MORE NEWS, 12-3: NO HOME VALUE HARM FROM WIND; THE SOLUTION IN THE MIRROR; OCEAN ENERGY AFLOAT; ABOUT THOSE EMAILS

NO HOME VALUE HARM FROM WIND
The Impact of Wind Power Projects on Residential Property Values in the United States: A Multi-Site Hedonic Analysis
Ben Hoen, Ryan Wiser, Peter Cappers, Mark Thayer, and Gautam Sethi, December 2009 (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

"Wind power development in the United States has expanded dramatically in recent years...[I]t will require an ever-increasing number of wind power projects to be sited, permitted, and constructed...[with] some form of environmental impact assessment as well as public involvement in the siting process. Though public opinion surveys generally show that acceptance towards wind energy is high, a variety of concerns with wind power development are often expressed on the local level...One such concern is the potential impact of wind energy projects on the property values of nearby residences.

"Concerns about the possible impact of wind power facilities on residential property values can take many forms, but can be divided into...[3] non-mutually exclusive categories:…Area Stigma: A concern that the general area surrounding a wind energy facility will appear more developed…Scenic Vista Stigma: A concern that a home may be devalued because of the view of a wind energy facility, and the potential impact of that view on an otherwise scenic vista…Nuisance Stigma: A concern that factors that may occur in close proximity to wind turbines, such as sound and shadow flicker, will have a unique adverse influence on home values…"

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"…[In] the available literature...no persuasive evidence of any of the three potential stigmas: neither the view of the wind facilities nor the distance of the home to those facilities is found to have any consistent, measurable, and statistically significant effect on home sales prices.

"…To investigate Area Stigma, the model tests whether the sales prices of homes
situated anywhere outside of one mile and inside of five miles of the nearest wind facility are measurably different from the sales price of those homes located outside of five miles. No statistically significant differences in sales prices between these homes are found…"

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"…For Scenic Vista Stigma…when the model tests for whether homes with minor, moderate, substantial, or extreme views of wind turbines have measurably different sales prices, no statistically significant differences are apparent…

"…Finally, for Nuisance Stigma, the model is used to test whether the sales prices of homes situated inside of one mile of the nearest wind energy facility are measurably different from those homes located outside of five miles…[T]he model again finds no persuasive statistical evidence that wind facilities measurably and broadly impact residential sales prices…"


THE SOLUTION IN THE MIRROR
100 Miles of Mirrors; A simple, feasible plan for averting global climatic disaster.
Alex Carlin, December 1, 2009 (In These Times)

"As world leaders and delegations prepare to meet in Copenhagen for the two-week UN Climate Change conference beginning Monday, it’s worth asking two basic questions: How bad is global warming? And is the world on track to fix it?

"To answer the first question: it’s more than just bad. It’s bleak. According to James Hansen, NASA’s top climate scientist, we must stop burning coal to generate electricity by 2030…[I]s the world on track to alter this trajectory? No. But a straightforward, actionable plan to replace coal by 2030 does exist: 100 Miles of Mirrors."

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"By building 100 miles by 100 miles of solar thermal power in each of the planet’s key coal-burning economies—the U.S., Europe, China and India—we can replace coal-burning enough to give our coastal cities a chance to survive…Sunlight, reflected by rows of mirrors, concentrates heat onto tubes of water or oil. The resulting steam powers traditional electricity-generating turbines. Molten salt stores the excess heat, which is used at night or when the sun is obscured, allowing full power generation around the clock.

"These desert solar plants would do everything a coal-burning plant does—but without the harmful byproducts that are overheating our planet. And…the facilities can be built out in two to four years…[T]he entire U.S. electric grid could be powered by an area measuring 100 by 100 miles (or 10,000 square miles)—space readily available in the uninhabited desert of the southwest…[B]oth India and the western desert of China…[and] the Sahara desert could [also] generate and transmit enough power…"

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"Financing this is feasible. A conservative estimate…puts the cost at $4.5 trillion, or $225 billion per year for 20 years…[Cutting] fossil fuels during that same 20-year period…[saves] $75 billion per year...[T]he overall price tag [is] $3 trillion, a cost comparable to the total price of the Iraq War…one-third of the defense department’s projected budget…less than half the bill for the current Wall Street bailout…

"…Moreover, private investors and businesses would likely finance a large portion…And once built, maintenance and operation costs would remain low because mining solar power is free. Forever… “100 Miles of Mirrors” can power this planet, replace coal by 2030, and save our cities. Other renewables and efficiency measures will surely contribute as well, but the time has arrived to focus on a plan that gets us off coal before …[we] lose New York and Miami…"


OCEAN ENERGY AFLOAT
Marine Energy Market in Europe Still Weathering Economic Storm; Frost & Sullivan: Government Support and New Investments are now Vital
November 17, 2009 (PR Newswire)

"The nascent European marine energy industry is still weathering storms unleashed by the global economic crisis. This market was particularly hard hit by the recession because it relied so heavily on venture capital and private equity investment. But now, it looks as though the UK government and the EU will extend long-awaited lifelines…Government support and new investments are key factors to boost the market.

