NewEnergyNews: QUICK NEWS, November 19: WORLD OFFSHORE WIND OVERVIEW; BEHIND SUN NUMBERS, 1; DEVELOPER BUILDS IN KANSAS WIND

NewEnergyNews

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

Every day is Earth Day.

YESTERDAY

  • FRIDAY WORLD HEADLINE-CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
  • FRIDAY WORLD HEADLINE-WHERE NEW ENERGY NEEDS TO BE
  • FRIDAY WORLD HEADLINE-KUWAIT’S POSSIBLE SOLAR
  • FRIDAY WORLD HEADLINE-WHAT INDIA WIND NEEDS

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

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    THE DAY BEFORE

  • TTTA Thursday- HOW CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL WORKS
  • TTTA Thursday-HOW WOMEN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
  • TTTA Thursday-POLITICS AND THE EPA
  • TTTA Thursday-THE ENORMOUS LED OPPORTUNITY

    • THE DAY BEFORE THE DAY BEFORE

  • TODAY’S STUDY: THE NEW INTELLIGENT ENERGY EFFICIENCY
  • QUICK NEWS, May 15: MINNESOTA’S SOLAR AMBITIONS IN CONTEXT; RHODE ISLAND’S FIGHT OVER OCEAN WIND; VC MONEY FOR SMART GRID STEADY

    THE DAY BEFORE THAT

  • TODAY’S STUDY: HOW OIL MARKETS ARE MANIPULATED
  • QUICK NEWS, May 14: HUGE BUFFETT WIND BUY IN IOWA; THE VALUE OF ARIZONA’S SUN; MINNESOTA LOVES WIND

    • AND THE DAY BEFORE THAT

  • TODAY’S STUDY: THE VALUE OF SOLAR WITH STORAGE
  • QUICK NEWS, May 13: HOW BIG OIL USES REPUBLICANS; WIND SAVES MONEY FOR RATEPAYERS – STUDY; BRIGHTSOURCE EXEC TALKS SOLAR TOWER TECH & BIZ

    • THE LAST DAY UP HERE

  • Weekend Video: Senator Blasts Senator For Using Religion To Deny Climate Change
  • Weekend Video: The Remarkable Wind In Scotland
  • Weekend Video: The Sci Show Does Solar

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    Anne B. Butterfield of Daily Camera and Huffington Post, is a biweekly contributor to NewEnergyNews

  • Lies, damned lies and politicians (October 8, 2012) by Anne Butterfield (Boulder Daily Camera via NewEnergyNews)

    From the sparring at the first presidential debate, it's pretty sure that energy has become a divisive as well as a competitive issue. Both President Obama and Governor Romney want to be the triumphal producer of energy.

    However Romney likes to smear climate change concerns and clean energy investments, as if all of them go like Solyndra, where a half a billion in loan guarantees went down with the company, as he crowed that 50 percent of clean energy investments supported by the stimulus bill had gone belly up. This was dubbed the "lie of the night" by Michael Grunwald, author of a book about the stimulus bill, citing that maybe one percent of government backed clean energy ventures failed.

    Try getting that rate of safety in your investing. According to a new poll by Hart for the solar industry, voters seem to know that loan guarantees are a steadfast service of government and highly safe, as the Solyndra debacle was deemed unimportant by respondents. Ninety-two percent of registered voters found it important that solar be more widespread, with 70 percent believing that the federal government should be doing more to promote it with incentives (with 71 percent of swing voters feeling this way).

    And, sigh, with tens of thousands of wind power jobs on the chopping block already, Mitt Romney opposes the renewal of the Production Tax Credit. This, even as red states need it renewed, putting him in the dog house with GOP politicians such as Senator Chuck Grassely of Iowa whose state produces 20 percent of its power from wind, and Governor Brownback of Kansas who has made vigorous pleas for the extension of the credit, due to expire this at the end of this year.

    Didn't Romney get the memo? Republican governors are making hay with clean energy such as Haley Barbour and Chris Christie. To Mississippi, Barbour brought four solar sector firms to Mississippi along with two in biofuels plus a clean tech car venture with China. Christie made New Jersey a leading solar market in the nation, this year contending with California for first place.

    But Romney and other high priests of the GOP act as though the only real energy is the type that can be burned, and somehow, Obama has nibbled at this hemlock by constantly touting his success with fracking and his openness to the XL pipeline.

    A truly strange specter is that pipeline; it lets our heartland be used as a byway for tar sands products (which sink rather than float when spilled), so they can go straight to international markets. We get the downsides and none of the upsides -- even as the pipeline could increase gasoline prices in the Midwest, which would lose its existing access to tar sands products.

