Top Ten Energy Storage of 2009

Electric vehicles boost lithium-ion batteries, DOE dollars for grid storage, ice-making air conditioners, and a smart grid to rule them all.

Energy storage – you can’t do electric vehicles without it, and it sure would make renewable solar and wind energy a lot more useful.

That’s the imperative behind 2009’s push into energy storage – from the fast-moving world of batteries for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles to the slower development of a variety of technologies for storing power on the electricity grid.

1. A123, Green Tech’s First IPO of 2009: A123 Systems broke the green tech IPO drought in September, when it debuted its shares to the public markets and was immediately rewarded with a doubling of their price. But the lithium-ion battery maker has since seen shares fall to close to their initial offering price of $13.50, perhaps linked to the scaling back of electric vehicle plans by customer Chrysler. A123 is also making batteries for grid energy storage, bridging two worlds that have until now been mostly separate.

2. The Government Boosts Vehicle Batteries” Next-generation batteries wouldn’t be where they are today without the billions of stimulus dollars the federal government has aimed at the sector. In August, the Department of Energy handed out $2.4 billion to such companies as EnerG2, A123 Systems, Johnson Controls, eTec, EnerDel, Saft and Chrysler and General Motors, most of it to build battery factories in the United States – a key goal of the grants, given Asia’s dominance in battery technology and manufacturing.

3. Fuel Cells’ Waning Fortunes? What the federal government has given to batteries, it has taken away from a once-favored alternative – fuel cells. Technologies to convert hydrogen into electricity and water are clean, but they also require a massive infrastructure to deliver hydrogen – which is mostly made today by cracking natural gas – to millions of vehicles. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said he will cut back drastically on DOE funding for vehicular fuel cell research, which he described as decades away from commercial viability. In the meantime, fuel cells soldier on in the stationary power generation market, and are finding niches in forklifts and other short-range heavy vehicles, as well as in military applications.

But wait? Panasonic has started to deliver fuel cells that burn natural gas to produce heat and electricity in Japan and Bloom Energy is expected to come out of its hidey hole soon to talk about devices that pretty much do the same thing for industrial customers. By exploiting heat and power, these fuel cells can be 80 plus percent efficient.

What better way to end the new year but with the Department of Defense:

http://dodenergy.blogspot.com/2009/12/year-in-review-top-10-dod-energy-events.html

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Year in Review: Top 10 DOD Energy Events of 2009

Not sure if you’ll agree, but from my vantage point, this was the first year that merits a DOD Energy top ten. Folks who’ve been at this enterprise a long time, like Tom Morehouse and Chris DiPetto at OSD (and a small handful of others in the Services), have been doing energy grunt work without a heck of a lot of support or credit (that’s my take, not theirs). Over the past decade there have been isolated wins and signs of improvement, but nothing sustained.

But this year something changed, and I have to give credit to the increasing strength of the convoy connection. It’s finally shown everyone that being smart and proactive on energy issues isn’t the domain of Birkenstock wearing, granola eating, tree hugging peace-nicks. The clear (and easy to understand and communicate) link between fuel convoys and 1) causalities, 2) costs, and 3) mission degradation.

I’m sure I’m leaving a lot out (that’s a good thing). But without further adieu, here’s the list for the year, in no particular order:

Gigantic Army solar installation off the ground at Fort Irwin in California’s Mojave Desert to advance conversation beyond Nellis. Score – Fort Irwin: 500+ Megawatts, Nellis AFB: 14 Megawatts
Boeing’s high tech, super efficient 787 Dreamliner finally flew. Basis for future tanker/transport?
Convoy lessons brought the concept of proactive energy planning fully out of its Birkenstock phase … for everyone.
Energy audits in Afghanistan commence with Marines. It’s called MEAT, for Marine Energy Assessment Team, see here and here.
Like DARPA to advance US space tech post Sputnik, ARPA-E‘s mission is to turbocharge US competitiveness in energy tech (ET).
3 of the 4 Services hold major confs exclsively on energy issues. The Navy version in particular generated a huge amount of great info

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Copenhagen Wraps Up With An Agreement As Thin As Gruel – Cold gruel at that

Posted on December 18, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

First it is Jam Band Friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVs6X9yIM_k

Things have gone pretty dismally in Copenhagen. The Developed Countries tried to bully the Developing Countries. The Newly Industrializing Countries sniffed at the DeIndustrializing Countries. The US yelled at China and China yelled back and jingled the coins in its pockets. After all that excitement I must say:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t291-e4FLs

GRUEL

Gruel is a food preparation consisting of some type of cereal— oat, wheat or rye flour, or also rice— boiled in water or milk. It is a thinner version of porridge that may be more often drunk than eaten and need not even be cooked. Historically, gruel, often made from millet or barley, or in hard times of chestnut flour and even the less tannic acorns of some oaks, has been the staple of the human diet, especially that of the peasantry. The importance of gruel as a form of sustenance is especially noted for invalids^[1] and recently weaned children.

