NewEnergyNews: QUICK NEWS, January 19: $1.9 BILL VC MONEY IN SUN; CALIF CPUC APPROVES 1,000 MW OF NEW ENERGY; NEW YORK INVESTS $30 MIL IN BIG SUN

NewEnergyNews

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  • 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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    • Thursday, January 19, 2012

    QUICK NEWS, January 19: $1.9 BILL VC MONEY IN SUN; CALIF CPUC APPROVES 1,000 MW OF NEW ENERGY; NEW YORK INVESTS $30 MIL IN BIG SUN

    $1.9 BILL VC MONEY IN SUN
    2011 Sees $1.9 Billion in Solar Venture Capital, $4 Billion in M&A; No Sign of ‘Solyndra Effect’ Yet
    January 9, 2012 (Mercom Capital Group)

    "…Venture capital (VC) funding and M&A activity were strong in 2011, setting records for number of deals and M&A activity…

    "…VC investment in solar totaled $1.9 billion in 111 deals in 2011—the highest number of deals ever in a single year. By comparison, there were 65 VC deals in 2010, 84 in 2009, 93 in 2008, and 71 in 2007…"

    click to enlarge

    "…The top VC investor of 2011 was Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which completed eight transactions, followed by GE and Good Energies, with six transactions each. There were 182 VC investors in solar in 2011…

    "…While Solyndra dominated headlines in the United States and globally, over $700 million worth of VC investment came after the solar manufacturer’s bankruptcy announcement on August 31, 2011…Fourth quarter VC funding totaled $511 million, compared to $372 million in Q3, $354 million in Q2, and $658 million in Q1…"


    CALIF CPUC APPROVES 1,000 MW OF NEW ENERGY
    CPUC Approves More Than 1,000 Megawatts of In-State Renewable Energy Capacity that Will Contribute to California’s 33% Renewables Target
    January 12, 2012 (California Public Utilities Commission)

    "The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC)…approved five renewable energy contracts totaling 1,088 megawatts (MW) of capacity with forecast annual generation of 2,927 gigawatt-hours (GWh), furthering the state's progress towards its [33% by 2020] renewable energy goals [the most ambitious in the U.S.]…

    "Southern California Edison received approval of three 20-year power purchase agreements (PPAs) with Solar Star California (SunPower) for the Quinto, AVSP I, and AVSP II projects…solar photovoltaic facilities that will provide 711 MW of new renewable capacity and an estimated 1,835 GWh of energy annually…near Los Banos and Rosamond, Calif…[T]he Quinto project…[should begin generating] in December 2014…[and] the AVSP I and AVSP II projects…in October 2016…"

    click to enlarge

    "Pacific Gas and Electric Company received approval of a 25-year PPA with Montezuma Winds II, LLC (NextEra) for the Montezuma Winds II project…a wind facility that will provide 78.2 MW of new renewable capacity and an estimated 201 GWh of energy annually…located in the Montezuma Hills of Solano County, Calif., a well-known wind resource area…[and] anticipated to begin [generating] in November 2012.

    "San Diego Gas & Electric received approval of a 20-year PPA with Ocotillo Express, LLC (Pattern) for the Ocotillo Express project…a wind facility that will provide 299 MW of new renewable capacity and an estimated 891 GWh of energy annually…located 25 miles west of El Centro in Imperial County, Calif…anticipated to begin [generating] in December 2012…"


    NEW YORK INVESTS $30 MIL IN BIG SUN
    New York Solar Companies Receive $30 Million Investment From NYSERDA
    17 January 2012 (Solar Industry)

    "The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the state Public Service Commission (PSC) have awarded $30 million to help fund large-scale solar power projects that will assist facilities in New York City and the lower Hudson Valley generate electricity…

    "The money was awarded to solar installers, solar developers and real estate owners, including Alteris Renewables Inc., altPOWER, Bright Power, ConEdison Solutions Inc., Earthkind Energy Inc., Martifer Solar USA, OnForce Solar Inc., Ross Solar Group LLC, SolarCity, Solar Energy Systems LLC, Solartech Renewables, SunEdison, SUNation Solar Inc., SunRay Power and MS Harrison LLC."

    click to enlarge

    "The projects were selected through a competitive process. The NYSERDA incentive pays up to 50% of the cost of a project, up to $3 million.

    "The $30 million represents the first of five years of planned funding under a $150 million Customer-Sited Tier Regional Program. This program was launched in mid-2011 to encourage large businesses, colleges and universities, schools and other large buildings to take advantage of renewable energy incentives specifically for New York
    City and the lower Hudson Valley."

    posted by Herman K. Trabish @ 6:50 AM

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