American Capitalists Have Gotten Fat and Lazy – China kicks their butts

This article says it all. Why did America lose 16 million jobs is the last three recessions? Because the Rich and the Capitalists got bored with making money the old fashioned way and decided playing the markets was easier and more fun. Why beside laziness have they decided that America will become a second class country? Oh they blame the unions, deficit spending, socialism etc., but all the elites really know right now is that greed is good and attacking other countries is really profitable.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/industries/energy/stories/DN-wind_18bus.ART0.State.Edition1.3cefd15.html

Report says China is squeezing U.S. firms out of its massive wind-power market

12:00 AM CDT on Thursday, March 18, 2010

By JIM LANDERS / The Dallas Morning News
jlanders@dallasnews.com

WASHINGTON – U.S. companies are getting squeezed out of the big Chinese wind-power market even as Dallas investors are bringing Chinese firms here via a big wind farm in Texas, according to a new industry report.

“They’ve used every measure you could possibly think of to enhance production of renewable energy equipment in China,” said report author Alan Wolff of the trade law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk won a pledge from the Chinese last fall to drop rules giving preference to Chinese makers of wind-power equipment. But Kirk’s office hasn’t seen any evidence that the pledge has been carried out, said spokeswoman Carol Guthrie.

Meanwhile, Chinese manufacturers are entering the U.S. wind market under a joint venture led by Dallas investor Cappy McGarr.

McGarr’s U.S. Renewable Energy Group, with Cielo Wind Power LP of Austin and China’s Shenyang Power Group, is planning a $1.5 billion, 600-megawatt wind farm on 36,000 acres in West Texas.

Several U.S. senators have complained that the West Texas project would use hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. economic stimulus funds for wind turbines built in China. They introduced a bill this month that would halt federal funding of renewable energy projects until “buy American” requirements are written into law.

McGarr’s Chinese partners announced plans last week to build a wind turbine factory in Nevada, and McGarr says most of the jobs for the West Texas project will be American.

“A minimum of 70 percent of each wind turbine in the … project, including the massive towers and blades, will be wholly manufactured in the United States and made entirely of American steel,” McGarr said.

Dewey & LeBoeuf’s report on China’s renewable energy equipment market was done for a U.S. industry group, the National Foreign Trade Council, where concern about China’s market restrictions and treatment of foreign firms is growing.

“If you’re not operating under a rule-of-law country, if you have no place to adjudicate, and there are places where the country has stacked the deck against you, you may look for somewhere else” to do business, said trade council president Bill Reinsch.

Some wind power advocates are urging everyone to calm down and are particularly concerned about the Senate “Buy American” bill.

“This proposal would torpedo one of the most successful job creation efforts of the Recovery Act [the economic stimulus program], which has already preserved half of the 85,000 American jobs in the U.S. wind industry,” said Denise Bode, president of the American Wind Energy Association.

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David Gergen Supports Alternative Energy And The Green Economy

Well this brings this blog and blogger right to the environmental focus we had hoped for. I saw this Sunday in the Parade Magazine. I knew I had to post it.

http://www.parade.com/news/2010/03/14-back-page-how-america-can-create-new-jobs.html

Back Page

How America Can Create New Jobs

by David Gergen
published: 03/14/2010
Technicians install a solar panel in Malibu, Calif.

‘Our company is like many other big ones in this country,” a CEO told me recently. “We expect to create plenty of jobs in coming years, but guess what: They won’t be in the U.S.”Welcome to the “new normal.” For more than five straight decades after World War II, the Great American Job Machine cranked out jobs at a phenomenal pace—22 million in the 1990s alone. But since December 1999, there has been zero net job creation—nada, zippo. Coming out of recession, one in six Americans is now unemployed or can’t find full-time work. Worse still, some economists say we won’t be back to pre-recession levels until 2016!

What can be done? Sadly, not much in the short term. Washington can and should pass bipartisan programs that create infrastructure jobs, ease the pain of unemployment, and hasten lending for small business. But progress will be painfully slow for millions of families.

The bigger challenge is whether we rally and renew for the long run. We are facing the toughest international competition in our lifetimes, and we are no longer winning. The signs are all around us. Who can believe that the first 20 floors of the new World Trade Center will be wrapped in glass made in China? Or that the new 28-foot statue of Martin Luther King Jr. will be coming to the Mall in Washington from Chinese workshops? These should be made-in-America jobs.

