QUICK NEWS, July 11: Hard Choices In The Climate Fight; Wind And Solar Win In The Matrix; Is Geothermal The Answer?

Hard Choices In The Climate Fight Another Inconvenient Truth: It’s Hard to Agree How to Fight Climate Change

John Schwartz, July 11, 2016 (NY Times)

“…[The movement to battle climate change, which started with the straightforward mission of getting more people to appreciate the dangers of climate change as a precursor to action, has gone mainstream. But it now has] pronounced schisms, with conflicting opinions on many issues, including nuclear power and natural gas, that are complicating what it means to be an environmentalist…Disasters like that at the Fukushima plant in Japan have undercut confidence in [nuclear] technology, but it remains attractive to the Obama administration and many in the environmental movement…

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“…[Recently,] the environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which is used to extract fossil fuels, and growing worries about the greenhouse gas methane, which often leaks when natural gas is produced and transported, have led many scientists and activists to call natural gas a ‘bridge to nowhere’ [and withdraw approval]…Two distinct camps have emerged on the best strategy for dealing with companies like Exxon Mobil…[Large, traditional environmental groups try to work with them] and the scrappy campaigners who stand proudly outside…[want to attack their very existence. There are disagreements on whether these divides are hurting the climate change fight. Al Gore recently pointed out that economics may resolve the debates because plunging costs of New Energy are making it more competitive than fossil fuels and nuclear power]…” click here for more

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Wind And Solar Win In The Matrix 7 Factors Show Why Wind & Solar Are The 1st Choices

Michael Barnard, July 11, 2016 (CleanTechnica)

"Discussions of electrical generation technologies frequently fall into the trap of considering a single factor…[Advocates often highlight a single downside of an energy technology but no single technology] will prevail on all grids in the future…[T]he mix will change over time, and the specific mix will vary for specific geographies…[This multi-factorial assessment as of 2016 for different forms of electrical generation on a simple scale of 1 to 5 is based on economic viability, negative externalities such as climate change-inducing emissions, geographic deployability, flexibility in turning off and on and ramping up and down, rapidity to build, reliability and predictability, and low liabilities.] The least expensive forms of new generation today in strict market terms are wind, solar, and methane generation…The best forms of generation today for negative externalities are wind, solar, tidal, and nuclear…The most reliable and predictable generation…are wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, [methane gas and coal at high costs in externalities]…The best forms of generation in most places in the world from this perspective are wind and solar.” click here for more

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Is Geothermal The Answer? It’s time for geothermal

Michael Haworth, July 4, 2016 (Vallejo Times-Herald)

“PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant will cease supplying electricity to California sometime in 2025…The facility’s beginning of the end likely came last year when Pacific Gas and Electric Co. was found to have falsified inspection documents regarding the seismic safety of the plant. With an upsurge of seismic activity over the past decade increasing the possibility of a nuclear accident, the last thing California — or the world, for that matter — needs is an event similar to Fukushima…Nuclear power has obvious benefits, but the primary drawback was, and still is, what to do with the nuclear waste. Until that problem is solved, nuclear power should be shelved while wind, solar, wave technology and geothermal [should be developed]…Geothermal energy has advantages over wind, solar and wave technology in that it is consistently active 24/7…[Two] percent of the geothermal energy potential in the west could power the nation many times over…” click here for more

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