11-14-2013
¶ “Energy Week with George Harvey and Tom Finnell” has Jason Cooper as our guest. It can be viewed online at this link. It is carried on BCTV in Brattleboro; please see the station listings. Other Vermont public stations may respond to requests to carry the program. (Wikipedia’s list of Vermont public stations is at this link.)
¶ Safe & Green is hosting a decommissioning panel on Tuesday Dec. 3, 6:30pm at SIT. Could you promote on your show – or better yet, can I join you for a bit? Attached is a flyer +/orhttp://www.safeandgreencampaign.org/event/forum-on-decommissioning
11-15
¶ Iowa has 3,200 wind turbines producing 5,100 megawatts of wind energy, or 25% of the state’s electric needs. It also is home to 13 manufacturers producing wind turbine parts. Tom Wind, an expert on windpower in Iowa, says there is growth ahead. [Quad City Times]
¶ California is set to nearly double its wind and solar power generation over the next seven years as utility companies try to meet the state’s requirement to source 33% of energy from renewables by 2020, reliability regulators said. [Business Spectator]
¶ Japan took a major step back Friday from earlier pledges to slash its greenhouse gas emissions, saying a shutdown of its nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster had made its previous target unattainable. [New York Times]
¶ The newly projected 350% growth of Japan’s solar market from 2012 to 2013 dwarfs estimates made earlier this year. The latest forecast is almost a full gigawatt higher than the 5.3 gigawatts expected by analysts earlier this year. [EnergyCollective]
¶ ”Renewable Energy Can Pave The Path To Peace – Analysis” One way or another, society has to pay the price of conflict over energy, more often than not perpetuating an endless cycle of poverty. Procuring energy does not need to be so brutal. [Eurasia Review]
11-16
¶ The decommissioned Connecticut Yankee nuclear plant received another $126 million in a dispute with the US DOE over the continued storage of nuclear waste in Connecticut, the plant’s owner announced Friday. [Hartford Business]
¶ Data from Energinet, the Danish grid operator, says wind power has produced 30% of gross power consumption so far in 2013. During 90 hours wind produced more than 100% of power needs, with the high at 122%. Looking ahead, these figures will probably grow. [Energy Collective]
11-17
¶ Exelon CEO Christopher Crane has acknowledged that the Quad Cities and Clinton nuclear plants are in financial trouble. He says both plants could stay open if they can get long-term contracts at prices above current market rates. [Crain’s Chicago Business]
¶ All the stuff folks in Gresham, Fairview, and Wood Village, Oregon put down their toilets and other drains is being harnessed to slash energy costs for sewer system customers. Eight years ago it cost $40,000 per month; soon it will be $0. [Portland Tribune]
11-18
¶ Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), has introduced the American Renewable Energy and Efficiency Act. It would require electric utilities to get at least 25% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025, starting at 6% in 2015 and rising gradually. [Grist]
¶ Tokyo Electric Power Co. has started removing nuclear fuel from a damaged reactor building at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant for the first time, marking a new stage in the decades-long decommissioning process. [Asahi Shimbun]
¶ West-facing rooftop solar panels produced 49% more electricity during peak demand compared to south-facing panels, according to a new study from Pecan Street Research Institute. The research is the first of its kind to evaluate orientation of PV panels. [Energy Collective]
11-19
¶ A carbon tax of $25 per ton of emissions would cut the deficit by $1 trillion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Of 103 cost-cutting ways detailed, the carbon tax was far and away the biggest deficit reducer of any option listed. [CleanTechnica]
¶ ”Green Energy Is Grassroots Energy In Germany” One of the most misunderstood aspects of Germany’s energy transition is the assumption that this is top-down mandate to adopt green energy. Nothing could be further from the truth.[CleanTechnica]
11-20
¶ The nuclear industry won a victory when a federal appeals court said the US should stop collecting $750 million a year for a spent-fuel repository. The question of where to put the waste is still not settled. [Businessweek]
¶ Social media strategies may have been decisive when voters in Colorado and Ohio communities approved anti-fracking ballot initiatives in early November. The pro-fracking ads cost nearly $900,000, but lost to a $26,000 anti-fracking campaign. [theenergycollective.com]
¶ TEPCO’s president said the lessons they learned from the 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant and its subsequent ongoing clean-up should serve as a warning to the world that nuclear energy is not fully safe. [The Japan Daily Press]
11-21
¶ New research says there were errors in earlier measurements of global temperatures that indicated global warming had slowed, because data from Africa was omitted. It says global warming has continued in a way consistent with earlier computer models. [Energy Collective]
¶ Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have developed a process to convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen, two of the most common elements on earth, into a renewable alternative for crude oil. [Renewable Energy Magazine]
¶ Construction of Du Pont’s cellulosic biorefineries is underway in Nevada, Iowa. The biorefinery will use agricultural waste from neighboring farms as a feedstock and annually supply 30 million gallons of cellulosic renewable fuel. [Zacks.com]
Energy Week with George Harvey and Tom Finnell 