NewEnergyNews: QUICK NEWS, January 15: 2011 GLOBAL NEW ENERGY INVESTMENT; TEN NEW ENERGY STOCKS WORTH WATCHING; THE TIME HAS COME FOR THE PLUG

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  • Holiday Weekend Reading: NEW ENERGY IN CHINA

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    THE DAY BEFORE

  • TODAY’S STUDY: INTEGRATING NEW ENERGY
  • QUICK NEWS, May 24: SO AFRICA TO BUILD A GIGAWATT OF WIND; LUCKY CORRIDOR FOR NEW MEXICO NEW ENERGY; MEGAWATT TEST OF CIGS THIN FILM

    • THE DAY BEFORE THE DAY BEFORE

  • TODAY’S STUDY: THE BENEFITS OF WIND AND SOLAR TOGETHER
  • QUICK NEWS, May 23: AN ‘UNPRECEDENTED’ MOVE TO NEW ENERGY; BRAINTRUST GOES AFTER SOLAR PRICE; INTERIOR APPROVES WIND ON INDIAN LAND

    • THE DAY BEFORE THAT

  • TODAY’S STUDY: EUROPE’S PV TO 2016
  • QUICK NEWS, May 22: APPLE TURNS TO SUN; EU WIND CAN LEAD ECONOMIC RECOVERY; CHINA’S NEW GRID MAY ONLY MEET OLD NEEDS

    • AND THE DAY BEFORE THAT

  • TODAY’S STUDY: BANKS ON COAL
  • QUICK NEWS, May 21: A FIGHT FOR SUN IN TEXAS; NRG LAYOFFS HERALD FADING PTC HOPES; WHAT WORRIES GRID OPERATORS MOST

    • THE LAST DAY UP HERE

  • SUNDAY WORLD HEADLINE- CHINA STARTS WORLD’S BIGGEST TRANSMISSION
  • SUNDAY WORLD HEADLINE- SOLAR’S IMPACT ON GERMAN OCEAN WIND
  • SUNDAY WORLD HEADLINE- INDIA WIND GETS A GOLDMAN SACHS BILLION
  • SUNDAY WORLD HEADLINE- HOW KOREA IS LIKE DENMARK

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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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    Pay a visit to the HARRY BOYKOFF page at Basketball Reference, sponsored by NewEnergyNews and Oil In Their Blood.

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    • Monday, January 16, 2012

    QUICK NEWS, January 15: 2011 GLOBAL NEW ENERGY INVESTMENT; TEN NEW ENERGY STOCKS WORTH WATCHING; THE TIME HAS COME FOR THE PLUG

    2011 GLOBAL NEW ENERGY INVESTMENT
    Solar surge drives record clean energy investment in 2011; Total new investment in clean energy increased 5% to $260bn in 2011, despite the sluggish global economy and a painful squeeze on manufacturers
    12 January 2012 (Bloomberg New Energy Finance)

    "Global investment in clean energy reached a new record of $260bn in 2011, up 5% on 2010 and almost five times the total of $53.6bn in 2004…according to the latest authoritative data from analysis company Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Last year also saw the one trillionth dollar invested in clean energy globally since the company started compiling data in 2004.

    "The record investment figures for 2011 are particularly striking because they were achieved during a turbulent year for the world economy in general and for the clean energy sector in particular. The industry has suffered severe pressure on the profit margins of manufacturers, a sharp fall in share prices, some notable bankruptcies, cuts in European government subsidy support, and a reduction in the availability of bank finance…"

    click to enlarge

    "The largest single type of investment was the asset finance of utility-scale renewable energy projects. This increased from a revised $138.3bn in 2010, to $145.6bn in 2011…The second-biggest category of investment last year was the finance of distributed renewable power technology, notably rooftop PV. This reached $73.8bn in 2011, up from $60.4bn in 2010…Several other categories of investment actually fell slightly during 2011. Corporate research and development in clean energy…and government research and development…Public markets fund-raising fell…

