NewEnergyNews: LATIN AMERICAN WINDS

NewEnergyNews

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    Anne B. Butterfield of Daily Camera and Huffington Post, is a biweekly contributor to NewEnergyNews

  • Colorado's Elegant Solution to Fracking (April 23, 2012)
  • Anne Butterfield (Huffington Post via New EnergyNews)

    Eventually those local moratoriums against fracking will expire in Boulder, Longmont and Erie. And residents will worry anew about toxic fracking operations inching up on schools and neighborhoods in pursuit of a product that goes "poof" the instant it's used. Nice value ~ not.

    And it's timely that the University of Colorado at Denver School of Public Health just announced a study which finds that air pollution within a half mile of frack-ops have toxic emissions five times over federal safety standards, causing elevated life time cancer risks and respiratory and neurological effects for nearby residents. Rep. Diana DeGette is now urging the Environmental Protection Agency to consider Colorado's study as they finalize air standards for fracking.

    It has also just come out that fracking is inching up on agriculture to compete for Colorado's water. Taking only .08 of a percent per year, it's a smidge for sure, but that water gets so polluted it must be disposed in a way that removes it from the hydrologic cycle. And that's not pretty when we're looking down the craw of a new drought kicked off with an historic climate change induced heat wave plus a horrifying wildfire this season.

    Permanently voiding precious Colorado water out of the hydrologic cycle feels even worse in view the fact such water can be lost for naught when the depletion rate on fracking wells is 63-85 percent in the first year, according to Dave Hughes of the Geological Survey of Canada. This can mean fruitless water waste when drilling down the slippery slope of diminishing marginal returns.

    But Colorado will need all the more gas, as the Clean Air Clean Jobs Act requires Xcel Eenrgy in Colorado to soon retire 900 megawatts of coal burning capacity. The act also requires that the natural gas used for recouping that coal-fired capacity comes from in state (see page 18 here). That puts upward pressure on fracking all over the state. This means more tangles between fracking and populated areas, and more permanent loss of precious Colorado water. It seems like Colorado may have backed itself into a box canyon, where residents are cornered with fracking risks to land, air, water and health.

    But there's an elegant pathway to reducing Colorado's need for natural gas -- by using the sun in a familiar technology that is at least two times more efficient than solar photovoltaics. It's good old fashioned solar thermal - those rooftop panels that heat water.

    Colorado could amend the CACJA to promote solar thermal as a jobs intensive domestic energy supply that works with natural gas to heat homes, buildings, water and industrial processes. This could free drilling companies to sell excess Colorado gas out of state for much higher prices (see page 8 here), possibly gaining crucial industry support for this intrusion of renewables into their market. Higher profitability, less contentious drilling and more renewable energy jobs is the hope.

    In all of North American, Colorado is "ground zero" for the best conditions for producing huge benefits from solar thermal. It's the sunshine, cold ground water, high heating loads, renewables-savvy population and existing industry that can, if the state takes on robust targets, lead the nation in an industry that swaps jobs and skills in place of burning money. And burning money is what we do when we burn costly fuels that go poof the instant they're used.

    A robust Colorado plan for solar thermal could put the clean air and clean jobs back into the so-called, gas-friendly Clean Air Clean Jobs Act.

    And in case anyone has forgotten ~ there are huge economic risks with shale gas, a.k.a. the fracking boom, as the resource is almost certainly not as profitable, resourceful or as clean as hyped by industry. On deeper review, it's promising to be an economic bubble.

    Fracking is supposedly going to make our nation 100 years of cheap gas, as, amnesiac members of Congress and the President are wont to say. But various geological experts such as the Potential Gas Committe have poured cold water all over that flaming hype, detailing how the supply could be as little as 21 or even 11 years. And Arthur Berman, a widely regarded petro-geologist has commented that the industry reminds him of the sub prime mortgage mess and wrote, "U.S. shale plays share many characteristics with the gold rushes.... Both phenomena result from extreme promotion. Anyone can join. Every participant believes that they will get rich. Great amounts of capital are destroyed as entrants try to get a position. The bonanza is exhausted sooner than most expected and few profit in the end."

