. If it were mostly cars it would impact other places like it does the LA basin. That just does not happen. Our air, while not pristine in San Diego county, is far better than what they have to breathe in LA and Orange county. It is better now that they use shore power while docked. Still with all the ships sitting in the harbor waiting their turn it is dirty. If you want the cleanest air on the planet, you will have to go to Kapoho Hawaii. At least when the prevailing breezes are blowing off the ocean. That would be about 99% of the time.
Only a minute fraction of the World's population can afford to be as low polluting as you are. Probably less than 1%. That makes a lot of pollution with 6+billion people. And even then it is only theoretical that man is more than maybe 10% of the climate issue. Even the UN IPCC, as questionable as it was, estimated the entire world transportation was only 15% of GHG emissions.
I'm not saying that the ships do not contribute. They do.
But so do the millions of cars and trucks and construction vehicles and off-road diesels and gasoline-powered leaf blowers and every convenience item powered by fossil fuels.
Even the UN IPCC, as questionable as it was, estimated the entire world transportation was only 15% of GHG emissions.
Yes here's 1 of the places that I've seen this too. It was written in 2009, so if anything with China now buying more autos then we are and building 1 or 2 coal plants for electricity each week, the share that U.S. drivers put into the air is even lower. But here's the article.
"Cars and trucks contribute perhaps 15 percent of the world’s anthropogenic CO2. (Electrical power generation is the largest single contributor, with some 40 percent of the total.)
At first glance, this suggests that even a significant automotive improvement has only modest payoff in the overall picture. For instance, suppose the U.S. eliminated all gas-guzzling SUVs and, in doing so, suppose this halved our fleet consumption — and thus as well our vehicles’ CO2 contribution.
Our hardly frugal national fleet currently accounts for perhaps 45 percent of that global car-and-truck value. Thus, our driving can be associated with 6.75 percent (0.45 x 0.15) of the earth’s anthropogenic CO2. So even if we improve fuel consumption by a staggering 50 percent, the payoff is a mere 3-percent reduction in global CO2. (And, yes, I’ve rounded it low here for emphasis.)"
"Cars and trucks contribute perhaps 15 percent of the world’s anthropogenic CO2. (Electrical power generation is the largest single contributor, with some 40 percent of the total.)
And the key here is "Anthropogenic or MAN MADE CO2". There is no way that science can calculate natural occurring CO2 for any given year or over say 100 years. One large volcanic eruption throws all calculations to the wind. And all volcanic eruptions do not spew the same combination of GHGs. When a volcano like the ones in Hawaii erupt, which is becoming more frequent, the sulfur portion is very high. From what I am reading sulfur in the atmosphere causes cooling.
My main complaint, other than raising my energy cost over flawed scientific theories, is credibility. These same climate scientists at our NWS cannot accurately predict how hot or cold it will be 12 hours in advance. Most days around here they are off from 6-10 degrees in their predictions. And these same scientific minds want US to believe they can tell what the global temperature will be 100 years from now within a few tenths of a degree. That to me is unbelievable and incredible.
The extraordinary collapse of Jatropha as a biofuel
Dr. Cruz is a professor at CFNR. He earned his BS and MS Forestry degrees from UPLB while his PhD in Watershed Management, from the University of Arizona.
He has received numerous awards from various institutions. Among the most recent awards include being a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) or the panel of experts that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the former US Vice President Al Gore. His paper entitled "Yield and Oil Content Ideotypes Specification in Jatropha curcas L." won Best Scientific Poster Award for Agricultural Sciences by the National Academy of Science and Technology on July 15, 2010.
Promode Kant , Institute of Green Economy, C-312, Defence Colony, New Delhi 110024, India Shuirong Wu Chinese Academy of Forestry, Wanshoushan, Haidian District, Beijing 100091, China
Blending of fossil diesel with biodiesel is an important climate change mitigation strategy across the world. In 2003 the Planning Commission of India decided to introduce mandatory blending over increasingly larger parts of the country and reach countrywide 30% blending status by the year 2020 and opted for nonedible oilseed species of Jatropha curcus raised over lands unsuited to agriculture as it was considered to be high in oil content, early yielding, nonbrowsable and requiring little irrigation and even less management.
In a massive planting program of unprecedented scale millions of marginal farmers and landless people were encouraged to plant Jatropha across India through attractive schemes.
In Tanzania more than 10000 small farmers have established Jatropha plantations and many more have done so in the rest of East Africa.(2) By 2008, Jatropha had already been planted over an estimated 900000 ha globally of which an overwhelming 85% was in Asia, 13% in Africa and the rest in Latin America, and by 2015 Jatropha is expected to be planted on 12.8 million ha worldwide.(5)
But the results are anything but encouraging. In India the provisions of mandatory blending could not be enforced as seed production fell far short of the expectation and a recent study has reported discontinuance by 85% of the Jatropha farmers.(1) In China also until today there is very little production of biodiesel from Jatropha seeds. In Tanzania the results are very unsatisfactory and a research study found the net present value of a five-year investment in Jatropha plantation was negative with a loss of US$ 65 per ha on lands with yields of 2 tons/ha of seeds and only slightly beneficial at US$ 9 per ha with yields of 3 tons when the average expected Jatropha seed yield on poor barren soils is only 1.7 to 2.2 tons/ha. Even on normal fertile soils (average seed yield 3.9 to 7.5 tons/ha) Jatropha was no match for sunflower.(2, 4)
Though acclaimed widely for its oil, Jatropha was never considered economically important enough for domestication and its seed and oil productivity is hugely variable.
A case study of Jatropha plantations raised in 1993–1994 in the Indian province of Andhra Pradesh had reported actual yields that were far below expectations and the species was found to be prone to termite attacks, water logging, vulnerable to drought in the planting year and delayed yields.(3)
It appears to be an extreme case of a well intentioned top down climate mitigation approach, undertaken without adequate preparation and ignoring conflict of interest, and adopted in good faith by other countries, gone awry bringing misery to millions of poorest people across the world. And it happened because the principle of “due diligence” before taking up large ventures was ignored everywhere. As climate mitigation and adaptation activities intensify attracting large investments there is danger of such lapses becoming more frequent unless “due diligence” is institutionalized and appropriate protocols developed to avoid conflict of interest of research organizations. As an immediate step an international body like the FAO may have to intervene to stop further extension of Jatropha in new areas without adequate research inputs. Greater investments in dissemination of scientific data will help in ensuring due diligence does not cause undue delays in decision making.
Sounds like our idiocy with corn ethanol. Not to mention Wind generators no longer being used. Huge fields of decaying solar panels. All done with OPM.
There seems to be a lack of communications in the AGW field. This Nobel prize winner gets big bucks and awards for making outrageous claims for Jatropha as an alternative energy fuel. The year before BP pulls out of their joint venture raising Jatropha as a failed business plan. Why are these so called scientist being listened to? They are costing the World $billions of dollars flushed down the toilet. And how many ruined lives will never be known.
BP Gives up on Jatropha for Biofuel
BP has indeed given up on jatropha, the shrub once touted as the great hope for biofuels, and walked away from its jatropha joint venture for less than $1 million.