Gruel consumption has traditionally been associated with poverty. Gruel is a colloquial expression of any slop that is of unknown character, e.g. pea soup; soup is derived from sop, the slice of bread which was soaked with broth or thin gruel.[2

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM77dUW-DBI )

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/dec/18/copenhagen-climate-change-summit-liveblog

Copenhagen climate change summit – final day live blog

World leaders are still trying to thrash out a last minute compromise climate deal. These are the final day’s main developments:
• In a disappointing speech Obama admitted that the talks are in the balance.
• Leaked documents showed a draft agreement is extremely weak.
• Obama held two crucial talks with the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao.

Posted by Matthew Weaver Friday 18 December 2009 08.14 GMT guardian.co.uk

4.43pm:
Greenpeace has expressed its disgust at the draft Copenhagen accord currently doing the rounds.

Its climate campaigner Joss Garman said:

This latest draft is so weak as to be meaningless. It’s more like a G8 communique than the legally binding agreement we need. It doesn’t even include a timeline to give it legal standing or an explicit temperature target. It’s hard to imagine our leaders will try to present this document to the world and keep a straight face.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dnrosVyamY

All this haggling is going to get us right where the top 500 POLLUTERS want us, sucking up their soot and poisons:

4.57pm:
A third draft of the climate is agreement being considered by world leaders, according to AP. But they are some way off the pace, according to our environment editor John Vidal – he’s looking at sixth version.

For what its worth the third version reinstates targets omitted from earlier ones. It says rich countries should reduce their greenhouse emissions by at least 80% by the year 2050.

It adds that developing countries’ emissions should be 15-30% below “business as usual”.

Stay tuned for more details on that later version.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8jw-ifqwkM )
This not the way that JESUS would have acted:

5.28pm:
Tim Jones climate policy officer from World Development Movement, joins the chorus of disgust.

This summit has been in complete disarray from start to finish, and now appears to be culminating in a shameful and monumental failure that will condemn millions of people around the world to untold suffering. The leaders of rich countries have refused to lead and instead sought to bribe and bully developing nations to sign up to the equivalent of a death warrant. The best outcome now is no deal. Leaders of rich countries should go home and adopt new year resolutions to become low carbon economies and pay their climate debt. Then we may have a chance of a properly just and effective agreement in 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3354flS1KJs&feature=related

On A Happier Front:

Energy-thrifty White House turns deeper shade of green

By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The White House complex and the federal government are going green — and not just with Christmas trees and holly.

As President Obama meets with world leaders at the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen today, the government he runs at home is quietly engaged in an unprecedented effort to reduce its carbon footprint, increase energy efficiency, conserve water, cut waste and more.

In the complex that includes the White House, that means more efficient heating and cooling systems as well as organic paint, low-flow toilets and lights that turn off by themselves. Even the 800 Christmas ornaments adorning the 18-foot tree in the White House Blue Room were recycled from previous administrations in a nod to the environment and the bad economy.

GREEN HOUSE: Eco-friendly living tips

In many of the federal government’s other 500,000 buildings, the effort to go green includes cutting the amount of garbage produced in half and installing more efficient lights.

“This is a big leap forward for the federal government,” says Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of Obama’s White House Council on Environmental Quality. And the effort will be “sustainable itself beyond this president.”

Sutley says the federal government is the country’s single largest energy consumer, using 1.6% of all the power used nationwide, so reducing energy consumption will mean big savings.

The nation is the world’s second-largest producer of greenhouse gases, behind China, and the cuts could help there, as well, environmentalists say.

Erich Pica of Friends of the Earth says, “There are many economies of scale that President Obama can achieve by forcing the federal government to rethink its energy habits.Dot Dot Dot (as they say)

Environmental groups say Obama’s efforts go far beyond what’s been done before. “There’s real substance behind the rhetoric,” says Joel Makower, editor of GreenBiz.com, which reports on the greening of mainstream business.

Under a 15-page executive order Obama signed in October, government agencies must implement a host of changes, Sutley says. Among the requirements:

• Agencies must reduce waste by 50% by 2015.

• Agencies must show a 26% improvement in water efficiency by 2020.

• All new buildings and any major renovations to existing buildings must be eligible for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification given by the U.S. Green Building Council to environmentally responsible buildings. In and around Washington, the Pentagon and the ornate 121-year-old Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House are in the process of becoming LEED-certified.

• The government’s 600,000 vehicles must operate with 30% less petroleum by 2020.

Pentagon officials, Sutley says, are “thinking about how they can power their vehicles in different ways, so they don’t have to transport as much fuel,” a change that would save money and improve safety for servicemembers.

So Copenhagen was pretty much a bust but it’s Christmas so let’s rock out!

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYcCnL7cu10&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBKPhD1LIqA

So How Do All The Climate Liars Get To Copenhegan – Is someone paying their way

Posted on December 17, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

No one bothers to ask themselves, “how does a parellel anti-global warming conference get set up in Copenhagen”? We know how the pro-climate people got there. The world’s environmental organizations sent them. Some of them live there or are close enough to drive. The Government people got there on their countries dime as did the UN people. But how did the aptly named Lord Mockton get there? The answer is easy – The Carbon Industry sent them:

http://motherjones.com/special-reports/2009/12/dirty-dozen-climate-change-denial

Assignment 2020, Climate Change, Copenhagen Climate Talks, Corporations, Environment, Top Stories

In 2006, according to the Pew Research Center, 77 percent of Americans saw “solid evidence” for global warming. By this fall, that figure had dropped to 57 percent—and just 36 percent said they believed that humans are to blame. That’s good news for climate change skeptics and deniers, who have spent years trying to perpetuate the illusion that the reality of climate change is up for debate. Never mind that the scientific consensus is firmly on the side of global warming—for anyone seeking an alternate view, there’s an entire parallel universe where junk science and bogus statistics ricochet through an echo chamber of kooky blogs, “nonpartisan” institutes, and fake “green” and “citizen” groups that are often acting on behalf of the oil and coal industry.

