Category Archives: Renewable

Buggy-Whips, Railroads & Oil: Systems Thinking on Fuel

At the 6th Annual Babson Energy Conference, “Energy, Environment, & Entrepreneurship: Challenging Assumptions, Changing Perceptions”, here, held March 30, 2012, Cimbria Badenhausen, (LinkedIn), an alum of the Marlboro College MBA in Managing for Sustainability, asked Tahmid Mizan, Senior Planning Advisor of Exxon Mobil, “Are you an ENERGY company or a PETROLEUM company?”

Mr. Mizan, of Exxon, didn’t answer the question.

Henry Ford, when asked why he doesn’t use focus groups, is believed to have said, “If I asked people what they wanted, they’d tell me faster horses.” (HBR) Continue reading →

NY Times: Hydraulic Fracturing: “Cleaner than Coal”

Helicopter Cruising Greenland Ice Sheet

“To Make Fracturing Safer,” editorial, in May 11, 2012, begins “Gas … is cleaner than coal” and concludes “Oil and and gas drilling will always be a risky business; the administration cannot let pass this opportunity to make it safer.”

Clean and Green within 18 is the opportunity the Administration should not let pass. We should – MUST – shift to 100% sustainable energy in 18 years! Solar, wind and other sustainable energy systems do not require fuel and day-to-day operations do not create waste. Thus these “negafuelwatt” systems are clean; not just “cleaner than coal.” And they are also cleaner than oil, gas, and nuclear power.

Continue reading →

21 of 2011 – Most Significant Events of the Year

Tweet While it ain’t over till it’s over, 2011 is over. A lot that could have happened, didn’t. Obama didn’t resign, Donald Trump didn’t throw his hat into the ring or divorce his current wife and marry one or more Kardashians. Newt Gingrich threw his hat into the ring, but also didn’t divorce his current wife and marry one or more Kardashians. These are the most significant events of 2011.

Japan, March, 2011 . Nebraska, June, 2011. An earthquake triggered a tsunami which slammed Japan with a 30 foot wave, which shut down twelve nuclear reactors at three sites, triggering melt-downs in three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi site. We now see radioactive particles in food and soil in Fukushima Prefecture. The United States government recommended an evacuation of a 50 mile radius from the plant – this is a semi-circular no-man’s land of 3,927 square miles. It would be 7,854 square miles but the plant was on the coast and therefore half of this radioactive no-man’s land is in the Pacific Ocean. The environmental ramifications of radioactive materials spreading over Japan and flowing into the Pacific Ocean are not known (Popular Logistics click here, here, here), however, liabilities to TEPCO and Japan are estimated to $100 Billion (click here). In the United States, two nuclear power plants on the Missouri River, the Fort Calhoun and Cooper plants, were shut-down when the Missouri River flooded (Popular Logistics, here). Eight nuclear power plants from South Carolina to Connecticut were shut down in the aftermath of the earthquake that struck with an epicenter in Virginia August 23, 2011, and Hurricane Irene a few days later (Popular Logistics, here). In the words of Mycle Schneider, describing the World Watch Institute report he authored, “The industry was arguably on life support before Fukushima. When the history of this industry is written, Fukushima is likely to introduce its final chapter,” (click here). However, the three melt-downs at Fukushima, coupled with the melt-down at Chernobyl in 1986 and the partial melt-down at Three Mile Island in 1979, suggest a probability of one melt-down every 14 years.
South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont, August, 2011. Hurricane Irene covered an area of approximately 170,000 square miles, or about the size of California.”
Washington, DC, December. 2011. After 4,000 Americans were killed, about 50,000 were wounded, and $1 trillion was spent over 8 years, President Obama ended the American mission in Iraq that Congress authorized in October, 2002, President Bush started in March, 2003 and declared “Accomplished” in May, 2003 (for a timeline, click here).
Washington DC, Abbottabod, Pakistan, May, 2011, American soldiers, on orders from the White House, found and killed Osama bin Laden in a compound in Pakistan (NY Times, click here).
Yemen, In summer, 2011, American military forces, using a drone aircraft piloted from the ground via remote control, from the ground, targeted and killed Anwar al Awlaki, an American born Al Queda operative in Yemen (NY Times, click here).
The hacking group “Anonymous” broke into the computers of the security consulting group “Stratfor” and found 44,188 Encrypted Passwords, of which roughly 50% could be easily cracked. 73.7% of decrypted passwords were weak” (NPR, click here).
The “Stuxnet” computer worm virus, harmelss on PC’s runing MS Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and other computers, appears to have targeted centrifuges used in the Iranian uranium enrichment facilities. While the viruses were discovered in 2010, they became understood in 2011. The virus caused the centrifuges to spin out of control, wrecking themselves (NY Times, here, NPR here, CNET here, Wikipedia here). Continue reading →

Largest energy net-zero school in U.S.

