QUICK NEWS, August 25: JULY’S U.S. ENERGY BUILD WAS ALL NEW ENERGY; CLIMATE CHANGE FOR ENERGY INVESTORS; WIND CAN GROW FASTER THAN NUCLEAR

JULY’S U.S. ENERGY BUILD WAS ALL NEW ENERGY Renewable Energy Accounts For All New U.S. Power In July

August 20, 2014 (Renew Grid)

"All new U.S. electrical generating capacity put into service in July came from renewable energy sources…[including 379 MW of wind, 21 MW of solar and 5 MW of hydropower, according to the July 2014 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)lEnergy Infrastructure Update]…For the first seven months of this year, renewables have accounted for more than half (53.8%) of the 4,758 MW of new U.S. electrical capacity that has entered service, with solar (25.8%) and wind (25.1%) each accounting for more than a quarter of the total. In addition, biomass provided 1.8%, geothermal 0.7% and hydropower 0.4%...natural gas accounted for 45.9%, while a small fraction (0.3%) came from oil and ‘other’ combined…[T]here has been no new electrical generating capacity from either coal or nuclear thus far in 2014…Renewable energy sources now account for 16.3% of total installed operating generating capacity in the U.S.: hydro - 8.57%, wind - 5.26%, biomass - 1.37%, solar - 0.75%, and geothermal steam - 0.33%...” click here for more

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CLIMATE CHANGE FOR ENERGY INVESTORS Why Climate Change Could Be the Biggest Threat to Your Portfolio

Arjun Sreekumar, August 22, 2014

"…[C]limate change may be the biggest threat of all…[to] oil and gas companies' asset values and share prices…[W]e must limit emissions to no more than 900 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (GtCO2) over the period 2013-2049 if we are to keep, at 80% probability, the global temperature from rising 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels…Meeting that emissions target means that the vast majority of the global fossil fuel reserves owned by energy companies and foreign governments cannot be burned...[Burning these reserves] would raise the global temperature by well over 3 degrees Celsius…[Even with allowances, companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP] could harvest no more than a third of their existing reserves…[A]out two-thirds of their reserves could be, at worst, worthless…[But the more likely case is that] we fail to act and end up exceeding the stated target…For investors, this means that your fossil fuel stocks are likely safe for the foreseeable future. But in the improbable event that global leaders somehow scrape together and enforce a carbon reduction plan, fossil fuel stocks could be in trouble. Caveat emptor…” click here for more

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WIND CAN GROW FASTER THAN NUCLEAR Which Is More Scalable, Nuclear Energy Or Wind Energy?

Mike Barnard, August 22, 2014 (Forbes)

“China is the true experiment for maximum scalability of nuclear vs wind. It has a tremendous gap between demand and generation. It can mostly ignore democracy and social license for nuclear. It is building both wind and nuclear as rapidly as possible. It has been on a crash course for both for about the same period of time. It has bypassed most of the regulatory red tape for nuclear…[And] China turned on just over 16 GW of nameplate capacity of wind generation in 2013…[while over] the four years of 2010 to 2014, China managed to put 4.7 GW of nuclear into operation [at five plants. Their stated plans for nuclear] had them building almost double this in 2013 alone and around 28 GW by 2015…The variance between the nuclear roadmap and nuclear reality in China is following the trajectory of nuclear buildout worldwide: delays, cost overruns, and unmet expectations…Modern wind turbines have a median 40.35% capacity factor…[The nuclear capacity factor is] 90.9%...[T]hat’s about 6.5 GW of real capacity of wind energy in one year vs 4.3 GW of real capacity for nuclear over four years. That’s roughly six times more real wind energy capacity than nuclear per year…In empirical terms, it doesn’t matter what anybody claims is theoretically possible: wind energy is growing rapidly while nuclear is going backwards. That’s reality…” click here for more

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