Speculation abounded this summer that BP was ready to jettison its participation in the project with British partner partner D1 Oils. The original plan called for the investment of $160 million to turn the jatropha tree into feedstock to make transportation fuel. Now, BP will turn its alternative-fuel efforts toward ethanol in Brazil and the U.S., as well as biobutanol.
The not-with-a-bang-but-a-whimper end to BP’s jatropha adventure underscores a couple of key points. First, the inedible but hardy plant that just a few years ago seemed like it could revolutionize biofuels has turned into a bust. The initial attraction was that it grows on marginal land, so it wouldn’t compete with food crops. But marginal land means marginal yields. And jatropha turned out to be a water hog as well, further darkening its environmental credentials.
Second, for all the ink spilt over jatropha—and Big Oil’s interest in biofuels in general—the value of some of those investments really is miniscule. D1 Oils will buy out BP’s half of the venture for 500,000 pounds—less than the price of a nice apartment in London—even though the joint venture is apparently worth more than 7 million pounds.
And this wasn’t a piddling venture, as far as jatropha experiments go: Reuters notes that BP and D1 Oils planted more than 200,000 hectares of the stuff—25% of the worldwide jatropha planting.
So BP’s biofuel attentions will focus on three different areas. In Brazil, it will turn its attention back to sugarcane. In the U.S., it is working with Verenium to turn switchgrass into second-generation ethanol, though the economics are still murky. And there’s always biobutanol.
In a week when Exxon placed a relatively big bet on algae as a source of biofuel, it’s not that Big Oil has given up on alternative fuels—it’s just becoming more selective about where it places its chips.
August 8, 2011, 3:04 pm On Arctic Ice and Warmth, Past and Future By ANDREW C. REVKIN
For more than a decade, I’ve been probing changes in Arctic climate and sea ice and their implications for the species that make up northern ecosystems and for human communities there.
There are big changes afoot, with more to come should greenhouse gases continue to build unabated in the atmosphere. There will be impacts on human affairs in the Arctic, for worse and better, as we explored extensively in 2005 and I’ve followed here since.
But even as I push for an energy quest that limits climate risk, I’m not worried about the resilience of Arctic ecosystems and not worried about the system tipping into an irreversibly slushy state on time scales relevant to today’s policy debates. This is one reason I don’t go for descriptions of the system being in a “death spiral.”
The main source of my Arctic comfort level — besides what I learned while camped with scientists on the North Pole sea ice — is the growing body of work on past variations* in sea ice conditions in the Arctic. The latest evidence comes in a study in the current issue of Science. The paper, combining evidence of driftwood accumulation and beach formation in northern Greenland with evidence of past sea-ice extent in parts of Canada, concludes that Arctic sea ice appears to have retreated far more in some spans since the end of the last ice age than it has in recent years. [A Dot Earth reader has offered a different view of Arctic and climatic risk.]
There’s more on the paper below from the lead author, Svend Funder of the University of Copenhagen, and some independent ice scientists I queried about the work. The paper builds on earlier research finding evidence of open water and wave-splashed beaches in parts of Greenland that are now more typically locked in ice. Here’s more previous analysis of Arctic ice patterns during the Holocene, the span since the end of the last ice age.
When considered alongside research on past shifts in Arctic flora and fauna, a picture emerges of a physical system that amplifies warm or cool jogs and a biological system attuned to such changes.
Here’s some input on the new research from Funder (from a press release issued by his university; I’m tied up on other fronts or would have reached out for more):
Our studies show that there have been large fluctuations in the amount of summer sea ice during the last 10,000 years. During the so-called Holocene Climate Optimum, from approximately 8000 to 5000 years ago, when the temperatures were somewhat warmer than today, there was significantly less sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, probably less than 50% of the summer 2007 coverage, which is absolutely lowest on record. Our studies also show that when the ice disappears in one area, it may accumulate in another. We have discovered this by comparing our results with observations from northern Canada. While the amount of sea ice decreased in northern Greenland, it increased in Canada. This is probably due to changes in the prevailing wind systems. This factor has not been sufficiently taken into account when forecasting the imminent disappearance of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean.
In case you've never seen the global flow map for pollution, our air comes out of China and brings the stuff you mention our kids will breathe. We actually can't do anything about it. We can, however, keep the air that leaves the US and heads for the sahara cleaner by wasting billions of dollars and forfeiting millions of jobs due to senseless over-regulation. I wouldn't want to be the child in a family where the dad lost his job due to a coal plant shutdown. As that child, the air I breathe wouldn't be up there on my list of concerns if that were to happen.
People lose their jobs for a lot worse reasons than trying to have cleaner air.
Your position seems to be, "Dam* the clean air - we gotta keep people WORKING, even if they are polluting like crazy !!!"
That's China's attitude right now, and it's backward and unfortunate. I don't think we should have the same view as that.
And it's nice to say "our dirty air comes from somewhere else, so the polluting WE do doesn't matter, because it's going somewhere else" but that's just crazy talk. Ask Patrick Star about that.
You don't really know much about the asthma problems our kids have, do you? Google it. Ask the parents of kids who have died from asthma attacks if clean air is important. http://www.aafa.org/display.cfm?id=9&sub=42
It would be better that a few thousand deal with Asthma than millions die of starvation. Industry pollutes. The big question is it better to send the industrial pollution to China and buy the products or try to deal with it here and keep the jobs? I think we would over the long haul do a better job, while it will NEVER be pollution free, than China or India. Too many people here have the attitude I have a good job that does not pollute. Screw those that have lost their jobs due to overly zealous regulations.
I agree that corporate taxes are too high. But regulations including recent executive orders giving Unions an unfair advantage are also running jobs out of the country. Or to less restrictive states. CA is doomed with our current governor and legislature. Worst business climate in the USA. High taxes, high utilities and over regulated. There has to be a point of diminishing returns on curbing pollution. Otherwise we will lose jobs to 3rd World countries that are more interested in providing jobs and caring for their people. Zero pollution in manufacturing, or power generation is not going to happen. Somewhere along the line there will be pollution. I think we are better equipped than many countries to do it less harmfully. Just not possible under current regulations, restrictions & vague mandates.
thanks for supporting my argument. by not polluting (manufacturing) in the US, we have the manufacturing done in China instead. This makes the air worse in the US as their low standards pump billions of tons of waste into the air that then comes to the US. If we were to bring back the industry we would pollute less per item produced and the bad air would go off to the Sahara and Saudi. And China would send less bad air here. Therefore asthma sufferers would be better off with the US creating more pollution, even with the absolutely necessary reductions in regulations.
You are actually happy with the worst reading in consumer sentiment since Carter's 4th year. President downgrade is giving us Carter's second term. Even the lines on the sentiment graph line up.
dave8697 says, "You are actually happy with the worst reading in consumer sentiment since Carter's 4th year. President downgrade is giving us Carter's second term. Even the lines on the sentiment graph line up."
Um, I'm not sure what you mean there amigo. I was not discussing anything about that subject. You must have meant that last sentence for another poster besides myself.