Jessica Dailey, writing at Inhabitat, notes the United States’ largest net-zero school, Lady Bird Johnson Middle School, in Texas:

Texas is known for the Alamo, spicy Tex-Mex food, big Stetson hats, and now it also has the nation’s largest net-zero public school. Welcoming its first students this past fall, the Lady Bird Johnson Middle School in Irving Texas is a 152,000 square foot facility that produces as much energy as it uses thanks to wind turbines, solar panels, and a slew of the most advanced green technologies and building techniques. Dallas-based firm Corgan Associatesled the design team, which incorporated a variety of experts to create a school that serves not only as a classroom, but also as a teacher of sustainability and energy-efficiency.

From US’s Largest Net Zero School Welcomes Students in Irving, Texas

Apparently the building is powered by a large solar array and a smaller array of wind turbines, producing in a ratio of 99 to 1; the 152,000-plus square foot building also uses geothermal energy, employs every conservation tactic available, and still has some power to sell back to the grid.

For the 25th Anniversary of the Bruntdland Commission Report on Our Common Future

Image courtesy of NASA. Our tax dollars at work.

Let us remember the Blue Marble. There would be no food – and no life – without sunlight and clean water.

The whales, and the dolphins, the deer and the polar bear, are our cousins.

Let us return to the UN on March 20, May 9, June 20, September 3, and December 21 with delegations of thinkers and builders of sustainability and demand, respectfully, that we as members of communities of Earth, whether economically “Developed,” such as the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, or Canada; or “Developing,” such as Brazil, China, India, and Mexico; whether materally rich or materially poor, set as our overriding goal “Sustainable Development.”

This, “Sustainable Development,” as defined by Gro Harlem Brundtland as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the abilities of future generations to meet their needs,” or as defined by John Ehrenfeld as “development that leads to flourishing forever,” is simply and precisely development around harnessing natural processes such as wind, sunlight, ocean currents, the heat of the earth’s core, rather than extracting and consuming natural resources such as coal, oil, subterranean methane, and uranium, and creating toxic wastes.

Let us embrace not only the negative goals of lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and reducing distribution of toxic substances such as the arsenic, lead, mercury, uranium, zinc, etc. emitted from burning coal but also the positive goal of rearchitecting our economies – our interconnected global economy – around sustainable development.

Not more stuff distributed inequitably, but GOOD stuff, equitably distributed. After all, do we need a new cellphone every two years? Or a new car every three or four? How many shoes, trousers, shirts, coats, cameras, televisions, etc. does a person need?

Let us do this as a protest outside the UN, along the lines of Occupy Wall Street and other demonstrations – with substantive statements, drums, guitars, flair, and enthusiasm, and cover it ourselves on YouTube, Twitter, the blogosphere, and Ted Talks, but let us also demand that our Representatives in state houses, governor’s offices, the House, the Senate, and the White House and city halls and state capitals across the world listen and bring our message to the UN for a day, an hour, or even just 15 minutes.

We want to celebrate a turning point in human history. Let us do this on March 20, the anniversary of the Brundtland Commission Report. And, as May 8 and September 2 respectively mark the 67th anniversaries of the Allied victory over the Nazis and Imperial Japan in World War II, somber turning points in human history, and let us return to the United Nations, and to our city halls, state capitals, congresses and parliments on on May 9 and September 3, and on the solstices June 20 and December 21.

And let us do this with hope for peace, love, and the future.

Chanukah: Festival of Lights, Conservation & Renewable Energy

Photo courtesy Joseph Skibell

The Jewish celebration of Chanukah, the “Festival of Lights,” commemorates the successful struggle for freedom and independence of Israel from the Selucid Greeks, about 2200 years ago. At the conclusion of this war, the Macabees purified The Temple in Jerusalem and sought to relight their “Eternal Lamp.”

They only had enough oil for one day. The process by which they made oil required eight days. Miraculously, one day’s oil lasted eight days.

Clearly, God believes in energy conservation and, as they used olive oil, renewable energy.

A brief history:

Alexander the Great, aka Alexander of Macedonia, acquired the Kingdom of Judah without a battle. But his empire collapsed after his death. The Kingdom of Judah became part of the Selucid Greek Empire. Where Alexander promised the Jews religious freedom, the Selucids demanded that the Jews worship the Greek pantheon. The Jews rebelled, following the Macabees. They won. The Macabees established the Hasmonean Dynasty, which ruled for 101 years, from 164 Before the Common Era, BCE, to 63 BCE, until the Romans came, saw, and conquered.

The Jews, then known as the Judeans, from the province of Judea, subsequently rebelled against Rome. The First Jewish–Roman War took was fought from year 66 to year 73, the Kitos War was fought from 115 to 117, and the Bar Kokhba revolt was fought from 132 to 135. From these rebellions we get two holidays: Tesha B’Av, which is observed by Jews as a day of mourning, and Christmas, which is generally not celebrated by Jewish people today.

