Tag: solar

So which is true?

Ever since Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a phase-out of nuclear energy over the next decade and pledged to generate as much as 80% of the country’s electricity from renewables by 2050, big question marks have been hanging over the future of coal and gas-fired plants in Germany.

Merkel, seeking a third term in general elections on September 22, is a staunch supporter of this hugely popular policy move.

But the turnaround is depriving utilities, including market leaders RWE and E.ON, of massive profits from their atomic plants and turning their gas and coal-fired stations into loss-makers as they are sidelined by rival renewable sources of energy.

http://www.industryweek.com/en…

I don’t expect there are copious tears shed for the utilities with their decaying dirty power around here and surely not in this corner.

But what of this from a now decaying, unloved posting:

The German Association of Energy Consumers estimates that up to 800,000 Germans have had their power cut off because they couldn’t pay the country’s rising electricity bills…

For many weeks in December and January, Germany’s 1.1 million solar power systems generated almost no electricity. During much of those overcast winter months, solar panels more or less stopped generating electricity. To prevent blackouts, grid operators had to import nuclear energy from France and the Czech Republic and power up an old oil-fired power plant in Austria.

https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

Without being on the ground with access to all the available data, it is impossible to ascertain the truth of matters.  My bias is that both are true.  A mobile blind man might feel two different aspects of the elephant but still would not know much about the beast.

What we do know is that intermittent power is – umm – intermittent and must be supplemented by baseload power.  Baseload renewable power is far cheaper and more available than all other energy sources.

Ancient inhabitants of North America some 12,000 years ago are known to have cooked with geothermal energy and millenia later, the ancient Romans used the same source of heat for their baths.  Of course fire was discovered much earlier and perhaps utilized by ancestors of humans. Biomass is a new word for the most ancient of all technologies.  There was then no need to freeze in the dark when the distant sun was neglecting earth.

So why do we concentrate on poisonous and haphazard sources of supply of energy?

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former. – Albert Einstein

Albert forgot human greed but no one knows everything.

Best,  Terry

Slowly but gradually, Europe is awakening to a green energy crisis, an economic and political debacle that is entirely self-inflicted.

http://www.thegwpf.org/benny-p…

Indeed the problems are self-inflected but far from the way the article would have you believe.

EU members states have spent about €600 billion ($882bn) on renewable energy projects since 2005, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Germany’s green energy transition alone may cost consumers up to €1 trillion by 2030, the German government recently warned.

These hundreds of billions are being paid by ordinary families and small and medium-sized businesses in what is undoubtedly one of the biggest wealth transfers from poor to rich in modern European history. Rising energy bills are dampening consumers’ spending, a poisonous development for a Continent struggling with a severe economic and financial crisis.

The German Association of Energy Consumers estimates that up to 800,000 Germans have had their power cut off because they couldn’t pay the country’s rising electricity bills

The folly is not in going green but in taking the high-priced rich man’s route that guarantees continued enslavement to fossil fuels, most notably solar and wind.

For many weeks in December and January, Germany’s 1.1 million solar power systems generated almost no electricity. During much of those overcast winter months, solar panels more or less stopped generating electricity. To prevent blackouts, grid operators had to import nuclear energy from France and the Czech Republic and power up an old oil-fired power plant in Austria.

The answer is plain enough for the few that will listen – like some of the poorest countries on the planet.

Baseload renewables, primarily geothermal and biomass, are cheaper than the foppery of sometime power, far more potent and plentiful than fossil fuels.

We will learn or we may not survive.

Best,  Terry

I am a NC Pork Producer and we produce renewable energy from our swine waste

I am also interested in a small solar farm.

http://www.renewableenergyworl…

I guess it’s to be expected that a pig farmer would want to join his pigs at the trough to chow down on huge subsidies for the worst dilettante of renewable energy but mightn’t stinkless pig farming producing abundant baseload [always on] energy and/or fertilizer have some attraction even without the government trough?

See Pig city – zero emission and odour-free pig production Project

http://agrotech.dk/en/projects…

The last time I had looked in on Pig City it was a small experimental venture utilizing air filters to screen out ammonia, the primary cause of stench in all livestock farming.  The ammonia was then used for growing tomatoes but can be burned for generating electricity as well.

Pigs are not bearcats, you know.  

Bearcats’ butts are said to smell like buttered popcorn though admittedly I never smelled a bearcat’s butt and have no idea if their shit smells the same.  What I do know about all too well is the stench of pig shit.  It is the worst.

I also have no knowledge of any government subsidies for Pig City but it is surely a more worthwhile venture than another dubious solar farm.

Best,  Terry

Sometimes, your kids tell you great things.

We have the coolest house on the street.

Wow.  

We’re cool — according to the kids.  

Certainly isn’t the non-existent slide for the pool that isn’t there.  

Our lack of a huge media room and the glaring absence of a gym didn’t contribute.  

And, while I’ve always thought it cool that we live on the white house of the street, that isn’t it either.  

My fourth-grader son explained to me why it’s cool:

Because we know where our electricity comes from.

Last fall, facing a bit of pressure (mainly from 350.org) about the absence of solar from the White House roof since the Reagan Administration took off the panels President Carter put it, the Administration promised that the White House would have solar panels up on the roof “before the end of spring”.

As of today, 15 June 2011, the White House still doesn’t have solar panels on it.

The clock is ticking as even with climate disruption messing up our seasons, spring still ends 20 June …  

Those who know or use Duke power don’t really like them especially for their wide use of coal, mentioned in the opening of this article.

But with time on my hands, the past couple of years leading into early retirement with the collapse of the construction industry, I’ve been following them as well as trying to follow others, not much on the others, as to innovation in new energy development and needs and a green economy.

They have actually not been a big corporate machine that has been sitting on there bottom line these past couple of years. They’ve been moving rapidly into solar and wind. Either by themselves or partnering with others or buying up existing solar and wind developments others had already built. Not fast enough, especially here in NC, to make a big dent in all the unemployed trades, architects and engineers, but have put many back to work.  

Since diving into the deep end when it comes to energy issues, almost every day sees new fascinating concepts, approaches, and technologies.  Fascinating … exciting … even hope inspiring at times.  And, as well, as the passion builds, so many of these are truly Energy COOL.

And, Natural Fusion truly does look to be Energy COOL …

No, we’re not speaking about Cold Fusion, but Penn State’s entry into the DOE Solar Decathlon, which opens Thursday on the Mall in Washington, DC.  

Let’s take a look at some of Natural Fusion’s features from its website, which is dynamic, enabling rapid connection of concepts and approaches with the home’s physical layout.

Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian.

                                                                                                      — Emma Goldman

Saturday October 4, 2008.  

Solar homes, active and passive, all across the country are open to the public for viewing and learning about solar energy through the ASES National Solar Tour Day

To find a location near you, go to the ASES website.

Every year, the first Saturday in October is National Solar Tour Day, as part of National Solar Awareness month.

We’re participating for the second time.  Over the last two years we had more than 120 people from all over the state visit our partially earth sheltered, passive solar designed home, to which we added 4kw of photovoltaic panels in July,’06.

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