And like I said - there's no realistic plan which can stop the pollution in China. What we can do as a country is limit our own pollution to try and counter their excessive pollution.
This has nothing to do with Green research. It is purely political paybacks.
Obama Visits Corporation Where His Stimulus Created 'Green' Jobs at $2 Million Per Job Thursday, August 11, 2011
President Barack Obama on Thursday toured a vehicle battery plant in Michigan, touting his administration’s focus on green technology and jobs, at a corporation where federal money authorized by the economic stimulus law that Obama signed at the beginning of his presidency had created "green" jobs at a cost of about $2 million in federal subsidies per job.
The economic stimulus, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, provided $2.4 billion in grants to advanced vehicle batteries technology. From that amount, $300 million in grants went to Johnson Controls to manufacture batteries.
When they say manufacture, they mean assemble batteries from Korean and Chinese manufactured Cells. Give the dirty work to the other countries.
Sadly the $100s of millions spent to refurbish the factory and hire UAW members to put batteries together for the VOLT that is not even selling with a $7500 tax credit. Chevy sold 125 Volts last month. The factory which is only there to supply Batteries for the Volt cost US $300,000,000. The President said it now employs 150 people assembling batteries. Now if Johnson Controls has an hourly cost as low as Toyota that would be $48 per hour. We know with the UAW that would be impossible. So at Toyota wages it costs Johnson Controls $1,248,000 per month for those 150 workers. If they sold only 125 batteries last month that means $9,984 per battery labor to assemble the cells from LG in Korea. Anyone want to venture a guess the total cost per battery pack for the Volt? We are building yet another unsustainable industry on the backs of the US tax payers.
I just can't be supportive of plans to spend my valuable tax dollars on green jobs that cost as much as $2 million apiece to subsidize efforts to make such a minute dent, if any at all, in the total global pollution. America's cars are 6.7% of the world's greenhouse gasses. I'm getting a typical 22-23 mpgs out of a fairly good sized group of vehicled that avg 6 cylinders. I don't want a $4000 battery in my car to save $400 a year in gas. Who knows what land pollution is caused by creating that $4000 battery. if My 22.5 mpg avg is typical and we are growing from 311 million population to 400 million in the US by 2046, and that hybrids only make up 2.5% of new veh sales in the US today, there is nothing that can be mandated that would change the US GG contribution from 6.7% to even 6% by 2046 when we hit 400 million pop. Adding a 36 mpg trip Malibu to my 5 other cars didn't even change my total avg mpg by 1 mpg. Our economy was doing so well in 1998-2001 with $1.20 gas and 4.5% unemployment that we had to be attacked and the world hated us. We are putting ourselves in more dire straits with defecit spending on useless gov pet projects than any infinitesimally small change in pollution will benefit us to help us get out of.
Your post sums up my thinking as well. A few people are making a fortune out of the GW scam and apparently a lot more have just simply lost their minds.
Iowa has hit a pretty big milestone in wind energy generation --the state now gets 20 percent of its electricity from wind power. That's the highest percentage for any state in the U.S. and about on par with wind heavy nations like Denmark.
The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) reported that the state hit the mark in the second quarter of the year after a new 594 MW wind farm came online outside of Adair. The even better news is that Des Moines utility company MidAmerican Energy has two more big projects like it on the way in 2011.
With 4,000 MW, Iowa is second in total installed wind power capacity after Texas, which has 9,000 MW. The Lone Star state's much larger population means that capacity doesn't stack up the same percentage-wise though.
The AWEA reported that as of the beginning of July, 7,354 MW of new wind power was under construction in the U.S.
Photovoltaic electricity capacity in the U.S. will nearly triple this year to 2.4 gigawatts according to a forecast from research firm IHS iSuppli.
Still, solar will continue to sit under the long, long shadow of other energy sources like fossil fuels and nuclear. While the 2.4 GW represents an impressive 166% gain over what IHS says was 900 GW installed in 2010, it’s less than 1% of the U.S. electricity total.
For some perspective, in 2010, the U.S generated about 4,120 billion kilowatthours (4,100 gigawatthours) of electricity according to the Energy Information Administration, about 70% of which came from fossil fuels - some 45% from coal – and 20% from nuclear.
The solar percentage looks slightly better, although still fractional, when compared with new capacity. According to information released yesterday by the EIA, the U.S. added 11.25 GW of capacity in the first six months of this year.
Comparing the IHS numbers with the EIA statistics (sorry for the apples and oranges, but the mixed fruit pie chart in this case does at least give a representative flavor of the story), the 11.25 GW of overall new capacity for half a year is 7.5 times the 1.5 GW of new solar for the entire year.
“From January to June 2011, 162 electric power generators were added in 36 states, for a total of 11,255 megawatts (MW) of new capacity,” EIA reported. “Of the ten states with the highest levels of capacity additions, most of the new capacity uses natural gas, coal, or wind.”
If you assume that overall capacity will grow by the same amount in the second half- admittedly a fluffy assumption – then PV is about 6% of the new stuff. That’s starting to sound a little better than the “less than one percent” space to which solar has been relegated in overall contribution to U.S. electricity. It also gets it closer to the more respectable 1% ascribed to solar’s renewable rival, wind.
The IHS forecast does not include electricity generated from solar thermal plants.
IHS said the 1.5 GW rise in solar PV capacity comes largely from the installation of utility scale plants, and that California is leading all states this year in new PV “by a wide margin” with 967 megawatts, followed by New Jersey with 263 MW, Arizona with 243 MW, New Mexico with 139 MW and Nevada with 118 MW.
“The number of U.S. PV installations this year is projected to climb to approximately 49,000—up from 39,000 in 2010,” IHS said in a press release. “Of the 2.4GW in solar power expected to be installed this year, ground installations will contribute approximately 1.4GW, commercial installations 710 megawatts (MW) and residential installations 270MW.”
It attributed the increase in part to loan guarantees provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, which it says will support continued growth while Europe PV slumps. IHS predicted that U.S. PV capacity will hit 3.1 GW next year, and 5.5 GW by 2015.
The more the merrier !! The Sun keeps telling us, "USE ME I'M FREE !!!"
Well if the climate is changing much, it's another change for the better. It looks like the weather for a few years in a row is producing very few, and relatively weak hurricanes. Irene is passing overhead as I write, and it's a [non-permissible content removed]-cat. Nothing but a good rainstorm here in New England. The worst hurricane in New England was in 1938, well before GW or "climate change".
Solar power may make up just a fraction of the world's energy right now, but within five decades it could account for half.
At least, according to a report from the International Energy Agency, which predicts that by 2060 50 percent of the globe's power will come from the sun, including both photovoltaic and solar-thermal plants. The rest would mostly consist of other renewable sources, including wind and hydropower.
"Photovoltaic and concentrated solar power together can become the major source of electricity," IEA senior analyst Cedric Philibert told Bloomberg. "You'll have a lot more electricity than today but most of it will be produced by solar-electric technologies."
Unsurprisingly, the analysts predict that this switch to more sustainable energy will have a significant affect on the output of carbon emissions, which could drop as low as three gigatons annually in 2060, a sharp decrease from the 30 gigatons currently produced each year.