With Copenhagen kicking off and the overblown “Climategate” scandal making headlines, the deniers have even more fodder for their campaign to kill serious action to slow climate change.

Here’s a guide to the dozen loudest components of the climate disinformation machine.

This is one of the most comprehensive articles I have seen and I urge everyone to read the whole thing. These pricks think they can BURN us off the planet. I hope they are wrong.

Alice In Greenland – Guest poster Jed Morey has his say

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

I rarely have “guest posters”, mainly because nobody asks but also because I like to run my mouth. I forget how I found Jed’s Column but it makes so much sense in such a short space that I actually ASKED Jed if I could use it. How rare is that? So far that would be 2 people Jed and Dan Piraro soooo without further ado (I always wanted to say that…damn).

http://www.longislandpress.com/2009/12/09/alice-in-greenland/

Alice In Greenland

Written by Jed Morey on Dec 9th, 2009 and filed under Columns, Off The Reservation. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Want to take a trip down the environmental rabbit hole? Spark a discussion about climate change and watch human warming reach extremes far greater than any place on the globe.

To the right you have the laughable stance adopted by the conservative movement that humans are having no effect on climate and the atmosphere. At the other extreme are non-scientist policy makers and pundits holding “The End Is Near” signs on every street corner claiming that Iowa and Chad will be beachfront property by the end of next year.

Personally, I’m not qualified to discern which side is closer to representing the truth.

What I do know is that the debate should remain in scientific circles because I have yet to meet anyone qualified to entirely explain the variances in global temperatures. While world leaders are dithering in Copenhagen and arguing over hacked e-mails about tree rings versus thermometers, the public needs to close its ears to the noise produced on both sides of the global warming debate and focus on the tangible aspects of industrial pollution.

You don’t need to be an expert on carbon emissions or reference “parts per billion” to understand that we are seriously screwing up the planet. Public health has been compromised by the rise of industry. While there are several factors that contribute to the decline in public health, much of the discussion centers on energy production and sources because it’s the baseline driver of industry. So let’s look at it.

First of all, there is no such thing as clean coal. True, you can clean coal emissions, but the process of scrubbing coal to burn cleaner is just as much of an environmental disaster. There is no such thing as clean nuclear energy either, for that matter. True, the emissions are carbon neutral, but at some point every nuclear facility must dispose of the spent fuel used in production. The spent fuel must be stored somewhere and wherever that place is, it’s no place you want to be near.

Large wind farms in lakes and oceans are unrealistically expensive and remarkably inefficient. The Danes will tell you differently and espouse the virtues of wind power—just look at the marvel that is Copenhagen—but the fact remains that they are the largest manufacturers of wind turbines and have a vested economic interest in, shall we say, massaging the numbers. However, wind, solar and geothermal energy present viable options on a micro level and should be encouraged in every corner and backyard of the world. Individuals and small businesses need affordable access to clean energy solutions, not just municipalities.

Economically, there is no such thing as cheap oil anymore. Whether or not the Saudis or Venezuelans care to admit it, we have hit peak oil in the largest, most accessible oil fields around the world. Period. Are there places on Earth with large reserves of oil and natural gas? Yup. Is it easy to get to? Nope. Expensive to retrieve? Yup. Environmentally secure to extract? Nope.

As far as Cap and Trade is concerned—please. Giving large corporations and polluters the ability to buy their way out of cleaning their emissions is a lousy practice. Lisa Jackson from the EPA is on the right track by simply drawing a line in the sand and taking it out of the hands of Congress. The message from the Obama administration is clear: Clean it up. If Cap and Trade is allowed to continue one can only imagine Goldman Sachs creating a derivatives market that bundles pollution credits in with mortgages on homes with inefficient boilers and selling them to school boards in Greenland. No more government-backed securities bought by large corporations and sold on opaque markets, especially if they contain something as ethereal as carbon credits.

This is it folks. We have reached the tipping point. The only option heretofore is conservation.

If you wish to comment on “Off the Reservation,” send your message to jmorey@longislandpress.com.

Can’t say it any better than that. By the way those who know me know I disagree with Jed about renewables, broadly stated, to replace fossil fuels but as he says “Cheap nope, time consuming Yup”. Thanks Jed.

Piracy Spreads To West Africa – For now they just wanted the cash

Posted on November 25, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

Pirates kill seaman in W.Africa tanker attack

By Fiacre Vidjingninou (AFP) – 1 day ago

COTONOU — Pirates attacked an oil tanker off the coast of west Africa, killing a Ukrainian officer before escaping with the contents of the ship’s safe, the ship’s owners and Benin’s navy commander said Tuesday.