    "Venture capital and private equity investment saw a modest increase of 4% in 2011 to $8.9bn…2011 was characterized by significant volatility in levels of activity, with big variations in the amount of investment in each quarter. The most buoyant period by far was the third quarter, when asset finance alone reached $47.8bn, helped by a rush of projects taking advantage of the US federal loan guarantee programme that expired at the end of September. In the following quarter, asset finance worldwide fell 28%...[largely on] the impact of the euro area sovereign debt crisis on bank lending to renewable energy projects…"


    TEN NEW ENERGY STOCKS WORTH WATCHING
    Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2012
    Tom Konrad, January 2, 2012 (AltEnergyStocks)

    "There is a silver lining to the horrible year clean energy stocks had in 2011: the opportunity to buy clean energy stocks (often considered a growth sector) at prices one would expect from value stocks…With that in mind, I now focus my annual list on the most economic clean energy sectors…[and] stocks I currently consider relatively good values…[N]ow is the best time to buy clean energy stocks since the start of 2009…



    "My energy efficiency picks are…1.Waterfurance Renewable Energy (WFIFF.PK $15.3455, WFI.TO)…2. Lime Energy (LIME, $3.18)…3. Honeywell (HON, $54.35)…4. Rockwool International (RKWBF.PK $82.29, ROCK-B.CO 473 DKK10)…"

    "…[E]nvironmental services companies [are] a way to invest in biomass…5. Waste Management (WM, $32.71)…6. Veolia Environnement SA (VE, $11.05)……[In] Alternative Transport…biking, light rail, and buses top my list…7. Accell Group (ACCEL.AS, €14.15/$18.33)…8. New Flyer Industries (NFYEF.PK $5.6492, NFI.TO) …



    "…[In] Renewable Energy Developers…small renewable energy power producers are looking cheap…8. Finavera Wind Energy (FNVRF.PK, $0.409) is a wind project developer…9. Western Wind Energy Corp (WNDEF.PK, $1.96) …10. Alterra Power Corp. (MGMXF.PK $0.40, AXY.TO)…"


    THE TIME HAS COME FOR THE PLUG
    Today is really the time of electric vehicles; Everybody is talking about electric car. LEAF has already sold over 20,000 electric vehicles with lithium ion batteries so, I think today is really the time of electric cars, and they will continue to grow.
    January 16, 2012 (Revolucion Eolica con Vehiculos Elecvtricos)

    [Andy Palmer, Executive Vice President, Nissan, talking about the LEAF:] "…Nissan has always been a company of innovation… The Nissan LEAF has really rocked our industry. If I go back three or four years, everybody laughed when we talked about bringing a commercial electric car. Now, you look around the show and everybody is talking about electric cars…I think today is really the time of electric cars, and they will continue to grow."

    [Andy Palmer, Executive Vice President, Nissan, talking about the LEAF:] "Now, we should not view an electric car as “the” electric car. It’s an alternative powertrain. So in the same way as we talk about diesels, or gasoline cars, or hybrid cars, or plug-in hybrid cars, we have to talk about electric cars. So it follows that there normally should be more than one car that is electric in our range."

    click to enlarge

    [Andy Palmer, Executive Vice President, Nissan, talking about the LEAF:] "…[T]he second car…is actually a van. It makes perfect sense if you think about it from a very low total-cost of ownership. That car, is maybe a little more expensive than a conventional van, to buy; the payback, considering government incentives, is less than three years for a normal operator. So, for business, which is very much focused on total cost of ownership, that is definitely a good alternative to consider. Then of course, the third car will be an Infiniti. And, the fourth car is a surprise."

    [Andy Palmer, Executive Vice President, Nissan, talking about the LEAF:] "…the Pathfinder…[will be] a trend-change in the market from let’s say crossover, more towards SUV-like, and clearly we are somewhere following that trend. But at the same time, we have been able to understand that trend and offer something that is competitive in every way, shape and form…[W]e have been able to reduce the weight of the vehicle and improve the fuel economy by about 25%. The car is bigger. Obviously from a ride-and-handling point of view…it [is] a much more engaging car…I think you are getting an awful lot of good value for money with that vehicle, when we get to announcing the price…I think we have the most competitive car in that particular set."

    posted by Herman K. Trabish @ 5:59 AM

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