Satellite data show that, over the past 30 years, Arctic sea ice has declined while Antarctic sea ice has mysteriously expanded, according to study leader Jiping Liu, a research scientist at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
After a period of slow melt from late July through early August, Arctic ice extent is again declining at a brisk pace, but remains higher than for 2007, the record low year. Data also indicate continued thinning of the ice. With about a month left in the sea ice melt season, the amount of further ice loss will depend mostly on weather patterns.
Arctic sea ice loss slowed down in late July through early August; then over the past week, the rate of ice loss sped up. At present there is more ice than at the same time in 2007, which saw the record minimum September extent.
So even the Arctic melting has reversed over the last 4 years. Which flies directly in the face of continued warming. I think the best thing to do is cut off all funding for about the next 50 years and revisit the AGW subject in 2065. We could save $trillions of wasted dollars. Put it in the bank for a real catastrophic event. Like earthquakes and Tsunamis.
From your same source....you only got part of the story:
Summer melt and sea ice thickness Data indicate that the Arctic ice cover continues to thin. Sea ice thickness is also an indicator of the health of the ice cover; thick ice is resistant to melt. Specialized buoys managed by the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory help supplement limited satellite measurements of sea ice thickness. The buoys provide accurate data at specific locations, and can tell us whether thickness changes are due to surface melt, melt at the bottom of the ice floe, or ice growth. These buoys are deployed on thick multiyear ice, which provide long-lasting, stable platforms. Data from six of these buoys through July 20 show that this year, the ice surface is melting faster than the underside of the ice. As the sun starts to sink on the horizon, surface melt will slow. However, ocean waters warmed during the summer will continue to melt the ice from below, reducing ice thickness and extent into September. Ice volume Combining ice thickness with sea ice area gives the total sea ice volume. At present, researchers cannot measure volume directly, so they estimate the volume with computer models. The University of Washington's Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) model combines data on sea ice concentration with models of ocean and atmospheric conditions to estimate total ice volume. Sea ice volume normally changes with the seasons, but monthly estimates through July 2011 show that the volume for each month has tracked well below the 1979 to 2010 average, and below the volume for 2007, which saw the record low ice extent. PIOMAS projects that this year's minimum volume in September will very likely finish below 2007 and could even reach a record low volume.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper wrapped up his annual tour of the North on Friday amid fresh signs the region has experienced another major meltdown this summer, including the renewed opening of the southern route of the Northwest Passage and an overall ice retreat threatening to smash 2007's record-setting thaw.
The Canadian Ice Service confirmed Friday that a southerly shipping route through Canada's Arctic islands can now be safely navigated, though shifting winds could send ice floes into a key strait near Nunavut's Victoria Island and complicate voyage through the Northwest Passage.
Meanwhile, the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre has made public data that show total Arctic ice is once again retreating below the 5-million-square-kilometre mark, meaning the five greatest melts since satellite measurements began in the late 1970s have occurred in the past five years.
The severe retreat includes the opening of vast stretches of the Beaufort Sea north of the Yukon-Alaska border, where Canadian and U.S. scientists are engaged in a joint seabed mapping mission aimed at securing undersea territorial rights for the two countries under a UN treaty.
Arctic Ocean ice typically reaches a maximum winter extent of more than 14 million square kilometres. It melts significantly during the summer, usually reaching its minimum extent in mid-September.
The 30-year average for the end-of-summer minimum extent is about 7 million square kilometres. But since 2007, when a thaw reduced overall Arctic ice to 4.13 million square kilometres by that September, the region has continued to experience distinctly below-average ice minimums.
The severe ice retreat in the northern polar regions has many scientists concerned about the long-term effect of climate change, including altered wildlife habitats that appear to be threatening the future of ice-dependent species such as polar bear and narwhal.
Gary says, "I think the best thing to do is cut off all funding for about the next 50 years and revisit the AGW subject in 2065."
That still does not account for the growing ice in Antarctica. And it is conjecture on whether it will melt beyond the 2007 Summer melt. Look at the Bright side. It will save Millions in air shipping to all the villages across the Arctic. On the years that the season was short the villages would not get their needed barge loads of diesel to keep them warm and run their electric generators. Do you have any idea how much CO2 a DC6 puts out hauling a load of fuel into one of the Arctic villages. And during many winters it is almost daily loads to keep them lit and warm.
With an open Arctic shipping lane they can get a lot more freight during the longer time frame. And melting ice DOES NOT raise the level of the ocean. Another AGW Cult scare tactic.
Put some ice in your Cocktail glass and see for yourself.
Fremont-Based Solyndra Goes Bankrupt; 1,100 Workers Laid Off August 31, 2011 9:21 AM
FREMONT (CBS SF) – A leading Bay Area manufacturer of solar power systems has abruptly shut down operations and laid off its staff while it sought to file for bankruptcy protection.
Solyndra LLC, which makes specialized cylindrical solar systems for commercial rooftops Wednesday announced in a statement that it was suspending operations because of unfavorable global economic and solar industry market conditions.
The company had been under scrutiny after receiving a $535 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy to expand its manufacturing facility in Fremont, along with a high-profile visit from President Barack Obama in May 2010.
During his visit to Solyndra and the new facility, President Obama showcased the company as a “testament to American ingenuity and dynamism” in line with his vision of developing green and alternative energy industries to compete with China and Europe.
I'm not for using tax money in this wasteful manner.
Using that $535 million dollars to put solar panels on parking structures, buildings, and houses would have made perfect sense. That way, at least we have a present and future benefit.
Handing tax money to any business without strict guidelines is a poor business model. This gets repeated time after time. Where did the money go? In some fat cats pocket as paybacks for campaign contributions would be my guess. Trusting the government with alternative energy R&D is just naive. We waste Billions on so many flagrant studies and research. None of which can be considered constitutional unless it deals with protecting the citizens from foreign invasion.
PS I have no doubt we will see more solar. I have someone coming Friday to look at our place. I am skeptical that he can actually save me any money.
The rule remains - the less electricity you use, the less you can save from solar.
If you spent $300 a month and had a large enough south-facing roof, solar could save you a LOT of money.
I'm in the situation where solar only saves me about 23% because my average usage was about $75 a month without solar.
Efficiencies are going up in the labs. Once all this gets translated to the market, solar will become more and more ubiquitous in neighborhoods and on parking structures and business roofs.
In 50 years, solar will be a part of almost everything that sees the sun.
I am not too worried about 50 years from now. I am very skeptical of Solar for my home as my South facing roof is blocked much of the winter by huge pine trees on my neighbors lot. They will probably try to sell me on some sort of yard mount which I will not accept. My highest bill this summer was $132. It is rarely over $100 most of the year. I would not buy as I believe as you said they are a long ways from optimum. I think the best Solar PVs being sold are less than 20% efficient. You buy and you are stuck for 20+ years. Even on a lease it would not be that easy to upgrade when smaller more efficient units are made. I think with the incentives offered in CA it would still be $20k for a system large enough to handle both my big AC units at once. If I had solar I would not worry about cooling the house below my current setting of 81 degrees. To take advantage of it in the winter I would have to put in a couple Heat Pumps and just use Propane for hot water and cooking. I am thinking when I can put a system on my home for $5k it will become cost effective.