It is easy to get mad; great nations get even. We shouldn’t erect trade barriers—those helped to spark the Great Depression. We have to remember what made us the most dynamic nation in the world and can do so again: education and innovation.

In their new book, Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Larry Katz point to the fundamental truth that the U.S. became the world’s richest nation at the beginning of the 20th century because we educated  more of our kids than anyone else. Generation after generation, children finished about two more years of schooling than their parents. We created the top research universities. But then we slowed down and others sped up. In the 1960s, the U.S. had the top high school graduation rate in the world; by the early 2000s, we were 19th. Our college graduation rates of young people have fallen into 12th place. To reignite job creation, Goldin and Katz say, we must once again be the best at educating our kids.

Fortunately, we’re finally firing up on education reform. Cities like New York, Chicago, Houston, and, yes, New Orleans are pushing reforms. Arne Duncan is a first-class Secretary of Education. More than 40,000 college seniors applied this year to Teach for America, the volunteer teaching corp. Even unions are getting the message. We are far, far from where we should be—but at last there is fresh hope.

The second fundamental truth is that scientific and technological research is key to job creation. MIT president Susan Hockfield notes that investment after World War II created waves of new industries and jobs in electronics, nuclear power, aerospace, communications, and computing. Yet again, we’ve slowed relative to other hungry nations. As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman points out, we have only a tiny handful of the top 10 global companies in emerging green industries.

Relentless global competition is here to stay. We shouldn’t be scared nor discouraged. That’s not who we are as Americans. As my favorite preacher, Peter Gomes, says about how one should handle adversity in life, “Get used to it, get over it, and get on with it.”

David Gergen is a professor of public service at Harvard and a senior political analyst at CNN. He serves on the board of Teach for America and has advised four Presidents.

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More next time.

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What Your House Should Have Looked Like In The First Place – Last day of residential efficiency meditation

It’s Jam Band Friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gpdz8INFBg

So we end this meditation where we have been for 3 days on building a house that does what it should, make your life cheap and comfortable. This all started with an Energy Audit. Could that get you to build a better home in the future? Sure it could. It just depends on how important the planet Earth is to you. It is very important to me. Other people think of it as their personal toilet.

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/kit-eaton/technomix/your-future-homes-roof-will-be-eco-friendly-too

Your Future Home’s Roof Will Be Eco-Friendly Too

BY Kit EatonFri Oct 9, 2009

Scientists at MIT have invented a smart roofing material that takes a new thermal-management approach to eco-design. It’s a different approach to previous efforts, of which there are many. We’ve rounded them up for you, starting with the latest, below.

thermeleon

MIT’s Black and White Solution

MIT’s Thermeleon material is a composite of layers that makes it thermochromic–on exposure to heat it changes color from black to white. It works by sandwiching a common polymer between flexible plastic layers, with a black one at the back–when cold the polymer solution stays dissolved and the black rear face shows through, and when it heats up the solution condenses to form light-scattering droplets.

The upshot is that when the sun is shining a roof tile covered in the material is white-colored, scattering up to 80% of the sunlight back and thus keeping the building beneath the roof cooler. The result is a 20% reduction in cost to keep the interior at a comfortable temperature in the summer, a figure which also comes with an eco-friendly drop in the electricity supply demands. During winter, of course, you’d prefer your roof to capture as much heat as possible from the sun, which is where the black coloring is handy–the tiles scatter just 30% of incoming solar radiation then.

The team’s working on micro-encapsulating the chemicals, so that in future they may work as a paintable or spray-on coating, and then if the prices drop to match the innovation, the tech could also find much use in the developing world

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs8HcICxzAU&feature=related )

Why haven’t we done things like this for years:

Dow Chemicals’ Covert Solar Tiles

If your house design calls for a shingled roof instead of a tiled one, and you live in an area where theft of expensive roof-top solar panels is a problem, then Dow Chemicals has a neat trick.

Its Solar Shingles use thin-film copper indium gallium diselenide technology to make them cheap and light, and they’re designed to be intermingled with traditional asphalt roof tiles on a roof. That makes for easy installation, and lower visibility to street-level thieves.

solar roof shingles

And there you have it: Proof positive that in the future, our building roofing will do much more for us than keeping the sun, wind, and rain off our heads. They all make good sense, of course, since traditional roofs spend all their time staring at the sun rather than harnessing its rays for energy. Now if there were only a clever hybrid of all these different ideas…

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With credits to:

http://www.physorg.com/news174209373.html

and

http://www.physorg.com/news174209373.html

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQyt_xy2mMQ&feature=related )

Then there is the really far out stuff:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3351863/Eco-tree-houses-the-homes-of-the-future.html

Eco tree houses – the homes of the future

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Published: 5:00PM BST 16 Sep 2008

A model of the proposed tree house (left) and an illustration of how one might look (click to enlarge)

Tree houses grown specifically for modern living could be the eco-homes of the future.

