NewEnergyNews: HOW TO SHINE SUN ON SOUTH ASIA’S POOR

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, April 11, 2010

    HOW TO SHINE SUN ON SOUTH ASIA’S POOR

    Solar power for the poor needs government support; Governments in South Asia must support solar power to make it affordable to the rural poor…
    Vishaka Hidellage, 24 March 2010 (SciDev)

    "The accelerating demands for energy in fast-growing South Asia are mostly being met by…coal, gas and petroleum…through the electricity grid…Yet interest in renewable energy, such as grid-connected solar systems, is rising…

    "India and Sri Lanka have introduced 'net metering' options…[so that] small-scale generators get paid for their net electricity production, over and above their domestic needs. And Sri Lanka has recently started using the latest technology to transfer power generated from rooftops to the electricity utility, via the grid…[But] a large proportion of the 706 million people living without electricity in South Asia live in remote locations where grid extension is expensive, impractical or simply not viable."

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    "In a region blessed with plenty of sunshine, policymakers should instead focus on harnessing decentralised solar power solutions…[G]overnments are slowly waking up…[M]ost South Asian countries now promote solar home systems (SHS) for rural electrification, and provide small grants and subsidies…[for] a photovoltaic solar panel connected to a battery and charge controller, with one or more sockets to power electrical equipment…SHS are convenient and can meet the basic electricity needs of rural households…[reduce] carbon emissions and [eliminate] the cost and ill-health associated with traditional fuels…

    "International financial institutions, such as the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, have proactively supported government efforts to install SHS in remote settings…Microcredit providers that offer small loans to be paid back over 2–3 years, such as Grameen Shakti in Bangladesh, are also increasingly enabling the rural poor to buy SHS…India is home to 700,000 systems (44 MW), Sri Lanka to 125,000…[but] the high initial cost and limited application is preventing its fast expansion."

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    "There is still a large gap between what a solar system costs and what the poor can afford…[SHS electricity is] about three times the cost of conventional grid electricity…Yet, in places where there is no grid, alternatives such as solar are the only option, however high the cost. Grid electricity has embedded hidden subsidies…[but] similarly subsidising rural electrification rarely…even gets a fair hearing…Government subsidies are critical…

    "Governments must also…[improve] the infrastructure…Applications such as water pumping, dehydration and heating could all improve incomes for the poor. Facilitating local research and development, manufacturing and capacity creation will help achieve this…And governments must abandon policy constraints…Channelling government support into local capacity building and finding opportunities to add value to solar products should be a particular priority…Off-grid solar systems have the potential to radically improve energy access in South Asia…But the benefits of solar technology risk bypassing those that need it most — the rural poor — unless governments step up support."

    posted by Herman K. Trabish @ 7:31 AM

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