Category Archives: Energy Tough Love Blog

Energy Tough Love Blog – A weblog from Community Energy Systems

2.5 Million Unplugged Wells – This man wants to plug them

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That a nonprofit organization would help clean up Big Gas and Oil’s  mess is not as good as THEM cleaning up and paying for their own messes, but is better than nothing. The fact that they are organizing other such Foundations in other effected States is great news as well. Support these people would you?

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/pennsylvania/articles/2021-11-27/montana-foundation-capping-abandoned-oil-wells

Montana Foundation Capping Abandoned Oil Wells

By Associated Press
|
Nov. 27, 2021, at 9:05 a.m.

Curt Shuck of the Well Done Foundation poses near a oil well capping project in Toole County, Mont., on Nov. 18, 2021. Shuck started the Well Done Foundation to raise money and cap abandoned oil wells to prevent them from continuing to release methane gas into the atmosphere. Methane is a greenhouse gas because it traps heat in the atmosphere, according to the EPA. (Phil Drake/Independent Record via AP)

By PHIL DRAKE, Independent Record

OILMONT, Mont. (AP) — Curtis Shuck remembers a rush of emotions a few years ago when he came across his first “orphaned well” while walking through a field in the Kevin-Sunburst Oilfield.

Shuck, who was no stranger to oilfields, said he was there that day discussing grain with a farmer when they came across a well that had been abandoned.

“I had no idea that this was even a thing,” he said, noting he had more than 30 years of experience in the oil and gas business. “I just thought this was everybody’s dirty little secret.”

He recalls feeling amazed, embarrassed and appalled all at the same time. Shuck said he could not get the image out of his mind and felt it was incumbent upon him to do something about it. Shuck said he learned it’s a huge problem, not only in Montana, but in other parts of the country as well.

He started the Well Done Foundation, a nonprofit group that caps wells across the nation. He said the organization is “making an impact in Montana and across the U.S., one well at a time.”

“Every well is a victory and milestone,” he told the Independent Record newspaper in Helena.

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Go there and give your support. More next week.

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A Clever And Positive Way To Generate Electricity – I have decided that I need to be more positive

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It’s true I have been very negative here lately. Though Thanksgiving has past, I should be thankful for what I have and for the Good Things going on around the world. So here is one. Also I get into big trouble over using pictures, but this really is a visual story so I am including one.

https://news.yahoo.com/underwater-kites-generating-electricity-move-002210558.html

The underwater ‘kites’ generating electricity as they move

Tim Ecott – Business reporter, Tórshavn
·7 min read
Minesto kites
The energy-generating kites “fly” under the water, tethered to the seabed

A pair of sleek, winged machines are “flying” – or at least swimming – beneath the dark waters of the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic.

Known as “sea dragons” or “tidal kites”, they look like aircraft, but these are in fact high-tech tidal turbines, generating electricity from the power of the ocean.

The two kites – with a five-metre (16ft) wingspan – move underwater in a figure-of-eight pattern, absorbing energy from the running tide. They are tethered to the fjord seabed by 40-metre metal cables.

Their movement is generated by the lift exerted by the water flow – just as a plane flies by the force of air flowing over its wings.

Other forms of tidal power use technology similar to terrestrial wind turbines but the kites are something different.

The moving “flight path” allows the kite to sweep a larger area at a speed several times greater than that of the underwater current. This, in turn, enables the machines to amplify the amount of energy generated by the water alone.

An on-board computer steers the kite into the prevailing current, then idles it at slack tide, maintaining a constant depth in the water column. If there were several kites working at once, the machines would be spaced far enough apart to avoid collisions.

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Go There and happily read. More next week.

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Leave It In The Ground – Biden should not tap the Petroleum Reserves

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But he will because he is afraid. Generally I have liked the policies that Biden has enacted and the results. But tapping the Petroleum Reserves is not one of them. He is doing it because he is afraid of the effects of inflation on the mid term elections. But it will not change that. Those effects are already present. “Leave it in the ground”, is a slogan for a reason. Once you let fossil fuels out, they will be used. That Biden doesn’t get this is a sign that he is old. Please! Will some of the younger people around him shake him and wake him up. Like Greta says, Old People talk – blah blah blah but they DO Nothing. Wake up Biden, Wake up. Yes the costs may fall but will it be worth the Price.