Commander Maxime Ahoyo said the officer on the Monrovia-flagged Cancale Star was shot dead when he confronted the pirates after they boarded the vessel in darkness 18 nautical miles (33 kilometres) off the coast of Benin.

The tanker’s Latvian captain, Jaroslavs Semenovics, said around six or seven pirates had approached the tanker in a speed boat.

“They came on deck, pointed a pistol to the head of one of the sailors, marched him to the cabin,” Semenovics told AFP.

“They asked me to open the safe and they collected all the cash,” he added. He did not say how much was stolen.

The 230-metre (750-foot) Cancale Star was carrying 89,000 cubic metres of crude from Nigeria’s Niger Delta, the captain said.

Dot Dot Dot

Medics aboard the vessel said four other crew members were wounded in the attack, one seriously.

The pirates fled after a member of the tanker’s crew raised the alarm by sounding a siren, with the crew managing to overpower a pirate and hand him over to police for questioning.

The captured pirate said he was from a Nigerian border town.

The multinational crew of 24 includes Russians, Filipinos, Latvians and Ukrainians, Radings said.

Piracy in oil-rich west African waters is on the rise, according to the International Maritime Bureau, with more than 100 cases last year.

Most attacks occur while ships are at anchor or close to the shore, unlike in east Africa, where Somali pirates have netted millions of dollars in ransoms in exchange for the release of ships captured hundreds of miles from the coast.

Dot Dot Dot

It said that pirates have attacked and robbed vessels and kidnapped crews along the coast and rivers, anchorages, ports and surrounding waters.

Officials voiced fears earlier this year that west African pirates would copy the tactics of Somali gangs.

From January to September of this year, the International Maritime Organisation reported 160 acts of piracy off the coast of Somalia, including 34 hijacked vessels and more than 450 people made hostage

What shall we call this? Poor people gone wild? There are after all no fish in the sea.

Iceburgs Attack New Zealand – well maybe they kinda drift by but

Posted on November 24, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

While the people who don’t want to admit that people are pooping on the planet so much that we are destabilizing the planet by citing bogus statistics or hacking emails that appear to challenge the L shaped curve for global warming over the last hundred years…the real destabilization continues. Which is the real point

.http://www.livescience.com/environment/etc/091123-icebergs-surprise-new-zealand.html

Environment

Icebergs Surprise New Zealand

Submitted by Robert Roy Britt

posted: 23 November 2009 11:50 am ET

An iceberg at Bauer Bay on the west coast of Macquarie Island has drifted from Antarctica. Credit: Brett Quinton / Australian Antarctic Division

At least a hundred icebergs have trekked from Antarctica toward New Zealand, arriving at islands off New Zealand in recent weeks after being set adrift perhaps 9 years ago.”The larger icebergs seen from Macquarie Island are tabular in shape, which indicates they have calved relatively recently, probably from one of the massive icebergs which originally calved from the Ross Ice Shelf nearly 9 years ago,” said Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist Neal Young in a statement released earlier this month.

More than 100 icebergs were seen in just one cluster, AFP reports today. Young says the smaller icebergs likely resulted from the breakup of a larger one.

“Everyone on station has their eyes glued to the horizon trying to spot new icebergs,” said Cyril Munro, acting station leader on Macquarie Island. “The scientists working on the southern tip of the island were astounded to see an iceberg of about 2 kilometers [1.2 miles] in length,” he said.

Here are several maps if you would like to see the icebergs:

http://www.acecrc.org.au/uploaded/117/797697_63nz_iceberg_20091124_200.pdf

http://www.acecrc.org.au/uploaded/117/797697_61nz_iceberg_20091124.pdf

When they get to Tasmania we will be in big trouble.

And then there is this

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gsr62jU7bnmBi2Z-iKs_Mbgy-9rQD9C5TPD80

Icebergs head from Antarctica for New Zealand

By RAY LILLEY (AP) – 3 hours ago

dot dot dot

The alert comes three years after cold weather and favorable ocean currents saw dozens of icebergs float close to New Zealand’s southern shores for the first time in 75 years.

New Zealand maritime officials have issued navigation warnings for the area south of the country.

“It’s an alert to shipping to be aware these potential hazards are around and to be on the lookout for them,” Maritime New Zealand spokeswoman Sophie Hazelhurst said.

dot dot dot

Large numbers of icebergs last floated close to New Zealand in 2006, when some were visible from the coastline in the first such sighting since 1931.

It is rare for whole icebergs to drift so far north before melting, but a cold snap around southern New Zealand and favorable ocean currents have again combined to push the towering visitors to the region intact.

dot dot dot

Young said that having the icebergs end up near New Zealand is not necessarily linked to global warming, but said that the rate of icebergs breaking off the Antarctic ice shelf in recent years may have increased due to dramatically rising temperatures on the continent over the past 60 years.

hmmm…things are different in the REAL world

Carbon Sequestration – The ultimate in madness

Posted on November 9, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

Notice they say the “carbon plume may eventually drift (DRIFT) under Ohio”. Notice the guy says everything will be fine until SOMETHING goes wrong. Notice one of the commentators says that depending on the amount of ammonia used the site could be considered a hazmat accident waiting to happen?