Scientists from the US and Israel have developed the trees that can be shaped into the structure of innovative homes.

The ingenious tree houses naturally provide shade and can also be used to process waste and reduce carbon emissions.

The researchers at Tel Aviv University and a branch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are confident the first prototype home could be ready in just ten years.

Plantware, the organisation behind the technology, have already built bus-shelters, park benches and traffic lights using the advanced techniques of airoponics, where plants are grown without soil.

Now they have built a model for a tree house to be used in cities.

The extraordinary structure is build from actual tree roots that are grown to be mallable and then hardened into a structure like steel girders. The houses can be equipped with solar panels and wind turbines to generate electricity and even convert human waste into valuable nutrient for the living tree.

Different species of trees could be chosen for different environments so for example, willows could be used in England and giant American redwoods in California.

However at the moment the tree homes would be prohibitively expensive to all but a few.

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqUTB5bflCM&feature=related )

This is a really long article so I will get you started and list the 3 architects. Watch out the prices will kill you, but you can do the same things without the expense.

http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/new_homes/article3203472.ece

From The Sunday Times
January 20, 2008

Building the future: eco-architecture

Home gave three leading eco-architects different budgets and one brief: to create a sustainable urban family dwelling. Our correspondent is impressed by the result

Brooke Coombes House

So, you want a stylish green home, but think it will cost the earth? Think again. Home asked three leading exponents of sustainable design to come up with the ultimate green new-build house to suit three very different budgets – and the results were spectacular.

All had the same brief: to design a home for a young part-time teacher and her husband, an IT specialist. The imaginary couple have two children, aged nine and seven, and own an end-of-terrace plot on a tree-lined street of Victorian houses. The house can’t be taller than neighbouring three-storey homes, and must be as green as possible.

Dan Burr, 40, an associate partner at Sheppard Robson, which has offices in London and Manchester, has come up with a three-bedroom, 1,500 sq ft home costing £250,000 (plus land costs). Burr was the design director on Britain’s first zero-carbon house, the Lighthouse, built in Watford last year. The building meets level 6 of the Code for Sustainable Homes, with which all new homes in Britain will have to comply by 2016.

Justin Bere, 48, principal of the north London-based firm Bere Architects, designed a four-bedroom, 1,800 sq ft home costing £400,000 (plus land costs). His residential projects include Focus House, built in 2006 in Finsbury Park, north London, which won the Riba London Region Award 2007, among other prizes. His practice is a devotee of PassivHaus, an established German style of energy-efficient construction.

The third property is a five-bedroom, 2,500 sq ft home costing £600,000, designed by the husband-and-wife team Catherine Burd and Buddy Haward, both 41. Based in northwest London, they devised the low-energy Brooke Coombes House, in Ealing, west London, which in 2002 won the Riba Manser Medal, and are designing 600 sustainable homes in the Rochester Riverside scheme at Thames Gateway.

Their EZ House has three key principles: its construction must incorporate local materials from sustainable sources and low-energy build methods; it must consume little or no energy, so conserve or generate it on site; and the flexible design must have non-load-bearing internal walls, so that it can be adapted to the changing needs of the occupants

The sectional house
£250,000

Sheppard Robson: 020 7504 1779, www.sheppardrobson.com

The PassivHaus
£400,000

bere:architects: 020 7837 9333, www.bere.co.uk

The EZ House
£600,000

Burd Haward: 020 7722 0788, www.burdhaward.com

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Next week I go back to the environment. So much has been happening on the energy and the environment front that I have been dieing to print but…well meditations go where ever they will.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7pHo9amiZY&feature=related

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An Energy Audit Leads Directly To Wind Generation – People get the bug

It is true. Not everyone will get the bug. Where you stop after your energy audit could many times be with good thoughts. A liberal bastion such as Boulder, has to hire people to go door to door to install Compact Flourescent Lighbulbs.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704320104575015920992845334.html

Even Boulder Finds It Isn’t Easy Going Green

By STEPHANIE SIMON

BOULDER, Colo.—This spring, city contractors will fan out across this well-to-do college town to unscrew light bulbs in thousands of homes and replace them with more energy-efficient models, at taxpayer expense.