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/21/1056835748/u-s-emergency-oil-stockpiles-spr-gas-prices

Energy

The U.S. emergency oil stash is in the spotlight as gas prices surge. What to know

A recent surge in gasoline prices has left President Biden scrambling for options to do something about it.

One that’s getting a lot of attention is the possibility that the Biden administration will release crude oil from the country’s emergency oil stockpile, known as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Much will depend on oil prices, which have soared over the past year, recovering to their pre-pandemic levels and then some. But after rising to more than $86 a barrel in October, they have since dropped to less than $80.

A lot of factors are affecting prices — including the fact that the White House is now talking about tapping the stockpile.

Here’s an explainer on the country’s oil reserves and whether tapping them would actually be effective.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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Solar Is Cheaper Than Coal – So why do they make up all kinds of lies

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Just like the Big Energy Companies use the BIG  LIE the of Baseload. They also spread lies about Solar Power’s cheapness. They rant about government subsidies when they have gotten billions for years. When they no longer can sell in the USA because Solar is Actually Cheaper than coal. Then they demand that State build export facilities so they can sell it to unsophisticated third world countries.   Even worse they sell to countries like China and India that know better but refuse to stop. They are poison spreading around the world and they must be stopped.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/solar-power-got-cheap-so-why-aren-t-we-using-it-more?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Pocket Worthy Stories to fuel your mind

Solar Power Got Cheap. So Why Aren’t We Using It More?

It turns out there’s a lot of inertia built into the energy system.

Popular Science

  • Ula Chrobak

Many of us might assume that the reason so much energy still comes from gas and coal power plants is simple economics: those fuels are cheaper. But though it was once true, that assumption has actually been obliterated by a recent decline in solar and wind costs over the past decade.

When it comes to the cost of energy from new power plants, onshore wind and solar are now the cheapest sources—costing less than gas, geothermal, coal, or nuclear.

Solar, in particular, has cheapened at a blistering pace. Just 10 years ago, it was the most expensive option for building a new energy development. Since then, that cost has dropped by 90 percent, according to data from the Levelized Cost of Energy Report and as highlighted recently by Our World in Data. Utility-scale solar arrays are now the least costly option to build and operate. Wind power has also shown a dramatic decline—the lifetime costs of new wind farms dropped by 71 percent in the last decade.

Natural gas prices decreased over that time, too, though by a lesser amount—32 percent—but that’s due to the recent fracking boom and not a longer term trend like that seen in renewables, the article states. The cost of building coal plants stayed relatively stable over the decade.

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Go there and look at the pretty graphs. More next week

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We Don’t Need No Stinkin Baseload – What we need is more storage

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By more storage I do not mean Batteries. I mean things like gas and liquid Compression, or liquid transportation. There are other possibilities that are well known like winding springs, etc. The idea of Baseload is in fact obsolete but you can’t tell. She locked into the past when she gushes about building a small Nuke next to an OLD coal plant. She just wants to “substitute” one source for another not write the Future. This administration is so OLD it is frightening. (quick aside – like for the last 100 yrs – how do get rid of the waste?)

https://news.yahoo.com/us-very-bullish-on-new-nuclear-technology-granholm-says-110016617.html

U.S. ‘very bullish’ on new nuclear technology, Granholm says

Ben Adler

·Senior Climate Editor
·6 min read

GLASGOW, Scotland — In an interview at the U.N. Climate Change Conference, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm told Yahoo News on Friday that the Biden administration is “very bullish” on building new nuclear reactors in the United States.

“We are very bullish on these advanced nuclear reactors,” she said. “We have, in fact, invested a lot of money in the research and development of those. We are very supportive of that.”

Nuclear energy is controversial among environmental activists and experts because while it does not create the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, it has the potential to trigger dangerous nuclear meltdowns and creates radioactive nuclear waste.

Most of the Biden administration’s effort to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and almost all the rhetoric at the climate change conference, also known as COP26, is about promoting other clean forms of energy, such as wind and solar power.

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Go there and scream. I mean read. More next week.

