Back in June, 2022, the Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors, not shown above, each 1.215 Gigawatts of nameplate capacity was pegged at $34 Billion, or $14 per watt, here.
$34 Billion would buy roughly 17 – 20 Gigawatts of wind capacity or 12 – 15 Gigawatts of solar capacity today.
Continue reading
After Six Months,
These data are summarized in table 1 and discussed below the fold. Continue reading
Wall St. NYC, April 26, 2013. Monday, April 22, 2013 was Earth Day. At the close of trading Thursday, April 25, 2013, as compared to my reference date of Dec. 21, 2012, the Dow Jones Industrials was up 12.3% , the S&P 500 closed up 10.84%, the “Popular Logistics Fossil Fuel Reference Portfolio was up 1.8% and the Popular Logistics Sustainable Energy portfolio was up 34.85%. (This is in line with the trend noted in my previous post, March 23, 2013., in the series that began Dec. 21, 2012.) And Shell Oil has temporarily suspended exploration and drilling operations in the Arctic. (Click here for Forbes). The stock portfolio data are summarized below, in Table 1. That’s the good news (unless you’re long on fossil fuels).
Here’s the bad news. “Fracking” is widespread and unregulated (click here). An oil spill dumped 500,000 gallons from Exxon pipeline onto Mayflower, Arkansas and into Lake Conway (click here). A fatal fire & explosion in West, Texas left 35 dead, probably including 16 firefighters and emergency responders (click here). A fire and multiple explosions on gasoline transport barges docked in Mobile, Alabama injured 3 (click here). Continue reading
Popular Logistics announces the Popular Logistics Sustainable Energy Portfolio Simulation.
This portfolio is composed of companies in the solar, biofuel and LED lighting industries.
I think these are disruptive technologies, like personal computers and workstations and client server software architecture in the 1980s and aircraft in the mid-20th and automobiles in the early 20th Century. We may be approaching, or may have recently crossed a “tipping point” in the Wind, Solar, LED lighting and Bio Fuel industries.
As points of reference, this “Sustainable Energy Portfolio” will be compared to an “UnSustainable Energy Portfolio,” composed of oil industry stocks, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500.
Monday, Sept. 17, was the First Anniversary of the “Occupy Wall Street” protests.
The protesters at Occupy are/were demonstrating against the current economic system and to make “Fracking” illegal. (See “Stop Spectra: Resist Fracking in NYC” or “City Limits, Occupy Wall Street, Opposes Fracking“) Energy Policy and Economics … the intersection of energy and economics in the bio-humanosphere – the memes we knit together at Popular Logistics.
My coverage of Occupy Wall Street started on Sept. 22, 2011, with “Protesting Marked Cards and a Stacked Deck.” Quoting Mr. Buffett’s op-ed in the NY Times, “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich,” and citing President Obama’s statement about the American Jobs Act, explained on White House . gov and Talking Points Memo, which Senate Republicans subsequently filibustered, I called for repeal of the “Bush Tax Cuts” on the wealthy, and for passage of Obama’s American Jobs, the so-called Buffett Rule.
I concluded,
Tax policy must be linked to fiscal policy. What we are doing today, Obama, Buffett, and the protesters would say, is using tax policy to make rich people more rich…. we should use tax policy to develop infrastructure… to build a 40 kilowatt photovoltaic solar array on each of the 92,000 public schools in the United States…. This would use tax revenues to pay for infrastructure upgrade – and tax revenues pay public schools electric bills. PV Solar systems provide energy without pollution, without toxic wastes, without greenhouse gases. And in the event of an emergency, if disconnected from the grid, we would have a network of 92,000 local emergency shelters with power during the day, when the sun is shining.
40 KW PV Solar Array on SI Ferry Terminal
While Chinese subsidies of their solar energy industry have decimated the manufacturing base of the American solar industry, solar energy continues to expand across the country.
What if we stimulated the solar industry with a public works program?
What if we decided to deploy a 40 kilowatt photovoltaic solar array on each of the approximately 90,000 public schools in the country?
The best kept secret in NYC may be found on the Staten Island Ferry, or more precisely, on the south roof of the Whitehall Street terminal. It’s a 40 kilowatt photovoltaic solar array.
