NewEnergyNews: QUICK NEWS, January 4: CHINA TURNS ON WORLD’S BIGGEST SOLAR-WIND HYBRID; MPG AND ELECTRIC MPG; MORE E-RECYCLING THAN EVER

NewEnergyNews

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

Every day is Earth Day.

YESTERDAY

  • Holiday Weekend Reading: NEW ENERGY IN CHINA

    • -------------------

    GET THE DAILY HEADLINES EMAIL: CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS OR SEND YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS TO: herman@NewEnergyNews.net

    -------------------

    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

    • --------------------------

    --------------------------

    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.

    -------------------

    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

    -------------------

    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

    -------------------

    Your intrepid reporter

    -------------------

      A tip of the NewEnergyNews cap to Phillip Garcia for crucial assistance in the design implementation of this site. Thanks, Phillip.

    -------------------

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

  • ---------------

    • Wednesday, January 04, 2012

    QUICK NEWS, January 4: CHINA TURNS ON WORLD’S BIGGEST SOLAR-WIND HYBRID; MPG AND ELECTRIC MPG; MORE E-RECYCLING THAN EVER

    CHINA TURNS ON WORLD’S BIGGEST SOLAR-WIND HYBRID
    China's first wind-solar power storage demonstration project comes on stream
    Niu Huizhe and Li Xiaohui, December 26, 2011 (Xinhua News Agency via Electro IQ)

    "China's first integrated wind-solar power demonstration project has been completed and put into operation…[in] north China's Hebei province, according to a source at North China Grid Co., Ltd, constructor of the project.

    "The project is the largest new energy project in the world that integrates wind power generation, solar PV power generation, power storage and intelligent power transmission…"

    click to enlarge

    "With an initial investment of 3.3 billion yuan, the project is currently equipped with installed capacity of 100-megawatt (MW) wind power, 40-MW solar PV power and a storage capacity of 20 MW…The power plant generates] electricity through solar PV power during the daytime and electricity through wind power at night, which [increases wind output] by 5-10 percent…

    "…[T]he power storage and intelligent power transmission…[will] break down the bottleneck…of grid connection…North China Grid Co., Ltd. is a subsidiary of State Grid Corp, China's largest power grid operator…"


    MPG AND ELECTRIC MPG
    Electric cars 101: What does MPGe mean, exactly? Electric and dual-fuel cars need a new calculation: MPGe. But the EPA's new measurement doesn't tell the whole story.
    Chris Gaylord, December 25, 2011 (Christian Science Monitor)

    "…The 2012 Mitsubishi i stands as America's most fuel-efficient car, at 126 miles per gallon in city driving…[but] 126 m.p.g. will still be impossible…[T]he Mitsubishi i is an all-electric vehicle…[I]t's actually 126 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe). The EPA rolled out this new term to help translate electric-car efficiency into a figure that most Americans understand…

    "…MPGe works well as a shorthand, but it doesn't tell the whole story. Let's look at how the EPA calculates MPGe…Gasoline and electricity use completely different units (gallons versus kilowatt-hours)…[but] a gallon of gasoline [generates] 115,000 British thermal units of heat…[The] electricity… to generate the same amount of heat…[is] 34 kilowatt-hours (kWh)… One gallon of gasoline produces the same amount of energy as 34 kWh."

    click to enlarge

    "…[T]he Mitsubishi i will go 126 miles on 34 kWh]…126 miles per the equivalent of a gallon of gas…[the] MPGe…[But comparing] MPGe to m.p.g…compares energy consumption, not fuel costs…[K]ilowatt-hours per 100 miles…[required of] 2013 vehicles…makes actual pocketbook calculations much easier…[T]he 2012 Chevrolet Volt…offers all-electric driving with a gasoline tank as backup. Its EPA label touts both 37 m.p.g. and 93 MPGe…[but] the Volt takes 36 kWh of electricity to drive 100 miles. Or… 2.7 gallons [of gasoline] per 100 miles.

    "Multiply 36 kWh by however much you pay per kWh on your home electri¬city bill…12 cents per kWh…[is] the national average…[That comes to] $4.32 to drive 100 miles using only electricity…[Multiply that] by the [gasd pump] price…2.7 gallons multiplied by the national average of $3.275 per gallon…equals $8.84 to drive 100 miles on gasoline…[D]ealers are not required to post such numbers on 2012 models…    [Click here for] how far each electric car will travel on a single charge, how long it takes to fill up the battery, and how much the average driver will save…"


    MORE E-RECYCLING THAN EVER
    E-Waste Environmental Crisis is Being Mitigated by Strong Growth in Electronics Recycling and Reuse
    December 29, 2011 (Pike Research)

    "…[T]he business and environmental challenges associated with electronic device disposition at end-of-life (EOL) [is growing] greater and greater. According to a new report from Pike Research…the total volume and weight of EOL electronics, which is known as e-scrap, will more than double in the next 15 years, rising from 676 million cubic feet (and 6.0 million tons) in 2010 to 1,465 million cubic feet (and 14.9 million tons) by 2025…

    "… This trend will place increasing pressure on industry players, governments, and advocacy groups to find new ways to expand electronics recycling and reuse. E-scrap that is not recycled, reused, or stored becomes e-waste and is buried, incinerated, or dumped, representing a significant environmental hazard."

    click to enlarge

    "…Pike Research anticipates that the electronics recycling movement [to 2025] will make strong progress…[and] forecasts that electronics recycling and reuse will rise from 122 million cubic feet (and 1.1 million tons) per year in 2010 to 789 million cubic feet (and 7.9 million tons) annually by 2025…By the early 2020s, the firm expects that recycling and reuse activity will surpass the annual volume and weight of electronic devices that become e-waste, and thus will play a large part in mitigating the e-waste crisis…

    "…Pike Research anticipates [however] that the total volume of e-waste in landfills will continue increasing throughout the period…[because] unwanted electronic equipment is still easily and inexpensively sent to landfill burial rather than being directed toward reuse or recycling. Trans-boundary shipments of e-waste from developed countries to developing countries continue, and the informal recovery of components and materials in developing countries remain a concern for human health and the environment…[T]he gap may be narrowed in the coming years if national and regional governments modify their legislative mandates to close perceived loopholes and increase e-scrap diversion…"

    posted by Herman K. Trabish @ 5:47 AM

    0 Comments:

    Post a Comment

    << Home