Archive for the 'Climate' Category

Solid Arguments for the Green New Deal

by Editors @ Saturday, December 22nd, 2012. Filed under Climate, Environment, Green Energy, Green Industry

Wind and Solar Power Paired with Storage Could Power Grid 99.9 Percent Of The Time

By Science News
SolidarityEconomy.net via Sciencedaily.Com

Dec. 10, 2012 — Renewable Energy Could Fully Power A Large Electric Grid 99.9 Percent Of The Time By 2030 At Costs Comparable To Today's Electricity Expenses, According To New Research By The University Of Delaware And Delaware Technical Community College.

A Well-Designed Combination Of Wind Power, Solar Power And Storage In Batteries And Fuel Cells Would Nearly Always Exceed Electricity Demands While Keeping Costs Low, The Scientists Found.

"These Results Break The Conventional Wisdom That Renewable Energy Is Too Unreliable And Expensive," Said Co-Author Willett Kempton, Professor In The School Of Marine Science And Policy In Ud's College Of Earth, Ocean, And Environment. "The Key Is To Get The Right Combination Of Electricity Sources And Storage -- Which We Did By An Exhaustive Search -- And To Calculate Costs Correctly."

The Authors Developed A Computer Model To Consider 28 Billion Combinations Of Renewable Energy Sources And Storage Mechanisms, Each Tested Over Four Years Of Historical Hourly Weather Data And Electricity Demands. The Model Incorporated Data From Within A Large Regional Grid Called Pjm Interconnection, Which Includes 13 States From New Jersey To Illinois And Represents One-Fifth Of The United States' Total Electric Grid.

Unlike Other Studies, The Model Focused On Minimizing Costs Instead Of The Traditional Approach Of Matching Generation To Electricity Use. The Researchers Found That Generating More Electricity Than Needed During Average Hours -- In Order To Meet Needs On High-Demand But Low-Wind Power Hours -- Would Be Cheaper Than Storing Excess Power For Later High Demand.

Storage Is Relatively Costly Because The Storage Medium, Batteries Or Hydrogen Tanks, Must Be Larger For Each Additional Hour Stored.

One Of Several New Findings Is That A Very Large Electric System Can Be Run Almost Entirely On Renewable Energy.

"For Example, Using Hydrogen For Storage, We Can Run An Electric System That Today Would Meeting A Need Of 72 Gw, 99.9 Percent Of The Time, Using 17 Gw Of Solar, 68 Gw Of Offshore Wind, And 115 Gw Of Inland Wind," Said Co-Author Cory Budischak, Instructor In The Energy Management Department At Delaware Technical Community College And Former Ud Student.

A Gw ("Gigawatt") Is A Measure Of Electricity Generation Capability. One Gw Is The Capacity Of 200 Large Wind Turbines Or Of 250,000 Rooftop Solar Systems. Renewable Electricity Generators Must Have Higher Gw Capacity Than Traditional Generators, Since Wind And Solar Do Not Generate At Maximum All The Time.

The Study Sheds Light On What An Electric System Might Look Like With Heavy Reliance On Renewable Energy Sources. Wind Speeds And Sun Exposure Vary With Weather And Seasons, Requiring Ways To Improve Reliability. In This Study, Reliability Was Achieved By: Expanding The Geographic Area Of Renewable Generation, Using Diverse Sources, Employing Storage Systems, And For The Last Few Percent Of The Time, Burning Fossil Fuels As A Backup.

During The Hours When There Was Not Enough Renewable Electricity To Meet Power Needs, The Model Drew From Storage And, On The Rare Hours With Neither Renewable Electricity Or Stored Power, Then Fossil Fuel. When There Was More Renewable Energy Generated Than Needed, The Model Would First Fill Storage, Use The Remaining To Replace Natural Gas For Heating Homes And Businesses And Only After Those, Let The Excess Go To Waste.

The Study Used Estimates Of Technology Costs In 2030 Without Government Subsidies, Comparing Them To Costs Of Fossil Fuel Generation In Wide Use Today. The Cost Of Fossil Fuels Includes Both The Fuel Cost Itself And The Documented External Costs Such As Human Health Effects Caused By Power Plant Air Pollution. The Projected Capital Costs For Wind And Solar In 2030 Are About Half Of Today's Wind And Solar Costs, Whereas Maintenance Costs Are Projected To Be Approximately The Same.

"Aiming For 90 Percent Or More Renewable Energy In 2030, In Order To Achieve Climate Change Targets Of 80 To 90 Percent Reduction Of The Greenhouse Gas Carbon Dioxide From The Power Sector, Leads To Economic Savings," The Authors Observe.

Story Source:

The Above Story Is Reprinted From Materials Provided By University Of Delaware.

Note: Materials May Be Edited For Content And Length. For Further Information, Please Contact The Source Cited Above.