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Global Warming And Primary Education – What shall we tell the little children

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This could become a heated and useless discussion. One that goes back centuries. To be blunt – Are we molly coddling the little beggars. Lets face it, on one level life has improved immeasurably. Life expectancies, just as an example, show how less brutal life is; and total global populations show how plentiful general life support is. I guess the real question here is, do you believe that global warming will make Earth uninhabitable for humans? If the answer is YES to that question, AND something could be done to change that – then you have an obligations to say something. If the answer is No and NO then I guess – Shut Up. But is it that easy?

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/climate-crisis-doom?utm_source=digg

Hannah Ritchie

Ideas

Stop Telling Kids They’ll Die From Climate Change

Many young people feel like their future is in peril. To make progress on climate change, we must move past doomsday scenarios.

Is climate change the biggest threat to humanity? Many people would say so. Young people in particular feel hopeless. A recent survey asked 10,000 16- to 25-year-olds in 10 countries about their attitudes about climate change. The results were damning. More than half said “humanity was doomed”; three-quarters said the future was frightening; 55 percent said they would have less opportunities than their parents; 52 percent said family security would be threatened; and 39 percent were hesitant to have children as a result. These attitudes were consistent across countries rich and poor, big and small: from the United States and the United Kingdom to Brazil, the Philippines, India, and Nigeria.

It’s totally legitimate that young people feel this way. I’ve been there. Today, much of my work focuses on researching, writing, and thinking about climate change. But it’s a field I very nearly walked away from. Fresh out of university with a degree in environmental science and climate change, it was hard to see that I could contribute anything at all. I flipped back and forth between anger and hopelessness. Any effort seemed futile, and I nearly quit. Thankfully my perspective shifted. I’m glad it did. Not only did I continue working on climate, I’m also sure that my work has had many times the positive impact it would have if I’d been stuck in my previous mindset. And that’s why I’m convinced that if we’re to make progress on climate, we need to lift this cloak of pessimism.

Let’s be clear: Climate change is one of the biggest problems we face. It comes with many risks—some certain, some uncertain—and we’re not moving anywhere near fast enough to reduce emissions. But there seems to have been a breakdown in communication of what our future entails. None of the climate scientists I know and trust—who surely know the risks better than almost anyone—are resigned to a future of oblivion. Most of them have children. In fact, they often have several. Young ones, too. Now, having kids is no automatic qualification for rational decision-making. But it signals that those who spend day after day studying climate change are optimistic that their children will have a life worth living.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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Kyrsten Sinema Should Be Staked Out In The Desert – Stripped naked

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and covered in Honey so the Fire Ants come. Again, why do these people call themselves Democrats? She started out in the “Green” party forgodsakes and now she is fronting for Natural Gas. Arizona is one of the first places to feel Global Warming and she dithers. I say, “String her UP”. This from June and things have only gotten worse.

https://apnews.com/article/voting-rights-government-and-politics-04909b913669631abd3c5a3ed99ee2c7

AP NEWS

Biden calls out 2 Democratic lawmakers for blocking agenda

By ALEXANDRA JAFFE June 1, 2021

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden called out two fellow Democrats on Tuesday in explaining why he hasn’t enacted some of the most ambitious elements of his agenda, noting that slim majorities in the House and evenly divided Senate have hamstrung legislative negotiations around key issues like voting rights.

Biden, speaking during an event marking the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, responded to critics who question why he hasn’t been able to get a wide-reaching voting rights bill passed.

“Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House, and a tie in the Senate — with two members of the Senate who voted more with my Republican friends,” he lamented.

It appeared to be a veiled reference to Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, both of whom have frustrated Democrats with their defense of the filibuster — the rule requiring most legislation to win 60 votes to pass, making many of Democrats’ biggest priorities like voting rights and gun control bills dead on arrival in the 50-50 Senate. While Sinema is a sponsor of the voting rights bill that passed the House, known as the For the People Act, Manchin has refused to sign on, calling the measure “too broad.

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Go there and scream in rage. Oh I mean read. More next week.

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I Hope You Rot In Hell Joe Manchin – Why do you even call yourself a Democrat

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Let me very quickly say, that I wish no immediate harm to the simpering moron (sigh). I am not urging anybody anywhere to do any harm to the coal toad.  All I am say is that after he dies of Black Lung, I hope bad things happen to him.