This article is from a very nifty issue of Scientific America:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/subscribe/sub_search.cfm?ec=ggl07

But to the article:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=first-look-at-carbon-capture-and-storage#cid_CBB2987B-B337-3523-7FEF1219537C766B

November 6, 2009 | 9 comments

First Look at Carbon Capture and Storage in a West Virginia Coal-Fired Power Plant [Slide Show]

The world’s first power facility to capture and store a portion of its carbon dioxide has begun operating in Appalachia

By David Biello

mountaineer-ccs

CARBON CAPTURE: A relatively small unit in the shadow of the smokestack at the Mountaineer Power Plant in West Virginia has begun capturing carbon dioxide from the plant’s flue gas and injecting it underground for permanent storage.

NEW HAVEN, W.Va.—A 100-story smokestack belches a roiling, white cloud of water vapor, carbon dioxide and other leftover gases after burning daily as much as 12,000 tons of coal at the Mountaineer Power Plant—a total of 3.5 million tons a year. The facility just outside the town of New Haven boasts a single 65-meter-high boiler capable of generating enough steam to pump out 1,300 megawatts of electricity—enough to power nearly one million average American homes a month—continuously. And now roughly 1.5 percent of the CO₂ billowing from its stack is being captured in an industrial unit rising from the concrete in its shadow and then pumped underground for storage. In case you were wondering, this last phase is called “clean coal”.

“Mountaineer is the turning point,” says Philippe Joubert, president of Alstom Power, a subsidiary of France-based Alstom, SA. “We believe coal is a must, but we believe coal must be clean.”

View a slide show of the world’s first carbon capture and storage facility in operation

The small stream of flue gas travels to the carbon-capture unit through plastic pipes reinforced with fiberglass and is cooled to between –1 and 21 degrees Celsius from the 55-degree C temperature at which it emerges from the other environmental technology add-ons that strip out the fly ash, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. The carbon-capture machine’s loud hum comes primarily from the whirring of fans to further cool the flue gas, along with the steady jostling of the agitator that keeps solids from settling out in the tall tank where the CO₂ is captured. There is also the continuous chug of the compressors pressurizing that captured CO₂ into a liquid at 98 kilograms per square centimeter. An incessant rumble also emanates from the regenerator stacks, as well, where steam heat and pressure combine to turn ammonium bicarbonate (part of the CO₂-stripping process) back into baker’s ammonia (ammonium carbonate), siphoning off the captured CO₂ in the operation. A little bit of ammonium sulfate—a fertilizer—is also produced; it is shipped to a farmer’s cooperative just across the river in Ohio.

Renewable Energy Fails And The Lights Go Out – This guy is so wrong in so many ways it is hard to count

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

It is jam band Friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irZi18VR31M

This is a perfect example of an Oil and Gas shill. Actually at this point I guess I should call him a Carbon front man. Ever notice how it’s always a man? He ignores the subsidies paid to the Oil and Gas business right now, which are huge. He ignores the impact of the pollution (externalities you know). He ignores the fact that, as predicted, we are starting to use oil shale and oil sands which are marginal materials because we are running out of resources. Not because of “magical” new technologies. He ignores the simple fact that if everyone in the world heated their water using geothermal or solar we could cut consumption in half….

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeRa3RtBiIU&feature=related )

In fact he sounds like a buggy maker or a whip maker right after the automobile was first introduced.

http://www.buggymuseum.org/buggytown.htm

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,757393,00.html http://www.tocreateyourdestiny.com/html/where_have_all_the_buggy_maker.html

Unlike those Talk Radio these days, I like to periodically present the other side of a case and oh boy, does this guy do it.

http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2544

Posted on Nov. 05, 2009

By Peter C Glover

Renewable Banality: The Latest British Export

UK wind energy. Photo by Mitch: Flickr

Photo by Mitch: Flickr

I loved the true story of the Nigerian energy worker who, having received a pay check for $900, amended the figure to read $9,000. As the reporter wittily put it, “The check fraud proved entirely successful … right up to the point where he attempted to cash it.” That’s kind of how I feel about the renewable energy revolution. It will prove entirely successful in the eyes of the public and media — right up to the point where the lights start going out. And those lights will soon start going out, according to a new report.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYxp6OIEZlk&feature=related )

I fully understand the romantic attraction of the clean energy revolution and the rush to replace ‘dirty’ fossil fuels. In the light of the war on carbon it’s a no brainer, right? Which is precisely why, just as diminishing EU and UK subsidies are prompting an industry exodus westward, the British renewables industry may be about to be given an unexpected investment shot in the arm from some of the world’s biggest multinational companies in one of the biggest analogs to the adage “I gave at the church,” in this case the environmentalism church. Companies, it seems, in their rush to appear politically correct are oblivious to how that renewable revolution is ushering in a new dark age in Britain.

Why the multinationals?