Taxpayers pay the electric bills of the ferry terminal, which today are much lower because of the energy the system produces. Taxpayers also pay the electric bills of public schools, courts and other municipal, state and federal office buildings – and the externalized costs of pollution and “health effects” related to mining coal and uranium, drilling oil or frakking gas.
I met Senator John Kerry at the Harvey Nash Inc. Leadership Breakfast at the Plaza Hotel in NYC on Friday, March 2, 2012. At the conclusion I asked him to consider a 40 kw photovoltaic solar energy system on each of the approximately 90,000 public schools in the US.
At $5.00 per watt, which is less than the cost of new nuclear and much less than coal with carbon sequestration, these 90,000 systems would cost $18 billion. They would produce electricity without burning fuel, creating wastes, or creating targets for terrorists, and would pay for themselves in eight to 15 years, depending on the market price of electricity. They would also produce energy for 25 to 40 years – paying for themselves several times over.
This kind of a public works project would create jobs. Even if we didn’t mandate that these used products made in American factories, which I think we should, installation and maintenance would have to be local.
It would also lessen our dependence on fossil fuels.
And each solar energy powered building could be designed to generate electricity during the day during an emergency which shuts down the grid, further enhancing our emergency response capability.
Senator Kerry responded that this would be a perfect project for the Infrastructure Bank that he wants to create. However, the political climate is such that it can’t get done.
Tweet The few inches of heavy wet snow that fell in October took out power in parts of New Jersey and Connecticut. Millions lost power in the storm. Nine days later 50,000 remain without power in Connecticut. Hundreds are without power New Jersey and Massachusetts. Connecticut Outage map here. News coverage here: Business Week / NPR / NY Times.
People in New Jersey have installed over 400 MW of nameplate capacity solar. While this is a fraction of the 7.0 GW, or 7,000 MW, of generating capacity needed by the 8 million or so people who reside in New Jersey, and these systems don’t feed the grid when the power is out, let’s do a thought experiment.
Let’s imagine each of the 50,000 in Connecticut who remains without power had a PV solar array. They’d have power during the day. Lets also imagine that microhydro turbines along the Connecticut River, in other rivers, off the shores, and a set of utility scale wind turbines. The result? Power, day and night, without pollution. Power without the need to mine coal, drill for oil, fracture the ground for methane, or generate tons of radioactive waste.
Lets further postulate 50 MW on each of the public schools, and 1.5 to 5.0 MW on each of the colleges and universities in the state.
In the event of a major outage from a storm like the October Surprise of 2011, or Irene, the schools could be used as emergency shelters with power, during the day when the sun is shining – as it has been since the storm.
And these systems generate power in predictable amounts, with no fuel and no pollution.
An emergency backup power system is only used during an emergency. Solar energy systems are used every day – and so are a more efficient use of capital.
And as the picture above suggests – there’s an interesting feedback pattern when snow falls on a solar array. Solar arrays are pitched to face the sun. Snow is translucent – allows light to pass thru. The snow covered solar array generates power, which generates heat, which melts the snow, exposing the array to more sunlight – which generates more power.
1.5 MW Solar Array, Rutgers University, Livingston Campus
New Jersey taxpayers could net $36.9 million per year, $369 million over 10 years, with the installation of 152.5 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic (PV) solar electricity systems on public schools, community colleges, and each of the public universities in the state.
The systems would pay for themselves within the first 8 years. At 2010 values of electricity and Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (SRECs), these systems would generate electricity worth approximately $300 Million and SRECs worth $1.2 Billion over the first 10 years, approximately $369 Million in excess of the cost of the systems, and provide virtually free electricity over the remainder of their 35 to 40 year lifespan.
Widespread deployment of solar energy increases the resilience of the electric grid, strengthens national security and can enhance local emergency response capabilities.
These are the conclusions of a feasibility study by Lawrence J. Furman, principal of Furman Consulting Group, LLC during the course of his studies for an MBA in Managing for Sustainability at Marlboro College Graduate School.
George Gilder, writing in the Wall Street Journal, 11/18/10, in California’s Destructive Green Jobs Lobby complained of the defeat of the repeal of the “Global Warming Solutions Act.”
