NewEnergyNews: QUICK NEWS, January 17: IRISH WIND BUILDER GETS BIG BACKING; RECYCLING PV TO BE BIG BIZ; VC BACKING BACKS OFF SMART GRID

NewEnergyNews

Gleanings from the web and the world, condensed for convenience, illustrated for enlightenment, arranged for impact...

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YESTERDAY

  • 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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    • Tuesday, January 17, 2012

    QUICK NEWS, January 17: IRISH WIND BUILDER GETS BIG BACKING; RECYCLING PV TO BE BIG BIZ; VC BACKING BACKS OFF SMART GRID

    IRISH WIND BUILDER GETS BIG BACKING
    Mainstream raises €40 million funding
    James Quilter, 16 January 2012 (Windpower Monthly)

    "Developer Mainstream Renewable Power has secured EUR 40 million funding to help it expand internationally...

    "...[T]he money came from ‘Irish high-net-worth individuals and institutions’ and described it as one of Ireland's largest fundraisings of the last year...[It] will be used to develop projects in South Africa, Chile, Germany and the UK."

    click to enlarge

    [Eddie O’Connor, CEO, Mainstream Renewables:] "[In 2011] we won 238MW of wind and solar contracts in South Africa; we procured wind turbines for our first wind farms in Chile and Ireland which we plan to build this year and we successfully sold the first two projects in our massive offshore UK wind zone in what was the largest deal of its kind last year."

    "Mainstream pipeline projects…[are the] 34.5MW Negrete Cuel development in central Chile…Preferred bidder status for the Jeffreys Bay 138MW wind farm located in the Eastern Cape, South Africa…A consortium member of the 8GW Hornsea North Sea offshore project."


    RECYCLING PV TO BE BIG BIZ
    PV Recycling Market Predicted To Grow Dramatically Over Next Decades
    16 January 2012 (Solar Industry)

    "The global solar PV market has witnessed tremendous growth over the past decade, with cumulative installed capacity growing from 1,459 MW in 2000 to 40,758 MW in 2010…a compound annual growth rate of 40%... mainly came from increased installation activity in countries such as Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, France, the U.S. and Japan.

    "…[T]here is a growing need for processing PV waste in the coming years…The waste generated by end-of-life modules in 2025 is expected to be approximately 24,855 tons. This waste is expected to further increase to 1,161,173 tons by 2035."

    click to enlarge

    "Crystalline modules will account for the majority of solar PV waste generated during this period, rising from 19,475 tons of waste generated in 2025, to 1,098,282 tons by 2035. Against this backdrop, PV recycling will become an emerging market during these 15 years…For every watt of PV module treated in the recycling unit, $0.58 in recycled value is expected to be generated in 2025. With a 100% collection rate, 278 MW of end-of-life modules are expected to be recycled in 2025.

    "…[I]t is expected that the end-of-life modules will increase to 17,000 MW by 2035, while the per-watt recycled product value of these modules is expected to reach $1.21. The major factors driving this trend are the rising annual installation trends… the expected increase in recycling rates of module materials…[and] market price variations…"


    VC BACKING BACKS OFF SMART GRID
    …Venture Capital Funding in Smart Grid Drops by Half in 2011; $4.6 Billion in Smart Grid M&A Activity in 30 Transactions
    (Mercom Capital Group)

    "…[A]nnual and fourth quarter merger and acquisition (M&A) and funding activity for the smart grid sector for 2011…[showed VC] funding in smart grid was ‘anemic at best in 2011.’ …[T]he number of VC investors increased to 92 from 87 in 2010, pointing to continued investor interest but lower risk appetite…

    "VC funding in 2011 brought in $377 million in 50 deals (24 disclosed) compared to $769 million in 51 deals in 2010 (27 disclosed). The average VC funding round dropped by 50 percent in 2011 to $7.5 million compared to almost $15 million in 2010. Early rounds of funding (Seed, Series A & B) accounted for 22 of the 50 deals."

    click to enlarge

    "Top VC deals in 2011 were iControl Networks, a broadband home management company ($51.6 million), SmartSynch, a Smart Grid company that uses cellular networks for utility smart grid projects ($25.7 million), Silver Spring Networks, a provider of utility networking equipment for smart grid deployment ($24 million), Gridpoint, an energy management solutions provider ($23.6 million), and JouleX, a provider of energy management systems for data centers and distributed office environments, ($17 million).

    "Top venture capital investors in 2011 were GE with six deals, Emerald Technology Ventures with five deals and Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers with five deals. The same investors were also the top three in 2010, however, with double the amount of deals each last year. Other top investors were Foundation Capital, Intel Capital and Rockport Capital with four deals each…"

    posted by Herman K. Trabish @ 6:08 AM

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