Speaking at a UK Confederation of British Industries (CBI) conference in October, the Bank of America’s head of power and utilities, John Lynch, named companies like Google, Microsoft, Wal-Mart and IKEA (the Swedish home goods company) as being potential new investors for Britain’s offshore wind industry. “This is the technology that the UK is leading in, and these companies are looking at ways to get involved,” Lynch told his CBI audience, “because it meets their own corporate social responsibility objectives.” Enthusing over the prospect of a massive new injection of funds for British industry, Lynch noted how the Crown Estate (which owns the UK seabed) had launched the offshore program specifically to enable Britain to meet its target of 80 percent cuts in carbon emissions by 2050 compared with 1990 levels. Clearly nobody had told Lynch that in recent weeks the leaders of Britain’s biggest energy companies privately warned the government that its climate targets, contingent upon renewable sources replacing hydrocarbon fuels, are “illusory” and “delusional.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMdCLL9Q6Ck&feature=related )

as we say in the editing business … or dot dot dot

Put bluntly, Tucker shows that industrial scale renewable energy is, realistically and mathematically, an economic non-starter.

Ironically, just as UK and European subsidy opportunities are dwindling and the revolution faltering, the retail multinationals may be about to reinvigorate the flagging UK program. And as the economic cost of renewables is being counted across Europe, Britain’s energy-climate policy is likely to be touted increasingly as the blueprint for others to follow. A rash of UK studies continue to sound alarm bells over the government’s current energy direction and, one of these, just published, should do the same well beyond UK shores.

Does it really take an Einstein?

In October, the UK energy regulator, Ofgem (The Office of Gas and Electricity Markets), warned that Britain was facing 1970s style power blackouts within just four years – a much shorter timescale than previously thought. Project Discovery cited the British government’s failure to renovate its “crumbling power infrastructure” due to compliance with new EU rules that will force the closure of a quarter of the country’s power stations by 2015. In a typically British understatement, Alistair Buchanan, Ofgem’s chief executive warned, “There could be a potential shortfall in the period 2013-18 … Life might be pretty cold.” Buchanan’s assessment is that only an “involuntary curtailment of demand” – power cuts – can conserve household supplies, unless the government acts urgently to upgrade its nuclear plants. Jeremy Nicholson, of the Energy Intensive Users Group, representing some of Britain’s biggest manufacturers, said that power cuts that hit UK business first would present a “material threat to heavy industry.” Nicholson also warned that once the crisis hit the 60 percent hike in British energy bills currently being acknowledged by the government will, more realistically, hit the 120 percent mark.

Bottom line? If Einstein’s E=mc2 as it applies to renewable energy doesn’t cut the intellectual ice for prospective investors and foreign governments alike, perhaps another will. Try this:

UK energy-climate policy, circa 2009 = a blueprint for black-outs.

See what I mean about a fraudulent check being entirely successful right up to the point

But here is where his analysis shows his paradigm. He says industrial users have to have “so in so” amount of power. I say great. Let the industries that need it generate it in such a way that they generate no pollution. Thank you very much and usins in the residential market, well we will keep our alternative energies. Come on you ARE the smartest guys in the world right? oh..OR maybe not?

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQs4Ra_qEvI&feature=related )
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The Population Of Britain Falls To 2 Milllion After Spectacular And Bloody Die Off

Posted on November 4, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

That is that there will be a massive die off when the cheap oil runs out. He also believes in euthanasia for the less fortunate.

http://timesonline.typepad.com/environment/2009/11/peak-oil-and-population-control.html

November 04, 2009

Peak oil and population control

Last week I had the miserable experience of interviewing a man who had accidentally survived a suicide pact with his wife.

Dr William Stanton, 79, has bone cancer and is plainly very ill: doctors give him three to eight months. His wife Angela was 74, and in good health, but didn’t want to survive him.

Dr Stanton happens to be one of the foremost proponents of population control in Britain, possibly anywhere, and has written articles and letters for anybody who will publish them, including his local paper and the New Scientist. But the latter stopped publishing him more than 20 years ago because – he believes – his views are regarded as being beyond the pale.

A geologist by profession, Dr Stanton has made a massive study of global population growth since the start of the industrial revolution, and suggests persuasively that the growth can be accounted for precisely by the advent of cheap oil. He contends that global oil production is at peak now, however, and that diminishing supplies will require the population of Britain to fall from around 60m today to just 2m in 2150.

Two million!

This will either happen inadvertently, he argues, as people kill each other for precious resources, or in a controlled way, as laws restrict women to just one child each, humane euthanasia becomes widespread to deal with people who represent a “net drain” on society, and immigration is made illegal – arrivals would be put to work in chain gangs, with other criminals.

In its own terms, Dr Stanton’s analysis makes some sense, but his prescriptions are utterly repellent. But when I said that, he told me I was being sentimental. Was he right?

You can read my Sunday Times interview here. If you wish to find out more about Dr Stanton’s views – and his struggle to get them into the mainstream – you should Google him.

Unfortunately, in the long article of maybe a gazillion words, he mentions Bill Stanton’s beliefs on population in two or three paragraphs focusing most of the rest of the article on Stanton and his wife’s botched double suicide. The irony of his healthy wife dying and he being terminal with cancer and living is over exploited. Also the author spills a lot of ink on Britain’s law against assisted suicide and how 132 Britains went to Switzerland to do the deed.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6897964.ece

November 1, 2009

William Stanton: I botched our suicide pact

William Stanton and his wife tried to end their lives together – but they only half succeeded. He says He’d do it again

Terminally ill Dr William Stanton from Westbury-sub-Mendip, Somerset who entered into a suicide pact with his wife Angela which he survived but left the otherwise healthy Mrs Stanton dead

John-Paul Flintoff Early one morning in September, William Stanton heard footsteps coming up the stairs of his cottage in Somerset. He knew who it was and panicked. “I shouted out: ‘Go away, Nigel, leave me to it, leave me to it!’”