Um, not if it's a "grid-tied" system like most are. My inverter is a 240V device, powered by the grid. When the grid is down, I'm not making any solar power.
If you want to go "whole hog" and buy a lot of batteries to put in your garage, then YES, you can use solar to charge the batteries then use the stored power anytime you want, including during outages.
But that setup makes it prohibitively expensive for most people.
Comments
Well, it's even MORE interesting because it's TRUE. Apparently and miraculously, you did not go read the full story - some of that was explained:
The EPA simply does not quantify all of the economic benefits of the rule; it measures only the benefits of reducing particulate matter. So, the economic benefits of reducing emissions of carcinogens, or heavy metals and respiratory irritants do not show up in the analysis. Nor do the benefits to the ecosystem. That doesn’t mean these benefits are worthless. Far from it. It just means that EPA’s typical benefits analysis is woefully incomplete compared with the actual benefits the American people will experience as a result of a robust rule. Our best guess, however, is that even the EPA estimates – a fraction of the benefits of this rule — will far outweigh the costs.
Dirty air that can be seen and felt (like in Phoenix and SoCal) has a lot of dust and particulate matter - that's what makes Phoenix air brown and Cali's air gray.
Those coal power carcinogens are small enough and invasive enough to be almost invisible. Doesn't mean they are not there just because you can't see them with your very own eyes, mi amigo.
It's not a debate on whether coal emissions are dangerous - everyone knows they ARE.
My solar panels don't emit squat, and give me clean power every day, all day long.
With the USA having the highest and stupidest corporate tax rates in the free world, why would ANYONE want to stay here?
We need to cut corporate taxes, like, YESTERDAY.
All speculation. Spending $billions on speculation. That is what is wrong with the AGW theorist. They make computer models and they theorize what they think could possibly happen. I don't believe in chasing red herring. Coming up with good alternatives to fossil fuel is fine. Just don't waste tax dollars doing it. Let the alternatives stand on their own value. Don't expect Chindia to stop using cheap coal to manufacture your solar PV cells and Wind generators. Remember the GHG spewed clearing land to grow crops for alternative renewable energy will take 93 years to mitigate that abuse.
You or I could be breathing coal dust emitted by a country on the other side of the globe. At least we know that any new coal generators built here will use the most modern scrubber technology. That is not the case with all the new plants being built in 3rd World countries. Personally I believe Nuclear is the best most reliable source. But they are politically out now.
Your solar panels already did their damage in the mining and manufacturing processes. I keep forgetting you are an out of site out of mind environmentalist.
PS
Cutting Corporate taxes is a small part of the problem. Companies do not move from CA to TX to avoid corporate taxes.
Until 5% of the world's population stops footing 50% of the global military expense, something's gotta give.
When I did a research paper during my MS degree 6 years ago, I found that the trade we did with Asia countries, resulted in the CA ports being very busy. Freighters lineup to be unloaded, and sit idling. Freighters and such burn oil with no emissions equipment required. To haul that freight from the port, you have thousands of 18-wheelers; again no significant emissions equipment required. That is where most of the CA pollution comes from.
The climate is controlled > 99% by Nature and <1% by Man. Mankind can no more control the climate than we can stop an earthquake from happening, the continents moving, or stop a volcano from erupting.
If you look into CO2 emissions, and how much is emitted by man versus how much is emitted by Nature, you'll see mankind's emissions are a couple of %. Since water vapor is another GHG, you need look no further than Nature - the Sun which evaporates millions of gal. of water each hour and creates the clouds.
Sounds like a personal estimate, completely unproveable. You're perfectly allowed to have it, but that doesn't make it gospel. :shades:
What Man CAN control is the levels and types of his pollution.
kernick says, " That is where most of the CA pollution comes from."
Well, I agree that the freight ships are A source of pollution. Not the primary, however.
The necessary ingredients are: 1) the type of pollutants put out by automobiles, and 2) sunlight. The primary pollutants involved are a complicated mixture of oxides of nitrogen and hydrocarbons, both emitted by the millions of automobiles on our freeways and roads. In the presence of sunlight, reactions take place that form a new set of chemicals, including ozone, which is a corrosive substance, harmful to the health of humans and other living things. Since California has lots of cars and lots of sunshine, we also have lots of smog. Things get worse when you add in thermal inversions, typical of many parts of California, which trap the air with its pollutants, and lead to a concentration of pollutants.
So agreed in part. And, of course, not in other parts. :shades:
As I said I did the report about 5 years ago. Here's a pretty good source. It's the transport of goods - as I said freighters + ttrains + 18 wheelers that move the stuff from the docks.
Here's the exact quote and NPR link:
"The pollution comes from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. That's where ships, trains and trucks — and their pollution — converge. Those ports are Southern California's biggest single source of air pollution. "
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5438620
I'm still not sure how they determine that is the main cause...it's only in one area, when the vehicle exhaust blankets (literally) every area along the coast in the whole state.
Regardless, cleaning up both the ships and the vehicles is good policy.
Only a minute fraction of the World's population can afford to be as low polluting as you are. Probably less than 1%. That makes a lot of pollution with 6+billion people. And even then it is only theoretical that man is more than maybe 10% of the climate issue. Even the UN IPCC, as questionable as it was, estimated the entire world transportation was only 15% of GHG emissions.
But so do the millions of cars and trucks and construction vehicles and off-road diesels and gasoline-powered leaf blowers and every convenience item powered by fossil fuels.
Yes here's 1 of the places that I've seen this too. It was written in 2009, so if anything with China now buying more autos then we are and building 1 or 2 coal plants for electricity each week, the share that U.S. drivers put into the air is even lower. But here's the article.
"Cars and trucks contribute perhaps 15 percent of the world’s anthropogenic CO2. (Electrical power generation is the largest single contributor, with some 40 percent of the total.)
At first glance, this suggests that even a significant automotive improvement has only modest payoff in the overall picture. For instance, suppose the U.S. eliminated all gas-guzzling SUVs and, in doing so, suppose this halved our fleet consumption — and thus as well our vehicles’ CO2 contribution.
Our hardly frugal national fleet currently accounts for perhaps 45 percent of that global car-and-truck value. Thus, our driving can be associated with 6.75 percent (0.45 x 0.15) of the earth’s anthropogenic CO2. So even if we improve fuel consumption by a staggering 50 percent, the payoff is a mere 3-percent reduction in global CO2. (And, yes, I’ve rounded it low here for emphasis.)"
http://www.roadandtrack.com/auto-news/tech/climate-change-co2-and-the-automobile- /page_5_-_climate_change-2c_co2_and_the_automobile_page_5
And the key here is "Anthropogenic or MAN MADE CO2". There is no way that science can calculate natural occurring CO2 for any given year or over say 100 years. One large volcanic eruption throws all calculations to the wind. And all volcanic eruptions do not spew the same combination of GHGs. When a volcano like the ones in Hawaii erupt, which is becoming more frequent, the sulfur portion is very high. From what I am reading sulfur in the atmosphere causes cooling.