City officials never dreamed they’d have to play nanny when they set out in 2006 to make Boulder a role model in the fight against global warming. The cause seemed like a natural fit in a place where residents tend to be politically liberal and passionate about the great outdoors.

Instead, as Congress considers how to encourage Americans to conserve more energy, Boulder stands as a cautionary tale about the limits of good intentions.

“What we’ve found is that for the vast majority of people, it’s exceedingly difficult to get them to do much of anything,” says Kevin Doran, a senior research fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

President Barack Obama has set ambitious goals for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, in part by improving energy efficiency. Last year’s stimulus bill set aside billions to weatherize buildings. The president has also called for a “cash for caulkers” rebate for Americans who weatherize their homes.

But Boulder has found that financial incentives and an intense publicity campaign aren’t enough to spur most homeowners to action, even in a city so environmentally conscious that the college football stadium won’t sell potato chips because the packaging isn’t recyclable.

Take George Karakehian. He considers himself quite green: He drives a hybrid, recycles, uses energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs. But he refuses to practice the most basic of conservation measures: Shutting the doors to his downtown art gallery when his heating or air conditioning is running.

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NONETHELESS

Many people get the bug to the point where they want to make their own which ain’t very hard to do. Ed Beagley Jr. makes his with a bicycle generator.

http://www.magnet4less.com/index.php?cPath=8&gclid=CMT6sKTjqaACFQTyDAod6i0xeg

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Wind Turbine Generators with Inverters


Wind Turbine Generators with Inverters
Wind Turbine system with inverter included. WindMax wind turbines have high performance, high efficiency, high reliability and superior workmanship, designed to work from low to high wind speeds.: High performance, high efficiency, high reliability and superior workmanship, designed to work from low to high wind speeds.We also are the leading manufacturer of top quality, excellent performing, and long lasting wind turbine blades.

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Hybrid Wind Turbines w/Solar Panels


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Just think one day everyone might have one

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Where An Energy Audit Can Lead – We started this meditation on caulk and CFL’s

[we are coming up on Herbie Hancock’s 70th birthday so..]

It’s Jam Band Friday – ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrgP1u5YWEg )

But the discussion leads directly to considering the use of you own generation devices. People have been trained over the years to “pay their energy bills as they go”. What if you paid your energy bill before you used it. Electricity is not a commodity and energy services are your birthright. OoopS there I go again getting all radical. But it is not radical to be thrifty. It is not radical to be kind to the Earth. It is not radical to teach your kids sustainable practices. The internal combustion Engine is primitive and must be gotten away from. The days when we could just burn large amounts of “stuff” and consume large amounts of “stuff” are over, whether we like it or not…anyway here’s some solar POWER…

http://www.andalaysolar.com/cm/Home.html

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Andalay, the next generation in solar power systems, engineered away these flaws with its award-winning revolutionary design. Protected wiring, assembly in a quality-controlled factory environment, and superior framing, grounding and wiring deliver a system that is built to provide decades of reliable solar power performance. Learn More » Maximum Lifetime Performance With Enphase micro-inverters built right into each panel, Andalay delivers decades of powerful performance. Unlike ordinary solar panels where their power production varies from hour to hour, each Andalay panel consistently operates at its maximum power potential. Additionally, these revolutionary panels continue to operate at maximum power even if one panel goes down compared to ordinary panels where the malfunction of one panel from shading or other failures takes down all of the panels. As a result, these revolutionary panels can perform 5% to 25% higher than ordinary panels. Learn More » Beautiful Appearance on your Roof In addition to its unparallel reliability, Andalay’s award winning design showcases a sleek, beautiful, design that compliments your home. With 80% less parts and fewer penetrations to your roof, Andalay’s slimmer panels, invisible electrical cabling and hidden mounting system take up less room on your roof while showing off a revolutionary design. The end result is an attractive system that ends electricity bills and fights green house gas. Learn More »

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hmVHhH96es )

http://www.amerescosolar.com/SolarSite/SolarSiteMain.aspx?tsid=googleppc&gclid=CMrFjcKgoqACFQMhDQodkylFag

Solar electric power, known as photovoltaic (PV) technology, makes use of the abundant energy from the sun. It can be used in a wide range of products, from small consumer items to large commercial solar electric systems.