More details are on Wikipedia, and, in a more comprehensive fashion, in Jews, God and History, by Max I. Dimont. ASIN: B0012H8UJI, 1962.

The World Will Not End & Other Predictions for 2012

Here are my top 10 predictions for 2012. These are less readings of the tea leaves or the entrails of goats and chickens and more simple extrapolations of patterns in progress. Altho that may be the way effective oracles. They just masked their observations with hocus pocus, mumbo-jumbo, and guts.

This list runs a gamut from business and technology to energy, instability in the Middle East, micro-economics in the United States, politics, and not-yet-pop culture.

Apple and IBM will continue to thrive. Microsoft will grow, slightly. Dell and HP will thrash. A share of Apple, which sold for $11 in December, 2001, and $380 in Dec. 2011, will sell for $480 in Dec. 2012.
The Price of oil will be at $150 to $170 per barrel in Dec., 2012. The price of gasoline will hit $6.00 per gallon in NYC and California.
There will be another two or three tragic accidents in China. 20,000 people will die.
There will be a disaster at a nuclear power plant in India, Pakistan, Russia, China, or North Korea.
Wal-Mart will stop growing. Credit Unions, insurance co-ops and Food co-ops, however, will grow 10% to 25%.
The amount of wind and solar energy deployed in the United States will continue to dramatically increase.
The government of Bashar Al Assad will fall.
Foreclosures will continue in the United States.
Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio will resign. Calls for Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from matters involving his wife’s clients will become louder, but Justice Thomas will ignore them. A prominent politician who says “Marriage is between a man and a woman,” or her husband, will be “outed” as gay. President Obama will be re-elected.
The authors of Vapor Trails will not win a Nobel Prize for literature. They will not win a “MacArthur Genius Award.” Nor will I despite my work on this blog or “Sunbathing in Siberia” and the XBColdFingers project.

Here are the details … Continue reading →

Moore's Law Applied to Solar Power

Does “Moore’s Law” hold for Solar Power?

In New Jersey, between 2001 and 2010, we went from a total of six systems with a combined capacity of 9.0 KW to about 7000 systems with a combined capacity of 211,000 KW or 211 MW. This is illustrated below.

Solar Capacity, NJ, 2001 to 2010. Increase from 9 KW in 6 systems to 211 MW, or 211,000 KW in 7000 systems

Increase from 9 KW in 6 systems to 211,000 KW in 7,000 systems. Copyright, 2010, L. J. Furman. All Rights Reseved.

This is the “hockey stick” curve of exponential growth typical of positive feedback mechanisms. I expect this kind of growth to continue for the next few years as prices drop, until solar meets 25% to 35% of New Jersey’s needs. This would be another 2500 to 3500 systems and about 200 additional MW in 2011 and 4000 to 5000 systems of 300 to 500 MW in 2012 , and brings me back to “Does ‘Moore’s Law,’ or a corollary, apply to PV Solar?” or “Is this a bubble?” Continue reading →

Nuclear Fusion in 10 or 20 Years

Thomas Friedman is right in “The Next Really Cool Thing” in The New York Times, March 15, 2009, when he concludes:

At the pace we’re going with the technologies we have, without some game-changers, climate change is going to have its way with us. Yes, we’ll still need coal for some time. But let’s make sure that we aren’t just chasing the fantasy that we can “clean up” coal, when our real future depends on birthing new technologies that can replace it.

Note that he pointed out ‘the fantasy that we can “clean up” coal.

Friedman also said:

“I don’t know if they can pull this off; some scientists are skeptical. Laboratory-scale nuclear fusion and energy gain is really hard…. we need to keep working on all forms of solar, geothermal and wind power. They work. And the more they get deployed, the more their costs will go down.”

Fusion may be the game changer. “Energy Gain” means we get more energy out than we put in. The prototype will cost $10 Billion – enough for 5 GW of wind capacity, and 1.53 GW of PV Solar. And fusion is at least 10 years away, maybe 20, maybe 50. We know how to build wind and solar. (On the other hand it takes 10 years to build a nuclear fission reactor.)

But pushing carbon below 350 ppm is a problem that can’t wait 10 years. According to the World Watch Institute’s Vital Signs, 2007-2008, the 6.5 billion humans on the earth are using the natural resources of 1.25 earths. This can’t go on.

World's First Building-Integrated Wind Turbines

World’s first buildling-integrated wind turbines – in, of all places, Bahrain.

This post via TreeHugger.com

Our enthusiasm about wind-powered energy generally is tempered by our experience as New York City residents. It’s our understanding that the City has yet to approve a single application for wind-powered generation – because of concerns about noise. We’ve yet to follow up on this intelligence about the NYC Department of Buildings – but plan to, and welcome submissions from any of our readers who can help us out on this.