NewEnergyNews: QUICK NEWS, February 22: ANTELOPE VALLEY SOLAR GETS GO; CHICAGO BULLS & BLACKHAWKS POWERED BY WIND; ANTI-KEYSTONE HAS FUNDERS, TOO

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

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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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    • Wednesday, February 22, 2012

    QUICK NEWS, February 22: ANTELOPE VALLEY SOLAR GETS GO; CHICAGO BULLS & BLACKHAWKS POWERED BY WIND; ANTI-KEYSTONE HAS FUNDERS, TOO

    ANTELOPE VALLEY SOLAR GETS GO
    First Solar Receives Missing Antelope Valley Project Permit
    17 February 2012 (Solar Industry)

    "A critical county-level project permit that threatened to derail First Solar's 230 MW Antelope Valley Solar Ranch 1 project has been secured."click to enlarge

    "…[A] Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing [had indicated First Solar] was in danger of losing its U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantee if it could not obtain the required construction permit by a Feb. 24 deadline…However, the matter has since been settled…[AVSR1] is now fully permitted by Los Angeles County, and the DOE is expected to begin funding the loan guarantee shortly…"


    CHICAGO BULLS & BLACKHAWKS POWERED BY WIND
    Utility To Buy Wind Power RECs For Chicago Bulls, Blackhawks Games
    17 February 2012 (North American Windpower)

    "Constellation Energy has announced that it will secure renewable energy credits (RECs) to match United Center electricity usage with wind power before, during and after all Chicago Bulls and Blackhawks games."

    click to enlarge

    "As a prelude to Earth Day, Constellation says it will sponsor games for the Blackhawks on April 1 and the Bulls on April 2…The utility sponsored similar efforts last year for the Chicago Bears, Cubs and White Sox. In addition to powering the United Center, Constellation also supplies electricity to Wrigley Field and the Bears' Halas Hall team offices and practice facilities."


    ANTI-KEYSTONE HAS FUNDERS, TOO
    Campaign against Canadian Keystone XL pipeline driven by US foundation millions
    David Martosko, February 21, 2012 (Daily Caller)

    "...[D]uring a July 2008 meeting, the $789 million Rockefeller Brothers Fund proposed to coordinate and fund a dozen environmental and anti-corporate activist groups’ efforts to scuttle pipelines carrying tar sands oil from Canada to the United States...The most recent incarnation of that pipeline plan, the Keystone XL project, was the subject of intense public controversy until the Obama administration rejected it in January.

    "The 2008 meeting consisted of presentations from Rockefeller Brothers Fund program officer Michael Northrop, Corporate Ethics International Executive Director Michael Marx, Natural Resources Defense Council attorney Susan Casey-Lefkowitz and the director of a Canadian activist group called the Pembina Institute."

    click thru for the meeting slide presentations

    "Northrop’s presentation described the extraction of oil from Canada’s vast tar sands oil deposits as a threat to environmentalists’ efforts to curb global warming. He outlined a ”globally significant response” consisting of a 'network of leading US and Canadian NGOs' engaged in a 'coordinated campaign structure'...

    "The subject of U.S. interests raining money on environmental organizations north of the border is a front-burner issue in Canada."

    posted by Herman K. Trabish @ 5:42 AM

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