Few power-generation technologies have as little impact on the environment as solar power.
It quietly generates electricity from light and produces no air pollution or hazardous waste.
It doesn’t require liquid or gaseous fuels to be transported or combusted. And because its energy source—sunlight—is free and abundant, it can guarantee access to electric power.
Learn More

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo5GcYeh7XA )

http://www.solarliving.org/display.asp?catid=49

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Established in 1998 as a spin-off from Real Goods Trading Company, the Solar Living Institute in Hopland, CA, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization whose mission is to promote sustainable living through inspirational environmental education. The Institute provides practical, education by example and hands-on workshops on renewable energy, green building, sustainable living, permaculture, organic gardening and alternative, environmental, construction methods.

The Institute is headquartered at the Solar Living Center, a gorgeous 12-acre renewable energy and sustainable living demonstration site visited by nearly 200,000 people annually in the heart of Northern California’s wine country in Hopland, California. Since its inception nearly two million visitors have experienced the Solar Living Center.

The nonprofit Solar Living Institute depends upon your support to continue to offer you rich educational programs. Please support the Institute by joining our Membership Program, making a gift online, becoming an intern, or volunteering.

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6WrK7m4ZPk&feature=related )

http://www.affordable-solar.com/residential.solar.home.htm

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There are many terms for Residential Solar Energy System such as Grid-Tie (tied into the energy grid), Residential Solar, and Home Solar, but they are all the same thing: a solar electric system that provides clean and renewable power from the sun.

:}

Happy Birthday

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMqvDV-lYVc&feature=related

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Commercially Sold Solar Water Heaters – If we all heated water this way our burning behavior could be cut in half

I mean I am talking world wide. If every women in the world heated water this way their lives would immediately improve and their effects on the environment would come to a stop. They probably would even live better lives. Every bride should demand one.

http://www.radiantsolar.com/solar_options.php?gclid=CLXv0KCWnaACFQvyDAodrxs6Xw

Solar Options

Here are some of the things that a solar heating system can do for you:

SOLAR DOMESTIC WATER HEATING

kids in a tub of domestic hot water The production of domestic hot water is one of the most beneficial and cost effective uses of thermal solar collectors. Many people would be surprised to learn how much energy and environmental impact is required for this use. Water has a “polar” molecular structure and for that reason it requires an unusual amount of energy to change its temperature. In fact, the “heat capacity” of water is about 4 times that of concrete or cast iron. It is a “year around” function that rounds out other seasonal or intermittent solar applications and improves the cost benefit or investment value of the solar heating system. In many places, solar domestic water heaters are eligible for tax credits. We include the domestic hot water heating element in nearly everything we do because it addresses important mechanical issues such as summertime heat control and heat dumping.

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http://www.solardirect.com/swh/swh.htm

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These people are a lot of fun. They been at it for 31 years.

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Solar Water Heaters – This is definitely where the Energy Audit stops

I know…I just had you insulate your water heater BUT if you use it for a holding tank it was not a waste of time…

http://www.simpleheaters.com/?hop=goodanswer

You Can Easily Build Your Own Solar Water Heater and Save up to 33% Off Your Electric Bill Every Month While Helping the Environment.

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Our easy step by step guide will show you several different plans to build your very own solar water heater system. These plans are easy enough for anyone to follow and will give you the option of how you would like to set up and install your water heater. You can build an entire system for less than $70. Once installed, you will be saving up to 1/3 of your electric bill each and every month.

Can a Water Heater Really Be Solar?

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Back To The Residential Market – The Environment is important and so is the Community

Community Energy Systems’ is about where they meet. That is in the home. So it is Jam Band Friday and we need to get back to it.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUKufZGdeXY )

This may be one of the best residential sites I have ever found and it is in Britain. Go figure. I mean if you scroll down and look at all the stuff it is pretty amazing.

http://energysavingnow.com/

I am going to focus on what is called Distributed Generation today that really emphasizes getting solar and wind out into the community.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXE8u_HRpls )

The idea is simple lease everyone’s roofs and put generation on them.

http://www.energysavingnow.com/paper/dgindia/

DISTRIBUTED GENERATION AND ITS SOCIAL IMPACT
By Manu Avinash .G , S4, EEE, CET and
Krishna kumar .G , S4, EEE, CET

ABSTRACT- distributed generation, defined as generation located at or near the load centres, is being recognised as an environment friendly, reliable, and secure source of power which not only has minimal negative social impacts but also serves to promote social welfare. This paper aims to bring out the salient features of distributed generation from an economic and social perspective. The paper to identify the distributed resources available in India and proposes methods to tap them. It also studies the social consequences of wide spread deployment of distributed systems and their accommodation into the new liberalised energy market of India.