Nigel, a neighbour and family friend, did not go away. He came into the bedroom and found Stanton in distress and his wife Angela lying dead with a plastic bag over her head.

The Stantons had made a pact to end their lives together and put it into effect just days after the director of public prosecutions revealed how he would apply the law prohibiting assisted suicide. It did not work out as they planned and stands as a terrible cautionary example for anybody thinking that self-inflicted death is easily arranged.

I met Stanton last week in the neat and pretty bedroom where Angela’s body was found. I noted a commode in the corner and a trolley-load of pills beside Stanton, who was sitting up in bed. He is 79 and obviously unwell — his doctors say bone cancer will kill him in three to eight months — but he complained only that the pills make him lethargic.

For a better exposition you might look here:

http://billtotten.blogspot.com/2005/07/oil-and-people.html

Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas, Ireland

ASPO Newsletters, Article Number 573 (July 2005)

The population of the World expanded six-fold in parallel with oil production during the First Half of the Age of Oil. William Stanton, author of The Rapid Growth of Human Population 1750-2000 (Multi-Science Publishing, 2003) contributes the following analysis of how population will have to return to pre-Oil Age levels. Let us hope that it does not come to this, but the options explained do have a certain chilling logic.

Reducing Population in Step with Oil Depletion

by William Stanton

Recent articles in the ASPO Newsletter have agreed that the explosion of world population from about 0.6 billion in 1750 to 6.4 billion today was initiated and sustained by the shift from renewable energy to fossil fuel energy in the Industrial Revolution. There is agreement that the progressive exhaustion of fossil fuel reserves will reverse the process, though there is uncertainty as to what a sustainable global population would be.

In this time of energy abundance, and the complacency it engenders, the vast majority of the general public assumes that what the future holds is “more of the same”. They argue, if pushed, that the expertise inherited by post-fossil-fuel scientists and engineers will allow a smooth transition into a new kind of energy-rich world in which renewable generators will produce as much energy as fossil fuels do now. Such a view is untenable because it ignores the fact that almost all materials essential to modern civilization will be orders of magnitude more costly, and scarce, when they have to be produced using renewable energy instead of fossil fuels.

Or more to the point read the original:

http://www.relocalize.net/files/Futures%20proof.pdf

By the By, if he is right there would only be 12 million people left in America. Best estimates for Native American populations the were 21 million..

The Disappearance Of Honey Bees – It’s A Modern Urban Legend

Posted on October 28, 2009 by Doug Nicodemus

It is true. Even though stories about disappearing honey bees, or even Colony Collapse Disorder have appeared on 60 minutes, Scientific America and even NatGeo. There is very little truth to it. It is largely a North American and European commercial pollination problem which would never really effect food production much. If they worked me as hard as they do the commercial bees I’d fly away too. My Pawpaws are pollinated by flies so I don’t really care. If you don’t believe me read this:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427316.800-the-truth-about-the-disappearing-honeybees.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

But this and yesterday’s post got me to thinking about eating simply and it furthers my meditation on living off the land. Humans have come to eat so complicatedly and chemically. Did you ever wonder why Lay’s Potato Chips claims that”you can’t eat just one” and they are probably right? I am no extremist veggan or anything approaching one. There are 200,000 deer in Illinois and if oil collapsed tomorrow and with it civilization I would go shoot one the day after. I don’t even know if the children still trick or treat for Unicef but in that spirit let’s start with Plump-i-nut factories in Africa:

http://www.unicef.org/media/ethiopia_38423.html

UNICEF Executive Director inaugurates Ethiopia’s first Plumpy’nut factory

UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman receives flowers from children upon her arrival at the new Plumpy’nut factory in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

By Indrias Getachew

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, 21 February 2007 – UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman inaugurated Ethiopia’s first Plumpy’nut therapeutic food factory in Addis Ababa yesterday.

The inauguration marks a joint venture between UNICEF, US-based private donor and businesswoman Amy Robbins and the Hilina Enriched Foods Processing Centre.

Plumpy’nut is a high-protein and high-energy, peanut-based paste used for the treatment of severely undernourished children. An estimated 1.5 million children in Ethiopia are severely undernourished. At full capacity, Hilina Enriched Foods will produce up to 12 tons of the paste per day.

“Today as we open the doors of the fourth, and largest, factory in Africa that will produce Plumpy’nut, we are taking a step in the right direction in addressing the issue of malnutrition,” said Ms. Veneman.

Generous solution

In 2005, the Robbins family donated $1.3 million to UNICEF to allow the purchase and import of 267 tons of Plumpy’nut to Ethiopia.

Formulated by French scientist Andre Briend in 1999, Plumpy’nut has been used to save children’s lives in major emergency situations in Darfur, Niger and Malawi.

From left: Philanthopist Amy Robbins, Minister of Trade and Industries Ato Girma Birru and the State Minister for Agriculture at the inauguration of the Plumpy’nut factory in Addis Ababa.