My main complaint, other than raising my energy cost over flawed scientific theories, is credibility. These same climate scientists at our NWS cannot accurately predict how hot or cold it will be 12 hours in advance. Most days around here they are off from 6-10 degrees in their predictions. And these same scientific minds want US to believe they can tell what the global temperature will be 100 years from now within a few tenths of a degree. That to me is unbelievable and incredible.
Dr. Cruz is a professor at CFNR. He earned his BS and MS Forestry degrees from UPLB while his PhD in Watershed Management, from the University of Arizona.
He has received numerous awards from various institutions. Among the most recent awards include being a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) or the panel of experts that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the former US Vice President Al Gore. His paper entitled "Yield and Oil Content Ideotypes Specification in Jatropha curcas L." won Best Scientific Poster Award for Agricultural Sciences by the National Academy of Science and Technology on July 15, 2010.
http://www.uplb.edu.ph/index.php/announcements/392-new-uplb-appointments
Promode Kant , Institute of Green Economy, C-312, Defence Colony, New Delhi 110024, India
Shuirong Wu Chinese Academy of Forestry, Wanshoushan, Haidian District, Beijing 100091, China
Blending of fossil diesel with biodiesel is an important climate change mitigation strategy across the world. In 2003 the Planning Commission of India decided to introduce mandatory blending over increasingly larger parts of the country and reach countrywide 30% blending status by the year 2020 and opted for nonedible oilseed species of Jatropha curcus raised over lands unsuited to agriculture as it was considered to be high in oil content, early yielding, nonbrowsable and requiring little irrigation and even less management.
In a massive planting program of unprecedented scale millions of marginal farmers and landless people were encouraged to plant Jatropha across India through attractive schemes.
In Tanzania more than 10000 small farmers have established Jatropha plantations and many more have done so in the rest of East Africa.(2) By 2008, Jatropha had already been planted over an estimated 900000 ha globally of which an overwhelming 85% was in Asia, 13% in Africa and the rest in Latin America, and by 2015 Jatropha is expected to be planted on 12.8 million ha worldwide.(5)
But the results are anything but encouraging. In India the provisions of mandatory blending could not be enforced as seed production fell far short of the expectation and a recent study has reported discontinuance by 85% of the Jatropha farmers.(1) In China also until today there is very little production of biodiesel from Jatropha seeds. In Tanzania the results are very unsatisfactory and a research study found the net present value of a five-year investment in Jatropha plantation was negative with a loss of US$ 65 per ha on lands with yields of 2 tons/ha of seeds and only slightly beneficial at US$ 9 per ha with yields of 3 tons when the average expected Jatropha seed yield on poor barren soils is only 1.7 to 2.2 tons/ha. Even on normal fertile soils (average seed yield 3.9 to 7.5 tons/ha) Jatropha was no match for sunflower.(2, 4)
Though acclaimed widely for its oil, Jatropha was never considered economically important enough for domestication and its seed and oil productivity is hugely variable.
A case study of Jatropha plantations raised in 1993–1994 in the Indian province of Andhra Pradesh had reported actual yields that were far below expectations and the species was found to be prone to termite attacks, water logging, vulnerable to drought in the planting year and delayed yields.(3)
It appears to be an extreme case of a well intentioned top down climate mitigation approach, undertaken without adequate preparation and ignoring conflict of interest, and adopted in good faith by other countries, gone awry bringing misery to millions of poorest people across the world. And it happened because the principle of “due diligence” before taking up large ventures was ignored everywhere. As climate mitigation and adaptation activities intensify attracting large investments there is danger of such lapses becoming more frequent unless “due diligence” is institutionalized and appropriate protocols developed to avoid conflict of interest of research organizations. As an immediate step an international body like the FAO may have to intervene to stop further extension of Jatropha in new areas without adequate research inputs. Greater investments in dissemination of scientific data will help in ensuring due diligence does not cause undue delays in decision making.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es201943v
Sounds like our idiocy with corn ethanol. Not to mention Wind generators no longer being used. Huge fields of decaying solar panels. All done with OPM.
BP Gives up on Jatropha for Biofuel
BP has indeed given up on jatropha, the shrub once touted as the great hope for biofuels, and walked away from its jatropha joint venture for less than $1 million.
Speculation abounded this summer that BP was ready to jettison its participation in the project with British partner partner D1 Oils. The original plan called for the investment of $160 million to turn the jatropha tree into feedstock to make transportation fuel. Now, BP will turn its alternative-fuel efforts toward ethanol in Brazil and the U.S., as well as biobutanol.
The not-with-a-bang-but-a-whimper end to BP’s jatropha adventure underscores a couple of key points. First, the inedible but hardy plant that just a few years ago seemed like it could revolutionize biofuels has turned into a bust. The initial attraction was that it grows on marginal land, so it wouldn’t compete with food crops. But marginal land means marginal yields. And jatropha turned out to be a water hog as well, further darkening its environmental credentials.
Second, for all the ink spilt over jatropha—and Big Oil’s interest in biofuels in general—the value of some of those investments really is miniscule. D1 Oils will buy out BP’s half of the venture for 500,000 pounds—less than the price of a nice apartment in London—even though the joint venture is apparently worth more than 7 million pounds.
And this wasn’t a piddling venture, as far as jatropha experiments go: Reuters notes that BP and D1 Oils planted more than 200,000 hectares of the stuff—25% of the worldwide jatropha planting.
So BP’s biofuel attentions will focus on three different areas. In Brazil, it will turn its attention back to sugarcane. In the U.S., it is working with Verenium to turn switchgrass into second-generation ethanol, though the economics are still murky. And there’s always biobutanol.
In a week when Exxon placed a relatively big bet on algae as a source of biofuel, it’s not that Big Oil has given up on alternative fuels—it’s just becoming more selective about where it places its chips.
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/07/17/bp-gives-up-on-jatropha-for- -biofuel/
On Arctic Ice and Warmth, Past and Future
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
For more than a decade, I’ve been probing changes in Arctic climate and sea ice and their implications for the species that make up northern ecosystems and for human communities there.
There are big changes afoot, with more to come should greenhouse gases continue to build unabated in the atmosphere. There will be impacts on human affairs in the Arctic, for worse and better, as we explored extensively in 2005 and I’ve followed here since.
But even as I push for an energy quest that limits climate risk, I’m not worried about the resilience of Arctic ecosystems and not worried about the system tipping into an irreversibly slushy state on time scales relevant to today’s policy debates. This is one reason I don’t go for descriptions of the system being in a “death spiral.”
The main source of my Arctic comfort level — besides what I learned while camped with scientists on the North Pole sea ice — is the growing body of work on past variations* in sea ice conditions in the Arctic. The latest evidence comes in a study in the current issue of Science. The paper, combining evidence of driftwood accumulation and beach formation in northern Greenland with evidence of past sea-ice extent in parts of Canada, concludes that Arctic sea ice appears to have retreated far more in some spans since the end of the last ice age than it has in recent years. [A Dot Earth reader has offered a different view of Arctic and climatic risk.]