I. INTRODUCTION
Most of the electricity produced today is generated in large generating stations, which is then transmitted at high voltage to the load centres and transmitted to consumers at reduced voltage through local distribution systems. In contrast with large generating stations, distributed generation (DG) produce power on a customer’s site or at a local distribution network. DG technologies include

  • Engines,
  • Small hydro and gas turbines
  • Fuel cells
  • Photo voltaic systems etc


Although they represent a small share of the electricity market they play a key role for applications in which reliability is crucial, as a source of emergency capacity, and as an alternative to expansion of a local network, in developed economies where uninterrupted power supply is essential. In developing countries like India, where the generation is inadequate to meet the demand, reliability and energy security are of lesser importance. Developing country can tap the potential of DG to extend their present generation capacity in an environment friendly and cost friendly manner.

The paper is divided into two parts first part examines the various DG technologies and their merits and demerits and the second part studies the social impact of large scale deployment of small, mini and micro projects in India.

II. WHAT IS DISTRIBUTED GENERATION?
Distributed generation, is defined as generation located at or near the load centres [1]. They generate electricity through various small-scale power generation technologies. Distributed energy resources (DE) refers to a variety of small, modular power-generating technologies that can be combined with energy management and storage systems and used to improve the operation of the electricity delivery system, whether or not those technologies are connected to an electricity grid. . Projects are generally developed by either the user to avoid the purchase of power from the grid or an energy service provider who then retails the power to the site.

III. DISTRIBUTED GENERATION TECHNOLOGIES
Commercial energy technologies include:

  • IC engines
  • Gas turbines
  • Micro turbines
  • Energy storage technologies


Renewable energy technologies include:

  • Fuel cells
  • Solar photovoltaic
  • Wind & Wave Energy
  • Hydro electric energy


Some of them are discussed below:

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaKCLve_XDs )

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Don’t take their word for it. Pretty much everybody now agrees that it has its place in the world.

http://www.dg.history.vt.edu/ch1/benefits.html

What are the Potential Benefits of DG Systems?

Consumer advocates who favor DG point out that distributed resources can improve the efficiency of providing electric power.  They often highlight that transmission of electricity from a power plant to a typical user wastes roughly 4.2 to 8.9 percent of the electricity as a consequence of aging transmission equipment, inconsistent enforcement of reliability guidelines, and growing congestion. At the same time, customers often suffer from poor power quality—variations in voltage or electrical flow—that results from a variety of factors, including poor switching operations in the network, voltage dips, interruptions, transients, and network disturbances from loads.  Overall, DG proponents highlight the inefficiency of the existing large-scale electrical transmission and distribution network.  Moreover, because customers’ electricity bills include the cost of this vast transmission grid, the use of on-site power equipment can conceivably provide consumers with affordable power at a higher level of quality.  In addition, residents and businesses that generate power locally have the potential to sell surplus power to the grid, which can yield significant income during times of peak demand.

Industrial managers and contractors have also begun to emphasize the advantages of generating power on site.  Cogeneration technologies permit businesses to reuse thermal energy that would normally be wasted.  They have therefore become prized in industries that use large quantities of heat, such as the iron and steel, chemical processing, refining, pulp and paper manufacturing, and food processing industries.  Similar generation hardware can also deploy recycled heat to provide hot water for use in aquaculture, greenhouse heating, desalination of seawater, increased crop growth and frost protection, and air preheating.

Beyond efficiency, DG technologies may provide benefits in the form of more reliable power for industries that require uninterrupted service.  The Electric Power Research Institute reported that power outages and quality disturbances cost American businesses $119 billion per year.  In 2001, the International Energy Agency (2002) estimated that the average cost of a one-hour power outage was $6,480,000 for brokerage operations and $2,580,000 for credit card operations.  The figures grow more impressively for the semiconductor industry, where a two hour power outage can cost close to $48,000,000.  Given these numbers, it remains no mystery why several firms have already installed DG facilities to ensure consistent power supplies

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As EF Schumacher said – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful – Small IS Beautiful.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmzN3KayWU8 )

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There She Blows – Why can’t the US be this aggressive

It’s Jam Band Friday ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRUWtrgTpcs )

We have so much coastline that we could use for this. But nooooo, the drill here drill now crowd would rather put drilling rigs there. First I have to say:

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2s6LZUdYaU&feature=related )

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Community Energy Systems is a nonprofit 501c3 organization chartered in Illinois in Sangamon County. As such we are dependent on public donations for our continued existence. We also use AdSense as a fundraiser. Please click on the ads that you see on this page, on our main page and on our Bulletin Board (Refrigerator Magnets) and you will be raising money for CES. We say a heartfelt THANK YOU to all who do.