    One plausible upside of the pipeline being routed through the United States (where it might be built quickly, as would not happen in the alternative route through western Canada) is that it could strengthen the hand of President Obama in his suite of sanctions against Iran, including a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil. Our recent frack-mania allows our nation to resume oil production levels not seen for 15 years and thus strengthens our hand. Three weeks ago Iran admitted having problems selling oil due to U.S. and European sanctions; now the nation's currency is in free fall.

    One certainly hopes that tar sands will thrive mightily as a "psy-ops" against Iran and not as a chemical weapon against our climate, as Dr. James Hansen has sternly warned.

    Never bounded by his prior convictions about the climate, Romney crows that he would authorize the pipeline on day one and build it himself if need be (as if he in his wingtips could "John Wayne" his way around an oil field). It's all such a sham he-man rodeo.

    And no one mentioned the climate -- in spite of hundreds of thousands of petition signatures demanding the topic. Neither candidate pushed clean energy as the vote winner that poll after poll have shown it to be. Authors for DBL Investors in their study of green energy exclaim, "We all need to understand that green jobs are not the idle dreaming of a small group of partisan activists and insiders, but a source of livelihood for millions, literally in all parts of the country." The light shines in the darkness but the darkness of our politics has not understood it.

    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:

  • Lies, damned lies and politicians (October 8, 2012)
  • 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, November 19, 2012

    QUICK NEWS, November 19: WORLD OFFSHORE WIND OVERVIEW; BEHIND SUN NUMBERS, 1; DEVELOPER BUILDS IN KANSAS WIND

    WORLD OFFSHORE WIND OVERVIEW Offshore Report 2013

    4Q 2013 (Pike Research/BTM Consultant/Navigant)

    “Highlights of offshore wind power development in 2011highlights of offshore wind power development in 2011 included…Cumulative installation of 3.99 GW…More than 5 GW under construction…Nearly 100 GW offshore project portfolios identified globally…Europe is the largest offshore wind continent, the UK is the largest offshore wind market…”

    click to enlarge

    “Seven out of the Top 10 wind farm operators are European utilities and two are from Asia…Siemens and Vestas are the largest offshore turbine suppliers, sharing 86% of the total global market…The industry has seen the deployment of three drivetrain concepts…HVDC cables and cabling vessels are still bottlenecks…This year’s forecast and prediction indicate offshore on track for increased contribution to wind power in Europe…”

    BEHIND SUN NUMBERS, 1 Delving Into The Numbers: Latest Solar Jobs Census Shows Strong Growth

    15 November 2012 (Solar Industry)

    “The National Solar Jobs Census…[just released by The Solar Foundation (TSF)]…reveals positive growth once again in solar employment…

    “Several of the business subsectors analyzed posted increases in their job numbers, and all indicators point to further good news in 2013…[The] census showed that the solar sector employs workers in all 50 U.S. states…”

    click to enlarge

    “[Among] the most important numbers [were]…119,016: The total number of solar workers in the U.S., up from 105,145 (per TSF's revised numbers) last year…Given the difficult overall economic conditions and patterns of employment, industry leadership figures expressed strong satisfaction with the findings…

    “…13.2%: Growth in solar employment over last year's totals…By comparison, the national average employment growth rate from last year to this year was just 2.3%, according to the report. Furthermore, during the three years for which TSF has conducted its Solar Jobs Census, industry employment has grown a full 27% - eight times faster than the broader economy, which posted job growth of 3.2%...[continued Tuesday]…”

    DEVELOPER BUILDS IN KANSAS WIND NTR's Wind Capital Opens Post Rock Wind Farm in Kansas; 201 MW Wind Farm to Power Over 70,000 Homes

    November 19, 2012 (NTR Wind Capital Group)

    “…[Leading renewable energy investor NTR Group’s Wind Capital Group]…dedicated its Post Rock Wind Farm at a ceremony in Ellsworth, Kansas…Construction of Post Rock commenced in 2011..The project was completed on time and on budget…Commercial operations commenced on October 4th of this year…”

    click to enlarge

    “…Post Rock uses 134 General Electric 1.5 MW wind turbines…The 201-megawatt Wind Farm can produce enough clean, renewable energy to power 70,000 homes…Post Rock spans 23,000 acres…The project included the construction of a 31-mile electric transmission line…Kansas based electric utility Westar Energy will purchase the power generated at Post Rock under a 20-year power purchase agreement…The project cost US$375 million…”

    posted by Herman K. Trabish @ 7:28 AM

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