Plumpy’nut requires no preparation or special supervision, so an untrained adult – such as a parent – can deliver it to an undernourished child at home, allowing governments to reduce the amount of money spent on therapeutic feeding stations. The paste has a two-year shelf life when unopened and stays fresh even after opening.

Though Plumpy’nut is relatively inexpensive and easy to transport, Ms. Robbins discovered that huge costs were incurred from its importation and that limited capacity at the French plant made it difficult to ensure timely food supplies from Europe.

To solve the problem, her family foundation donated $340,000 towards investment in the needed equipment to manufacture Plumpy’nut within Ethiopia.

Everyone knows that factory farming of animals pioneered here in the Corporate US of A is dangerous to the health of all involved including the humans. Everyone knows that eating cow flesh is probably not a good idea, at least everyday or even 2 or 3 times a week. Goats, sheep, fowl and pigs are much better alternatives.

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

The most recent genetic analysis^[5] confirms the archaeological evidence that the Anatolian Zagros are the likely origin of almost all domestic goats today. Neolithic farmers began to keep them for easy access to milk and meat, primarily, also for their dung, which was used as fuel and their bones, hair, and sinew for clothing, building, and tools.^[1] The earliest remnants of domesticated goats dating 10,000 before present are found in Ganj Dareh in Iranian Kurdistan. Domestic goats were generally kept in herds that wandered on hills or other grazing areas, often tended by goatherds who were frequently children or adolescents, similar to the more widely known shepherd. These methods of herding are still used today.

Historically, goat hide has been used for water and wine bottles in both traveling and transporting wine for sale. It has also been used to produce parchment

Not to mention that the flesh is wonderful and so are the milk and cheese. They will eat just about anything and everyone should have at least 2. Again it is the GROWTH model that destroys the equilibrium of the planet. Simple is laughed at. People who juice their foods live much long because their foods are fresh and uncooked.

http://www.powerjuicer.com/?gclid=CLyzu7yY4J0CFQ4hDQod9ilOMA

Jack LaLane should know he has been at it for years:

Our GROWTH system even prevents or even worse obliterates local options. When I found out about Pawpaws I was thoroughly amazed:

Cultivation and uses

Asimina triloba is often called prairie banana because of its banana-like creamy texture and flavor.

The pawpaw is native to shady, rich bottom lands, where it often forms a dense undergrowth in the forest. Where it dominates a tract it appears as a thicket of small slender trees, whose great leaves are borne so close together at the ends of the branches, and which cover each other so symmetrically, that the effect is to give a peculiar imbricated appearance to the tree.^[1]

Although it is a delicious and nutritious fruit, it has never been cultivated on the scale of apples and peaches, primarily because only frozen fruit will store or ship well. It is also difficult to transplant because of fragile hairy root tentacles that tend to break off unless a cluster of moist soil is retained on the root mass. Cultivars are propagated by chip budding or whip grafting.

In recent years the pawpaw has attracted renewed interest, particularly among organic growers, as a native fruit which has few to no pests, and which therefore requires no pesticide use for cultivation. The shipping and storage problem has largely been addressed by freezing. Among backyard gardeners it also is gaining in popularity because of the appeal of fresh fruit and because it is relatively low maintenance once planted. The pulp is used primarily in baked dessert recipes and for juicing fresh pawpaw drink or drink mixtures (pawpaw, pineapple, banana, lime, lemon and orange tea mix). In many recipes calling for bananas, pawpaw can be used with volumetric equivalency.

The commercial growing and harvesting of pawpaws is strong in southeast Ohio. The Ohio Pawpaw Growers’ Association annually sponsors the Ohio Pawpaw Festival at Lake Snowden near Albany, Ohio.

But really the place to start with all of this is to pick your foods carefully. Find a butcher and get to know him or her. Look around and find local growers that you can trust. When you have to go to a modern grocery store go there with a certain amount of fear and suspicion.

Community Energy Systems

Censys.org

Category Archives: dying planet

Top Energy Stories Of 2009 – The end of the Naughties

Top Ten Energy Storage of 2009

Electric vehicles boost lithium-ion batteries, DOE dollars for grid storage, ice-making air conditioners, and a smart grid to rule them all.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Year in Review: Top 10 DOD Energy Events of 2009

So How Do All The Climate Liars Get To Copenhegan – Is someone paying their way

Piracy Spreads To West Africa – For now they just wanted the cash

Iceburgs Attack New Zealand – well maybe they kinda drift by but

Environment

Icebergs Surprise New Zealand

Carbon Sequestration – The ultimate in madness

First Look at Carbon Capture and Storage in a West Virginia Coal-Fired Power Plant [Slide Show]

The world’s first power facility to capture and store a portion of its carbon dioxide has begun operating in Appalachia

Renewable Energy Fails And The Lights Go Out – This guy is so wrong in so many ways it is hard to count

The Population Of Britain Falls To 2 Milllion After Spectacular And Bloody Die Off

November 04, 2009

Peak oil and population control

William Stanton: I botched our suicide pact

William Stanton and his wife tried to end their lives together – but they only half succeeded. He says He’d do it again

The Disappearance Of Honey Bees – It’s A Modern Urban Legend

UNICEF Executive Director inaugurates Ethiopia’s first Plumpy’nut factory

Cultivation and uses