QUICK NEWS, April 20: GULF OIL SPILL IMPACTS GO ON; SUNPOWER, APPLE DO SOLAR IN CHINA; THREE BETS ON WIND
GULF OIL SPILL IMPACTS GO ON 5 Years After BP Oil Spill, Effects Linger And Recovery Is Slow
Debbie Elliott, April 20, 2015 (National Public Radio)
“Five years ago, BP's out-of-control oil well deep in the Gulf of Mexico exploded. Eleven workers were killed on the Deepwater Horizon rig…[T]he blast unleashed the nation's worst offshore environmental catastrophe…[O]il gushed from the Macondo well for nearly three months. More than three million barrels of Louisiana light crude fouled beaches and wetlands from Texas to Florida, affecting wildlife and livelihoods…Today, the spill's impacts linger…[Because the oil coated the roots of mangrove trees, they died and] without the mangroves to hold the islands together, within three years most of [the] islands were gone…Dolphin deaths continue, oil is still on the bottom of the ocean, tar balls keep coming up…[and] nobody really is able to say what we may find in five years [or] 10 years… BP has already spent $28 billion on response and cleanup and to pay economic claims to oil spill victims. He says the company has changed its safety procedures, and pre-deployed capping stacks around the world that could more quickly shut down an out-of-control well…[but nobody knows what the long-term environmental consequences will be]…” click here for more
SUNPOWER, APPLE DO SOLAR IN CHINA Apple Goes To China To Build Solar Projects With SunPower
Ucilla Wang, April 16, 2015 (Forbes)
“…Apple [is teaming up with SunPower] to build 40 megawatts of solar generation projects in the Sichuan Province…Apple [has worked with SunPower to develop 90 megawatts of projects for Apple in the U.S., many]…near or next to its data centers in North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada…Apple also signed a $850 million deal to buy solar power from a 130-megawatt project that will be built by First Solar in California…[In China, Apple] isn’t investing in projects that will benefit its operations. But…most of its products are made in China through contract manufacturers. It’s becoming more like Google, which does a mix of buying solar energy and taking stakes in solar power projects…Other tech companies such as Microsoft and Facebook have opted for buying renewable energy to inject more low-carbon electricity into the local grids…[In China,] Apple will co-own the two projects with a joint venture of SunPower’s called Sichuan Shengtian New Energy Development Co…The projects will use SunPower’s concentrating photovoltaic technology, which uses parabolic mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto solar cells to produce electricity. This system is run on a tracker that follows the sun’s movement…SunPower is already building these two projects and plans to complete them in the fourth quarter of this year…” click here for more
THREE BETS ON WIND 3 Best Stocks for Investing in Wind Energy
Jason Hall, April 19, 2015 (The Motley Fool)
“…[W]hile solar energy gets a lot of the headlines, wind [produced 11-times as much electricity last year] at 181.8 million megawatt hours, versus 15.9 million for photovoltaic solar…According to the International Energy Agency, wind is on track to increase from 2013's 2.6% of global energy production, to 18% in 2050…[Unlike solar], wind is dominated by a handful of companies…[General Electric] has significantly strengthened its global position in energy over the past year...[Its] wind business is a relatively small part of the company's total, but the company sold more than 2,800 wind turbines in 2014, making it a major global player…Vestas Wind Systems competes head-to-head with GE and German industrial giant Siemens. But while its two largest competitors are fully integrated behemoths with operations in dozens of industries and product categories, Vestas is 100% committed to wind…[Berkshire Hathaway, Inc] is one of the largest producers of wind energy in the U.S. and is aggressively adding to its capacity at subsidiary Berkshire Hathaway Energy…Wind energy projects are big and long-term…[but] looking at the bigger picture, wind will continue to become a more and more important part of meeting the world's energy needs…” click here for more
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