There’s more on the paper below from the lead author, Svend Funder of the University of Copenhagen, and some independent ice scientists I queried about the work. The paper builds on earlier research finding evidence of open water and wave-splashed beaches in parts of Greenland that are now more typically locked in ice. Here’s more previous analysis of Arctic ice patterns during the Holocene, the span since the end of the last ice age.
When considered alongside research on past shifts in Arctic flora and fauna, a picture emerges of a physical system that amplifies warm or cool jogs and a biological system attuned to such changes.
Here’s some input on the new research from Funder (from a press release issued by his university; I’m tied up on other fronts or would have reached out for more):
Our studies show that there have been large fluctuations in the amount of summer sea ice during the last 10,000 years. During the so-called Holocene Climate Optimum, from approximately 8000 to 5000 years ago, when the temperatures were somewhat warmer than today, there was significantly less sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, probably less than 50% of the summer 2007 coverage, which is absolutely lowest on record. Our studies also show that when the ice disappears in one area, it may accumulate in another. We have discovered this by comparing our results with observations from northern Canada. While the amount of sea ice decreased in northern Greenland, it increased in Canada. This is probably due to changes in the prevailing wind systems. This factor has not been sufficiently taken into account when forecasting the imminent disappearance of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/on-arctic-sea-ice-and-warmth-past-a- nd-future/?emc=eta1
Your position seems to be, "Dam* the clean air - we gotta keep people WORKING, even if they are polluting like crazy !!!"
That's China's attitude right now, and it's backward and unfortunate. I don't think we should have the same view as that.
And it's nice to say "our dirty air comes from somewhere else, so the polluting WE do doesn't matter, because it's going somewhere else" but that's just crazy talk. Ask Patrick Star about that.
You don't really know much about the asthma problems our kids have, do you? Google it. Ask the parents of kids who have died from asthma attacks if clean air is important. http://www.aafa.org/display.cfm?id=9&sub=42
Give corporations tax breaks.
Call Prez B.O. and get that done, Gary. :shades:
You are actually happy with the worst reading in consumer sentiment since Carter's 4th year. President downgrade is giving us Carter's second term. Even the lines on the sentiment graph line up.
Um, I'm not sure what you mean there amigo. I was not discussing anything about that subject. You must have meant that last sentence for another poster besides myself.
And like I said - there's no realistic plan which can stop the pollution in China. What we can do as a country is limit our own pollution to try and counter their excessive pollution.
I find it shocking that you don't want to fund a bunch of enviro scientists to "research" the problem.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Obama Visits Corporation Where His Stimulus Created 'Green' Jobs at $2 Million Per Job
Thursday, August 11, 2011
President Barack Obama on Thursday toured a vehicle battery plant in Michigan, touting his administration’s focus on green technology and jobs, at a corporation where federal money authorized by the economic stimulus law that Obama signed at the beginning of his presidency had created "green" jobs at a cost of about $2 million in federal subsidies per job.
The economic stimulus, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, provided $2.4 billion in grants to advanced vehicle batteries technology. From that amount, $300 million in grants went to Johnson Controls to manufacture batteries.
When they say manufacture, they mean assemble batteries from Korean and Chinese manufactured Cells. Give the dirty work to the other countries.
Can someone tell me where the money went, or whose pocket it ended up in?
Since the gov is on a hiring spree, how about investing in some forensic accountants to track the money.
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http://ecogeek.org/component/content/article/3576
Iowa has hit a pretty big milestone in wind energy generation -- the state now gets 20 percent of its electricity from wind power. That's the highest percentage for any state in the U.S. and about on par with wind heavy nations like Denmark.
The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) reported that the state hit the mark in the second quarter of the year after a new 594 MW wind farm came online outside of Adair. The even better news is that Des Moines utility company MidAmerican Energy has two more big projects like it on the way in 2011.
With 4,000 MW, Iowa is second in total installed wind power capacity after Texas, which has 9,000 MW. The Lone Star state's much larger population means that capacity doesn't stack up the same percentage-wise though.
The AWEA reported that as of the beginning of July, 7,354 MW of new wind power was under construction in the U.S.
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/us-solar-pv-will-nearly-tripl- e-this-year/8095?tag=nl.e660
Photovoltaic electricity capacity in the U.S. will nearly triple this year to 2.4 gigawatts according to a forecast from research firm IHS iSuppli.
Still, solar will continue to sit under the long, long shadow of other energy sources like fossil fuels and nuclear. While the 2.4 GW represents an impressive 166% gain over what IHS says was 900 GW installed in 2010, it’s less than 1% of the U.S. electricity total.
For some perspective, in 2010, the U.S generated about 4,120 billion kilowatthours (4,100 gigawatthours) of electricity according to the Energy Information Administration, about 70% of which came from fossil fuels - some 45% from coal – and 20% from nuclear.
The solar percentage looks slightly better, although still fractional, when compared with new capacity. According to information released yesterday by the EIA, the U.S. added 11.25 GW of capacity in the first six months of this year.
Comparing the IHS numbers with the EIA statistics (sorry for the apples and oranges, but the mixed fruit pie chart in this case does at least give a representative flavor of the story), the 11.25 GW of overall new capacity for half a year is 7.5 times the 1.5 GW of new solar for the entire year.
“From January to June 2011, 162 electric power generators were added in 36 states, for a total of 11,255 megawatts (MW) of new capacity,” EIA reported. “Of the ten states with the highest levels of capacity additions, most of the new capacity uses natural gas, coal, or wind.”
If you assume that overall capacity will grow by the same amount in the second half- admittedly a fluffy assumption – then PV is about 6% of the new stuff. That’s starting to sound a little better than the “less than one percent” space to which solar has been relegated in overall contribution to U.S. electricity. It also gets it closer to the more respectable 1% ascribed to solar’s renewable rival, wind.
The IHS forecast does not include electricity generated from solar thermal plants.
IHS said the 1.5 GW rise in solar PV capacity comes largely from the installation of utility scale plants, and that California is leading all states this year in new PV “by a wide margin” with 967 megawatts, followed by New Jersey with 263 MW, Arizona with 243 MW, New Mexico with 139 MW and Nevada with 118 MW.
“The number of U.S. PV installations this year is projected to climb to approximately 49,000—up from 39,000 in 2010,” IHS said in a press release. “Of the 2.4GW in solar power expected to be installed this year, ground installations will contribute approximately 1.4GW, commercial installations 710 megawatts (MW) and residential installations 270MW.”
It attributed the increase in part to loan guarantees provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, which it says will support continued growth while Europe PV slumps. IHS predicted that U.S. PV capacity will hit 3.1 GW next year, and 5.5 GW by 2015.
The more the merrier !! The Sun keeps telling us, "USE ME I'M FREE !!!"
http://goodcleantech.pcmag.com/solar-energy/286968-solar-energy-could-power-50-o- f-the-world-by-2060
Solar power may make up just a fraction of the world's energy right now, but within five decades it could account for half.
At least, according to a report from the International Energy Agency, which predicts that by 2060 50 percent of the globe's power will come from the sun, including both photovoltaic and solar-thermal plants. The rest would mostly consist of other renewable sources, including wind and hydropower.