“Economic sanity lost out in what may have been the most important election on Nov. 2—and, no, I’m not talking about the gubernatorial or senate races. … This was the California referendum to repeal Assembly Bill 32, the so-called Global Warming Solutions Act, which ratchets the state’s economy back to 1990 levels of greenhouse gases by 2020. That’s a 30% drop followed by a mandated 80% overall drop by 2050. Together with a $500 billion public-pension overhang, the new energy cap dooms the state to bankruptcy.”
Gilder also wrote: “California officials acknowledged last Thursday that the state faces $20 billion deficits every year from now to 2016.” That’s $120 Billion over the next 6 years. This is a state of 37 million people (US Census). It should be able to borrow that money at 4% or 5% – which is $3083 per capita. Borrowed at 5% interest over 20 years, it’s $20.35 per person per month – which does not seem to be enough to push someone into bankruptcy.
Cassandra Kling, an old friend of mine, currently with Infinite Energy, is sponsoring “Solar Energy Options for your Home” Tuesday, May 12. 7 – 8 PM. Hampton Inn, 16 Frontage Drive, in Clinton, NJ. Find out about Solar technologies, Installation, Incentives, the costs and how to make money. The answer is SREC’s. Go Solar. Fight Climate Change. Make Money.
President Barack Obama fired GM CEO Rick Wagoner. He was replaced by Fritz Henderson, who had been Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer. While I agree that Wagoner should probably have been fired, I think his replacement should have been someone from the outside. Promoting from within is a good thing when a company is doing well, but not when the company is collapsing. General Electric, for example, has always promoted new CEO’s from within. But GE was not in trouble when Welch took over, or when he handed the reins to Immelt. IBM was in trouble when the Board brought in Lou Gerstner, an outsider, to, as he put it, teach that elephant to dance. GM is in serious trouble. As an insider, Henderson may be too in step with the corporate culture to change anything. As an outsider I can see what Henderson might miss.
So how would I fix GM?
Given our cultural separations – “artists” in one place – “engineers” another – many of us – I’m guilty of this frequently – we forget how intertwined, and sometimes indistinguishable they are. Rather than make the general argument, check out Daniel Bauen, a young Atlanta-based maker and designer of things. You can look at his resume – and some brilliant pieces of work. If anyone thinks they can draw bright lines between the art and the engineering, we might have an interesting discussion. What’s beyond question is that he’s doing marvelous work. Beautiful, practical – and some so fun that I’m tempted to say that he’s a toymaker – who, in order to make what he makes – became an engineerand an artist in the process.
A motorized moving shade system for buildings – that is, roof-mounted solar panels move automatically in order to maximize shade and solar collection: (pictured left); A solar rock spinner – solar-powered when none one feels like pushing it around;
Bauen also – as a student – participated in the design of two bood-drawing devices one for pediatric and one for diabetics, designed to alleviate, if not eliminate the pain of blood drawing.
There’s more at Daniel Bauen’a personal site and even more at his other site- Engineerable. Continue reading
(Via Inhabitat) Which may, in fact, exceed FEMA’s exertions – despite the fact that, as Paul Villinski, a 
New York-based artist has demonstrated, it’s entirely possible to construct livable/usable emergency structures which rely on solar and wind power. From Bridget Steffen at Inhabitat, Solar Powered Mobile Emergency Response Studio:
Better yet, make sure you read the whole piece and see the images – the one above the jump, taken alone, doesn’t do it justice.NB: as of this writing – October 30th – Villinski’s bandwidth limit had been exceeded. Waiting and checking back later will, we think, be worth it.
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The Gore Energy Challenge: Clean and Green by 2018. Visionary, Reasonable, Achievable. Ask T. Boone Pickens at The Pickens Plan, and Peter Mandelstam at Blue Water Wind.
We could meet the electric power requirements of the United States, estimated at 250 Gigawatts, GW, of generating capacity with wind turbines and photovoltaic solar arrays, for about $811 Billion in 10 years.
Key Benefits:
This plan doesn’t exploit solar thermal, marine kinetic, geothermal, deep geothermal, cogen, biofuels, or conservation, which will be integrated into this plan in the near future. The plan also focuses on current electricity demand. It does not yet forecast increased electricity demand from population growth, transition from fossil fuels for heating or cooking, or increased reliance on plug-in hybrid cars.
Clean and Green By 2018!