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI1tW-YykWQ&feature=related )

5 Gigs Wow

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8447317.stm

New offshore wind farm contracts announced

Offshore wind farm

The licences could see the installation of hundreds of new turbines

Contracts have been awarded for a major expansion of offshore wind power in the seas around Scotland.

Moray Offshore Renewables and SeaGreen Wind Energy will develop offshore wind power in the Moray Firth and the Firth of Forth.

The energy companies have been awarded the contracts by the Crown Estate, a UK government agency.

The energy companies have been awarded the contracts by the Crown Estate, a UK government agency.

It is believed the development could lead to 1,000 new turbines generating nearly five giga watts of power.

Jobs could also be created in manufacturing, research, engineering, installation, operation and services.

The move comes just days after the Scottish government’s approval of the controversial upgrade to the Beauly to Denny transmission line of pylons from the Highlands to central Scotland.

We hold a competitive advantage in developing offshore renewables, including as much as a quarter of Europe’s offshore wind energy potential and a world-class scientific capacity and skills base

Alex Salmond
First Minister

First Minister Alex Salmond said: “The announcement by the Crown Estate is excellent news for Scotland.

“We hold a competitive advantage in developing offshore renewables, including as much as a quarter of Europe’s offshore wind energy potential and a world-class scientific capacity and skills base.”

Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy said Scotland was the windiest country in Europe and the conditions were being created for the energy industry to invest in harnessing it.

He added: “This is one of the strongest signals yet that Scotland is right at the heart of the UK’s commitment to a low carbon, energy secure, prosperous future.

“But it’s also great news for the manufacturing industry and supply chain in Scotland.”

‘Great opportunity’

The Crown Estate is the owner of the UK’s coastal seabeds and this third round of grants covers the Moray Firth zone, which will be developed by a partnership involving the Portuguese company, EDP Renewables and SeaEnergy.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX_mwDvcZ2I )

Scotland plans to get 50% of its power from alternative sources by 2020.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Scotland

Wind power in Scotland

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Wind power in Scotland is an area of considerable activity, with 1550 MW of installed capacity as at October 2008.[1] Wind power is the fastest growing of the renewable energy technologies in Scotland and the world’s largest wind turbine generator (5 MW) is currently undergoing testing in the North Sea, 15 miles off the east coast. There are numerous large wind farms as well as a number, both planned and operating, which are in community ownership. The siting of turbines is sometimes an issue, but surveys have shown high levels of community acceptance for wind power in Scotland. There is further potential for expansion, especially offshore, given the high average wind speeds.

The Scottish government has a target of generating 31% of Scotland’s electricity from renewable energy by 2011 and 50% by 2020. The majority of this is likely to come from wind power.[2]

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We in the US can only close our eyes and dream.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W6mRy4jdk0&feature=fvw )

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What A Year For Energy And Related Fields – Cash for Clunkers, Caulk for Clunkers

Everywhere you look there are things a poppin.

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/24280/page1/

The Year in Energy

Liquid batteries, giant lasers, and vast new reserves of natural gas highlight the fundamental energy advances of the past 12 months.

By Kevin Bullis

Monday, December 28, 2009

With many renewable energy companies facing hard financial times (“Weeding Out Solar Companies“), a lot of the big energy news this year was coming out of Washington, DC, with massive federal stimulus funding for batteries and renewable energy and programs such as Energy Frontier Research Centers and Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (“A Year of Stimulus for High Tech“).

Credit: Roy Ritchie

But there was still plenty of action outside the beltway, both in the United States and around the world. One of the most dramatic developments (“Natural Gas Changes the Energy Map“) was the rush to exploit a vast new resource; new drilling technologies have made it possible to economically recover natural gas from shale deposits scattered throughout the country, including in Texas and parts of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Advances in drilling technology have increased available natural gas by 39 percent, according to an estimate released in June. The relatively clean-burning fuel could cut greenhouse gas emissions by becoming a substitute for coal. Natural gas might even provide an alternative to petroleum in transportation, especially for buses and taxis–if only policymakers could take advantage of the new opportunity.