He is not even a Democrat. He is a DINO: Democrat In Name Only. He knows the majority is thin and thus his power is great. So behind the flag of Fiscal Responsibility he argues for a smaller bill. A Bill that can “get paid for”. What gets dropped out of that smaller bill? Surprise! Surprise! The Climate Change program that his coal sucking buddies hate. I mean this is from Vanity Fair for God’s sake.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/10/joe-manchin-is-about-to-make-life-worse-for-his-own-constituents-and-the-planet

Infrastructure

Joe Manchin Is About to Make Life Worse for His Own Constituents—And the Planet

The West Virginia senator’s reported opposition to programs aimed at helping working families and combating climate change would dramatically dilute the Democrats’ infrastructure plans.

By Eric Lutz

Although Joe Manchin has been holding up Joe Biden’s infrastructure plans for a while now over the price tag, the West Virginia senator has been somewhat cagey about his actual demands. Not as guarded, perhaps, as Kyrsten Sinema, his fellow Democratic holdout; where she has refused to state her terms to anyone outside the White House, Manchin at least engages with his colleagues and speaks publicly about his objections to the reconciliation bill. But he’s been difficult to pin down nonetheless, adding to the frustrations of Democrats as they seek to deliver on the centerpiece of Biden’s domestic agenda.

Finally, while his terms are coming into clearer view, they’re only casting the future of the infrastructure bills in a thicker cloud of uncertainty. Now, the question isn’t only if the Biden bills will pass. It’s whether the bills will be recognizable if they do. Axios on Sunday reported that Manchin has given something of an ultimatum to the White House: He’ll support the child tax credit that would be one of the package’s biggest boosts to working families, but only if it…well, does less to help working families. Manchin is asking for the credit to include a work requirement and an income cap that would make families earning more than $60,000 ineligible for assistance—a demand that would weaken a key part of the spending bill. He is also, as Axios reported, continuing to rail against provisions of the reconciliation bill that are crucial to addressing climate change, supposedly because of concerns that the shift to clean energy the Biden plan would help usher in could cost jobs in the coal state of West Virginia. The Times reported Friday that Manchin, who personally has financial ties to the coal industry, opposes “a program to rapidly replace the nation’s coal- and gas-fired power plants with wind, solar and nuclear energy” that’s seen as key to Biden’s climate agenda.

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Go there and get mad; I mean read and get mad. More next week.

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Failed Nuclear Says It All – So why didn’t they end in the 70s

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Nuclear Power was always too EXpensive to meter. But when the Nuclear Choo-Choo Train got going in the 60s everyone was in love with the new technology, the marvelous future, how many decades the plants could run and the massive power produced that the regulators publicly patted the Utility Guys on the back and quietly passed the costs on to ratepayers. This is what should have happened from the very beginning.

https://news.yahoo.com/failed-nuclear-contractor-signs-21m-134341356.html

Failed nuclear contractor signs $21M deal, working with feds

The chief contractor at a failed multibillion-dollar project to build two nuclear reactors in South Carolina has agreed to pay more than $20 million as part of a cooperation agreement with federal authorities probing the fiasco.

Under an agreement announced Monday by Acting U.S. Attorney Rhett DeHart, Westinghouse Electric Co. will contribute $5 million to a program intended to assist low-income ratepayers affected by the project’s failure. Another payment of $16.25 million will be due before July 1, 2022.

The company will also be required to cooperate with federal investigators still probing the company’s role in the 2017 debacle, which cost ratepayers and investors billions and left nearly 6,000 people jobless.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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Grid Regulation With Alternative Power – Its almost as important how you turn alternative power off as how you turn it on

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Can the Grid run only on Alternative Power? Yes. Can we store enough Alternative Energy to run the Grid smoothly (night and day, whenever)? Yes. Can we turn Alternative Power off if we need to? This video argues, Yes. Again, I do not normally do videos because this is a print based blog. But this video says it better than any article I have ever seen. So:

https://digg.com/video/what-happens-when-islands-makes-way-more-power-than-neededs

 

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Go there and watch. Its only 6 minutes. More next week.

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