    So if you are one of the thousands of Coloradans who are waking up to the nightmare of fracking in your community - go online and read the Colorado Solar Thermal Roadmap. Then find every political leader you can to talk about it. Colorado would be wise to use its natural solar resources to hedge against an over-reliance on gas, one that shall expand as the CACJA requires. And coal with its rising prices is on the wane nationwide as well, which means the demand for gas will be a pressure cooker loaded with risk for our energy security, economy, and environment.

    Author's note: Want to support my work? Please "fan" me at Huffpost Denver, here (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-butterfield). Thanks.

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    Anne's previous NewEnergyNews columns:

  • Colorado's Elegant Solution to Fracking (April 23, 2012)
  • Shale Gas: From Geologic Bubble to Economic Bubble (March 15, 2012)
  • Taken for granted no more (February 5, 2012)
  • The Republican clown car circus (January 6, 2012)
  • Twenty-Somethings of Colorado With Skin in the Game (November 22, 2011)
  • Occupy, Xcel, and the Mother of All Cliffs (October 31, 2011)
  • Boulder Can Own Its Power With Distributed Generation (June 7, 2011)
  • The Plunging Cost of Renewables and Boulder's Energy Future (April 19, 2011)
  • Paddling Down the River Denial (January 12, 2011)
  • The Fox (News) That Jumped the Shark (December 16, 2010)
  • Click here for an archive of Butterfield columns

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    Some details about NewEnergyNews and the man behind the curtain: Herman K. Trabish, Agua Dulce, CA., Doctor with my hands, Writer with my head, Student of New Energy and Human Experience with my heart

    email: herman@NewEnergyNews.net

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    Your intrepid reporter

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      A tip of the NewEnergyNews cap to Phillip Garcia for crucial assistance in the design implementation of this site. Thanks, Phillip.

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    • Sunday, November 29, 2009

    LATIN AMERICAN WINDS

    Siemens Turns Sights On Latin America For Wind Turbines
    Laurence Iliff, November 20, 2009 (Dow Jones Newswires via Wall Street Journal)

    "Siemens AG…is moving into the Latin American market for wind-energy turbines - beginning in Mexico - as it seeks a place among the world's top suppliers for wind-driven renewable energy…

    "Latin America has little installed wind-energy capacity even as global growth in the sector hit 30% a year at the start of the decade before slowing to 24% from 2004 to 2007…It has slowed further in recent years due to the debt crisis…[T]op wind turbine manufacturers see a recovery around the corner and an eventual boom, as governments provide incentives to meet international commitments for clean, renewable energy."

    click to enlarge

    "Currently, Siemens wind turbines have a global installed capacity of 9,600 megawatts, with about two-thirds of that in Europe and the rest in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere…[making it] fifth or sixth in the world for wind turbine manufacturers…Unlike its competitors…Siemens isn't making its Mexico debut in windy Oaxaca state…[It] will install 70 of its new 2.3-megawatt turbines [worth $270 million]…with the private Mexican energy producer Grupo Soluciones en Energias Renovables SOE, or GSEER-SOE… [at] the Los Vergeles wind farm [along the Gulf Coast] in the Mexico-Texas border state of Tamaulipas…scheduled [to open] this month…

    "…[P]roximity to the Gulf offers wind speed of about eight meters per second, allowing the turbines to operate around 40% of capacity…less than Oaxaca, but [adequate]…[GSEER-SOE and Siemens have] an agreement with the 43 municipalities in Tamaulipas to provide energy for government installations such as schools and hospitals…Before deciding on Siemens, [GSEER-SOE] did a series of studies on how wind turbines from the biggest global companies would perform as part of the project…Siemens' size and financial stability…helped…GSEER-SOE to obtain financing."

    click to enlarge

    "…Mexico had just 88 megawatts of installed wind-energy capacity in 2008 but will have another 300 megawatts this year…[and] could develop up to 3,800 megawatts of capacity by 2014…[though the] wind energy market…is going through a tough time due mostly to financing issues…The financial statements of two wind turbine giants shows global suppliers are facing a mixed bag of demand…Denmark's Vestas reported an 11% [third quarter 2009] increase in turbine sales…Spain's Gamesa reported a 16% fall…

    "Siemens Wind Power Americas…is preparing for an upcoming energy auction in Brazil to assign several wind projects…[and studying the market in] Chile…[with Mexico, those nations] make up the "economic engines" of Latin America…and Siemens is betting that its wind turbines will be increasingly fueling them."

    posted by Herman K. Trabish @ 8:01 AM

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