"Photovoltaic and concentrated solar power together can become the major source of electricity," IEA senior analyst Cedric Philibert told Bloomberg. "You'll have a lot more electricity than today but most of it will be produced by solar-electric technologies."
Unsurprisingly, the analysts predict that this switch to more sustainable energy will have a significant affect on the output of carbon emissions, which could drop as low as three gigatons annually in 2060, a sharp decrease from the 30 gigatons currently produced each year.
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But it's good to remember that he is not himself with his hot air melting the polar ice caps.
SOMETHING is, though.
Satellite data show that, over the past 30 years, Arctic sea ice has declined while Antarctic sea ice has mysteriously expanded, according to study leader Jiping Liu, a research scientist at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/08/100816-global-warming-antarctica- -sea-ice-paradox-science-environment/
August 16, 2011
Arctic sea ice at the crossroads
After a period of slow melt from late July through early August, Arctic ice extent is again declining at a brisk pace, but remains higher than for 2007, the record low year. Data also indicate continued thinning of the ice. With about a month left in the sea ice melt season, the amount of further ice loss will depend mostly on weather patterns.
Arctic sea ice loss slowed down in late July through early August; then over the past week, the rate of ice loss sped up. At present there is more ice than at the same time in 2007, which saw the record minimum September extent.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
So even the Arctic melting has reversed over the last 4 years. Which flies directly in the face of continued warming. I think the best thing to do is cut off all funding for about the next 50 years and revisit the AGW subject in 2065. We could save $trillions of wasted dollars. Put it in the bank for a real catastrophic event. Like earthquakes and Tsunamis.
Summer melt and sea ice thickness
Data indicate that the Arctic ice cover continues to thin. Sea ice thickness is also an indicator of the health of the ice cover; thick ice is resistant to melt. Specialized buoys managed by the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory help supplement limited satellite measurements of sea ice thickness. The buoys provide accurate data at specific locations, and can tell us whether thickness changes are due to surface melt, melt at the bottom of the ice floe, or ice growth. These buoys are deployed on thick multiyear ice, which provide long-lasting, stable platforms.
Data from six of these buoys through July 20 show that this year, the ice surface is melting faster than the underside of the ice. As the sun starts to sink on the horizon, surface melt will slow. However, ocean waters warmed during the summer will continue to melt the ice from below, reducing ice thickness and extent into September.
Ice volume
Combining ice thickness with sea ice area gives the total sea ice volume. At present, researchers cannot measure volume directly, so they estimate the volume with computer models. The University of Washington's Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) model combines data on sea ice concentration with models of ocean and atmospheric conditions to estimate total ice volume. Sea ice volume normally changes with the seasons, but monthly estimates through July 2011 show that the volume for each month has tracked well below the 1979 to 2010 average, and below the volume for 2007, which saw the record low ice extent. PIOMAS projects that this year's minimum volume in September will very likely finish below 2007 and could even reach a record low volume.
AND:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Arctic+retreat+reopens+Northwest+Passa- ge/5315614/story.html
Prime Minister Stephen Harper wrapped up his annual tour of the North on Friday amid fresh signs the region has experienced another major meltdown this summer, including the renewed opening of the southern route of the Northwest Passage and an overall ice retreat threatening to smash 2007's record-setting thaw.
The Canadian Ice Service confirmed Friday that a southerly shipping route through Canada's Arctic islands can now be safely navigated, though shifting winds could send ice floes into a key strait near Nunavut's Victoria Island and complicate voyage through the Northwest Passage.
Meanwhile, the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre has made public data that show total Arctic ice is once again retreating below the 5-million-square-kilometre mark, meaning the five greatest melts since satellite measurements began in the late 1970s have occurred in the past five years.
The severe retreat includes the opening of vast stretches of the Beaufort Sea north of the Yukon-Alaska border, where Canadian and U.S. scientists are engaged in a joint seabed mapping mission aimed at securing undersea territorial rights for the two countries under a UN treaty.
Arctic Ocean ice typically reaches a maximum winter extent of more than 14 million square kilometres. It melts significantly during the summer, usually reaching its minimum extent in mid-September.
The 30-year average for the end-of-summer minimum extent is about 7 million square kilometres. But since 2007, when a thaw reduced overall Arctic ice to 4.13 million square kilometres by that September, the region has continued to experience distinctly below-average ice minimums.
The severe ice retreat in the northern polar regions has many scientists concerned about the long-term effect of climate change, including altered wildlife habitats that appear to be threatening the future of ice-dependent species such as polar bear and narwhal.
Gary says, "I think the best thing to do is cut off all funding for about the next 50 years and revisit the AGW subject in 2065."
Good Lord, that is an awful idea.
http://www.evertsair.com/pages/cargo/services/bulkfuel.php
With an open Arctic shipping lane they can get a lot more freight during the longer time frame. And melting ice DOES NOT raise the level of the ocean. Another AGW Cult scare tactic.
Put some ice in your Cocktail glass and see for yourself.
Fremont-Based Solyndra Goes Bankrupt; 1,100 Workers Laid Off
August 31, 2011 9:21 AM
FREMONT (CBS SF) – A leading Bay Area manufacturer of solar power systems has abruptly shut down operations and laid off its staff while it sought to file for bankruptcy protection.
Solyndra LLC, which makes specialized cylindrical solar systems for commercial rooftops Wednesday announced in a statement that it was suspending operations because of unfavorable global economic and solar industry market conditions.
The company had been under scrutiny after receiving a $535 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy to expand its manufacturing facility in Fremont, along with a high-profile visit from President Barack Obama in May 2010.
During his visit to Solyndra and the new facility, President Obama showcased the company as a “testament to American ingenuity and dynamism” in line with his vision of developing green and alternative energy industries to compete with China and Europe.
More tax dollars down the SOLAR TOILET.
Don't blame the technology.
Blame the business plan.
It was stupid to being with.
I'm not for using tax money in this wasteful manner.
Using that $535 million dollars to put solar panels on parking structures, buildings, and houses would have made perfect sense. That way, at least we have a present and future benefit.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Gary has made it aware to me that this type of thing is going on.
I think it verges on criminal.
That is not an indictment on solar technology. That, I know, works just fine. Saves me a lot of money each year.
It's the business model that Prez B.O. promoted that is the problem. Not solar technology.
PS
I have no doubt we will see more solar. I have someone coming Friday to look at our place. I am skeptical that he can actually save me any money.
The rule remains - the less electricity you use, the less you can save from solar.
If you spent $300 a month and had a large enough south-facing roof, solar could save you a LOT of money.
I'm in the situation where solar only saves me about 23% because my average usage was about $75 a month without solar.
Efficiencies are going up in the labs. Once all this gets translated to the market, solar will become more and more ubiquitous in neighborhoods and on parking structures and business roofs.
In 50 years, solar will be a part of almost everything that sees the sun.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
If you want to go "whole hog" and buy a lot of batteries to put in your garage, then YES, you can use solar to charge the batteries then use the stored power anytime you want, including during outages.
But that setup makes it prohibitively expensive for most people.