Journal Reference:

Cory Budischak, Deanna Sewell, Heather Thomson, Leon Mach, Dana E. Veron, Willett Kempton. Cost-Minimized Combinations Of Wind Power, Solar Power And Electrochemical Storage, Powering The Grid Up To 99.9% Of The Time. Journal Of Power Sources, 2013; 225: 60 Doi: 10.1016/J.Jpowsour.2012.09.054

Need To Cite This Story In Your Essay, Paper, Or Report? Use One Of The Following Formats:

Apa Mla, University Of Delaware (2012, December 10). Wind And Solar Power Paired With Storage Could Power Grid 99.9 Percent Of The Time. Sciencedaily. Retrieved December 22, 2012, From Http://Www.Sciencedaily.Com­ /Releases/2012/12/121210133507.Htm

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In the Big Picture, Natural Gas and ‘Fracking’ Is Only One Piece of the Puzzle

by Editors @ Wednesday, April 4th, 2012. Filed under Climate, Environment, Green Energy, Third World

How the Big Energy Companies Plan to Turn

the United States into a Third-World Petro-State

By Michael T. Klare
SolidarityEconomy.net via AlterNet.org

April 4, 2012 - The “curse” of oil wealth is a well-known phenomenon in Third World petro-states where millions of lives are wasted in poverty and the environment is ravaged, while tiny elites rake in the energy dollars and corruption rules the land.

Recently, North America has been repeatedly hailed as the planet’s twenty-first-century “new Saudi Arabia” for “tough energy” -- deep-sea oil, Canadian tar sands, and fracked oil and natural gas. 

But here’s a question no one considers: Will the oil curse become as familiar on this continent in the wake of a new American energy rush as it is in Africa and elsewhere? Will North America, that is, become not just the next boom continent for energy bonanzas, but a new energy Third World?

Once upon a time, the giant U.S. oil companies -- Chevron, Exxon, Mobil, and Texaco -- got their start in North America, launching an oil boom that lasted a century and made the U.S. the planet’s dominant energy producer.  But most of those companies have long since turned elsewhere for new sources of oil.

Eager to escape ever-stronger environmental restrictions and dying oil fields at home, the energy giants were naturally drawn to the economically and environmentally wide-open producing areas of the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America -- the Third World -- where oil deposits were plentiful, governments compliant, and environmental regulations few or nonexistent.

Here, then, is the energy surprise of the twenty-first century: with operating conditions growing increasingly difficult in the global South, the major firms are now flocking back to North America. To exploit previously neglected reserves on this continent, however, Big Oil will have to overcome a host of regulatory and environmental obstacles.  It will, in other words, have to use its version of deep-pocket persuasion to convert the United States into the functional equivalent of a Third World petro-state.

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The ‘Red Plot’ in a Green Trojan Horse

by Editors @ Saturday, November 26th, 2011. Tags: , ,
Filed under Climate, Economic Democracy, Energy, Green Energy, Green Industry, Socialism

Capitalism vs. the Climate

By Naomi Klein
SolidarityEconomy.net via The Nation, Nov 9, 2011

 

There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row.

He introduces himself as Richard Rothschild. He tells the crowd that he ran for county commissioner in Maryland’s Carroll County because he had come to the conclusion that policies to combat global warming were actually “an attack on middle-class American capitalism.” His question for the panelists, gathered in a Washington, DC, Marriott Hotel in late June, is this: “To what extent is this entire movement simply a green Trojan horse, whose belly is full with red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine?”

Here at the Heartland Institute’s Sixth International Conference on Climate Change, the premier gathering for those dedicated to denying the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet, this qualifies as a rhetorical question. Like asking a meeting of German central bankers if Greeks are untrustworthy. Still, the panelists aren’t going to pass up an opportunity to tell the questioner just how right he is.

Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who specializes in harassing climate scientists with nuisance lawsuits and Freedom of Information fishing expeditions, angles the table mic over to his mouth. “You can believe this is about the climate,” he says darkly, “and many people do, but it’s not a reasonable belief.” Horner, whose prematurely silver hair makes him look like a right-wing Anderson Cooper, likes to invoke Saul Alinsky: “The issue isn’t the issue.” The issue, apparently, is that “no free society would do to itself what this agenda requires…. The first step to that is to remove these nagging freedoms that keep getting in the way.”

Claiming that climate change is a plot to steal American freedom is rather tame by Heartland standards. Over the course of this two-day conference, I will learn that Obama’s campaign promise to support locally owned biofuels refineries was really about “green communitarianism,” akin to the “Maoist” scheme to put “a pig iron furnace in everybody’s backyard” (the Cato Institute’s Patrick Michaels). That climate change is “a stalking horse for National Socialism” (former Republican senator and retired astronaut Harrison Schmitt). And that environmentalists are like Aztec priests, sacrificing countless people to appease the gods and change the weather (Marc Morano, editor of the denialists’ go-to website, ClimateDepot.com).

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