"Frost & Sullivan estimates that if ocean energy technologies continue to be supported and achieve their predicted potential, approximately 3 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity could be available in the EU by 2020."

Anybody who's been to the beach understands the potential. (click to enlarge)

"The recession has effectively bottlenecked investment, temporarily slowing down development. In response, the UK government recently announced a raft of rescue measures. The UK Carbon Trust granted 250,000 GBP and 150,000 GBP to Pelamis and MCT respectively to focus on installation and maintenance, while the Marine Renewables Deployment Fund has offered a 22 million GBP grant to wave and tidal developers. A part of a 20 million GBP of venture capital from the budget for low carbon technologies has been earmarked for marine energy technology developers.

"The EU is also supporting the sector. A consortium led by the Finnish wave energy company AW Energy, signed a 3 million EUR contract with the EU in October 2009…The project will focus on deploying a 300kW device, known as the WaveRoller, in Portugal for a one year testing period…"

A few of the competing technologies. (click to enlarge)

"…However, [government support] alone will not be enough to boost the market and push it in the right direction. Investment from venture capital and private equity players would be ideal at this stage, but is unlikely to be extended at sufficient levels until the economy starts to recover…[Companies must therefore] weather the current economic climate. To do so, major players should strive to differentiate the merits of their technology in order to showcase the future potential of the device and solicit enough capital to be able to reach commercialisation. With investors getting pickier these days, the overall environment is becoming much more difficult and competitive.

"The Copenhagen summit in December may pose further challenges as there is growing concern that it will not be able to produce a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, thereby undermining the carbon markets…"


ABOUT THOSE EMAILS
Climatologists under pressure; Stolen e-mails have revealed no scientific conspiracy, but do highlight ways in which climate researchers could be better supported in the face of public scrutiny.
Editorial, 2 December 2009 (Nature)

"The e-mail archives stolen last month from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, have been greeted by the climate-change-denialist fringe as a propaganda windfall…proof that mainstream climate researchers have systematically conspired to suppress evidence…

"This paranoid interpretation would be laughable were it not for the fact that obstructionist politicians in the US Senate will probably use it next year as an excuse to stiffen their opposition to the country's much needed climate bill. Nothing in the e-mails undermines the scientific case that global warming is real — or that human activities are almost certainly the cause. That case is supported by multiple, robust lines of evidence, including several that are completely independent of the climate reconstructions debated in the e-mails."

Regrettably, it's a 'Gate now. (click thru to an impressive collection of links on the subject)

"First, Earth's cryosphere is changing as one would expect in a warming climate…Second, the global sea level is rising…Third, decades of biological data on blooming dates and the like suggest that spring is arriving earlier each year…Denialists often maintain that these changes are just a symptom of natural climate variability. But when climate modellers test this assertion by running their simulations with greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide held fixed, the results bear little resemblance to the observed warming. The strong implication is that increased greenhouse-gas emissions have played an important part in recent warming, meaning that curbing the world's voracious appetite for carbon is essential…

"A fair reading of the e-mails reveals nothing to support the denialists' conspiracy theories. In one of the more controversial exchanges, UEA scientists sharply criticized the quality of two papers that question the uniqueness of recent global warming…and vowed to keep at least the first paper out of the upcoming Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)…[Yet] in the end, neither they nor the IPCC suppressed anything: when the assessment report was published in 2007 it referenced and discussed both papers…"

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"If there are benefits to the e-mail theft, one is to highlight yet again the harassment that denialists inflict on some climate-change researchers…The e-mail theft also highlights how difficult it can be for climate researchers to follow the canons of scientific openness, which require them to make public the data on which they base their conclusions…But for much crucial information the reality is very different…Researchers are barred from publicly releasing meteorological data from many countries owing to contractual restrictions. Moreover, in countries such as Germany, France and the United Kingdom, the national meteorological services will provide data sets only when researchers specifically request them, and only after a significant delay…

"…One e-mail talked of displaying the data using a 'trick' — slang for a clever (and legitimate) technique, but a word that denialists have used to accuse the researchers of fabricating their results. It is Nature's policy to investigate such matters if there are substantive reasons for concern, but nothing we have seen so far in the e-mails qualifies…In the end, what the UEA e-mails really show is that scientists are human beings — and that unrelenting opposition to their work can goad them to the limits of tolerance, and tempt them to act in ways that undermine scientific values. Yet it is precisely in such circumstances that researchers should strive to act and communicate professionally…[T]he pressures the UEA e-mailers experienced may be nothing compared with what will emerge as the United States debates a climate bill next year, and denialists use every means at their disposal to undermine trust in scientists and science."