Meanwhile a number of technologies promise to cut down on emissions from coal plants. Feeding heat from the sun into coal plants could at once increase the amount of power that can be generated from a given amount of coal and reduce the cost of solar power (“Mixing Solar with Coal to Cut Costs“). And technology for capturing carbon dioxide (“Scrubbing CO2 Cheaply“) and storing it (“An Ocean Trap for Carbon Dioxide“) is finally emerging from the lab and small-scale projects into larger demonstrations at power plants, even while researchers explore potentially cheaper carbon-capture techniques (“Using Rust to Capture CO2 from Coal Plants“).

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I hate to Post The Whole Thing, but it’s so good.

This year was also the year of the smart grid, as numerous test projects for improving the reliability of the grid and enabling the use of large amounts of renewable energy got underway (“Technology Overview: Intelligent Electricity“). The smart grid will be enabled by key advances, such as superconductors for high-energy transmission lines (“Superconductors to Wire a Smarter Grid“) and smart networks being developed by companies such as GE (“Q&A: Mark Little, Head of GE Global Research“).

Cellulosic ethanol–made from biomass such as grass rather than corn grain–moved closer to commercialization, with announcements of demonstration plant openings (“Commercializing Garbage to Ethanol“) and scientific breakthroughs that could make the process cheaper (“Cellulosic Ethanol on the Cheap“). But at the same time, a number of companies are moving beyond cellulosic ethanol to the production of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from biomass–fuels that can be used much more readily in existing infrastructure and in existing vehicles. Exxon-Mobil announced substantial investments in algae-based fuels (“Big Oil Turns to Algae“). Remarkably, one startup declared its process–based on synthetic genomics and algae–could allow biofuels to replace all of transportation fuels without overwhelming farmland (“A Biofuel Process to Replace All Fossil Fuels“).

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So? It’s the end of the year – sue me…

Still, most people think biofuels will only supply a fraction of our transportation needs (“Briefing: Transportation“). To eliminate carbon emissions and drastically curtail petroleum consumption will require plug-in hybrids (“Driving the Volt“) and other electricity-powered vehicles (“Nissan’s Leaf: Charged with Information“). Advances that could double (or more) the energy capacity of batteries and lower their costs could one day make such vehicles affordable to the masses. These include new formulations such as lithium-sulfur batteries (“Revisiting Lithium-Sulfur Batteries“), metal-air batteries (“High-Energy Batteries Coming to Market“) such as lithium-air batteries (“IBM Invests in Battery Research“), and batteries that rely on nanowires and silicon (“More Energy in Batteries“). A novel concept for super-fast charge stations at bus stops could make electric buses practical (“Next Stop: Ultracapacitor Buses“).

Getting the electricity to charge these vehicles–without releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide–could be made easier by a number of advances this year. A new liquid battery could cheaply store energy from wind turbines and solar panels for use when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing (“TR10: Liquid Battery“), making it practical to rely on large amounts of renewable electricity. Vast arrays of mirrors (“Solar Thermal Heats Up“) are being assembled in the desert to convert solar heat into electricity, and photovoltaic solar farms for converting light directly into electricity (“Chasing the Sun“) are getting a boost from the federal stimulus money. And researchers are finding ways to increase the efficiency of solar cells (“More Efficient, and Cheaper, Solar Cells“) and are discovering new photovoltaic materials to make solar power cheaper (“Mining Fool’s Gold for Solar“). And although progress on nuclear power is moving slowly, some advances on the horizon could help this low-carbon source replace fossil fuels (“TR10: Traveling-Wave Reactor“). Researchers even fired up the world’s largest laser system–one that’s the size of a football stadium–for experiments that could lead to a new form of fusion (“Igniting Fusion“).

Last, and almost certainly least, researchers have decided to look beyond the conventional sources of renewable energy–solar, wind, and waves–to hamsters. Researchers at Georgia Tech fitted the rodents with zinc-oxide nanowire jackets (“Harnessing Hamster Power with a Nanogenerator“), and watched as they generated an electrical current while scratching themselves and running on a wheel. See a video of the powerful hamsters here.

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Kevin Bullis is a journalistic GOD

http://www.shinygun.com/story.php?id=128

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