MORE NEWS, 11-23: CHINA VS. U.S. IN NEW ENERGY; GREENPEACE LIKES EU SMART GRID; GAS DRILLING POISONS WATER; NUKES DON’T STAND UP TO REASON

CHINA VS. U.S. IN NEW ENERGY
The New Arms Race
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., November 19, 2009 (Huffington Post)

"…[T]he Obama administration acknowledged this week that it would not return from Copenhagen with any groundbreaking commitment to control green house gases…Congress is backsliding on the administration's wise commitment to impose a rational price on carbon…[and the] U.S. Chamber of Commerce, always willing to put its obsequious scraping to Big Oil and King Coal ahead of its duty to our country, has battled every effort to accelerate America's transition to a market-based de-carbonized economy.

"The Chamber has continued to argue, idiotically, that energy efficiency and independence will somehow put America at a competitive disadvantage with the Chinese. Meanwhile, the Chinese have shrewdly and strategically positioned themselves to steal America's once substantial lead in renewable power. China will soon make us as dependent on Chinese green technology for the next century as we have been on Saudi oil during the last."

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"…[T]he Chinese are treating the energy technology competition if it were an arms race…spending as much or more on greentech as it does on its military, hundreds of billions of dollars annually on renewable energy and grid infrastructure improvements…[It] will effectively erode America's greentech industry leadership and secure China's dominance. China's economic stimulus package, targeted 38% of spending on greentech, as compared to a miserly 12% of the U.S. stimulus program. By 2013, greentech will account for 15 percent of the Chinese GDP. While the United States is projected to roughly triple its wind generation by 2020, China will increase its capacity twelvefold…[T]he United States is projected to increase its installed solar generation a modest 33% by 2020 [and]…China's solar generation is projected to increase 20,000%.

"…Chinese solar panel manufacturers now far outnumber American ones…Chinese companies are now flooding the American market with cheap Chinese solar panels and devastating the American manufacturing sector that was gearing up to create tens of thousands of U.S. jobs for our own ailing economy…BP Solar, Evergreen, and General Electric have already announced the closing of American-based solar panel factories and outsourcing, primarily to China. America's leading solar manufacturer, Applied Materials, has opened the largest non-government solar energy research facility in the world in China…The largest solar panel installation in the United States is a 70,000 panel, 14.2 megawatt array on Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. The array provides more than 25% of the base's power needs, and saves the Pentagon a million dollars annually in energy costs, but the panels' manufacturer was China's Suntech Power Holdings…"

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"Last year, America achieved a milestone, building more wind power generation than all new oil and coal generation combined. We have led the world in wind installations for several years, and the wind industry already accounts for more American jobs than coal mining…Yet today, of the five leading wind turbine manufacturers, only one is American…China is clobbering us…China is likewise poised to take away our lead in batteries and electric cars, and has already pulled far ahead of America in automobile fuel efficiency.

"Capitol Hill Republicans will soon recognize that the arms race of the 21st century is already in progress with a totalitarian nation that they not long ago called "Red China." But America will not win with more warheads and better rockets. We can only prevail with robust investment in and support of U.S.-based greentech innovation."


GREENPEACE LIKES EU SMART GRID
Greenpeace says Europe smart power grid affordable
Vera Eckert (w/ James Jukwey), November 20, 2009 (Reuters)

"Revving up European power transmission networks to transport 90 percent of renewable energy by the year 2050 could be achieved at affordable sums, pressure group Greenpeace said in a study…

"European policymakers dream of getting away from fossil fuels but even if these were replaced with wind or solar generation systems, sceptics say the bloc's decades-old grid systems would effectively hamper shipping the volatile power."

Part of the Supergrid will carry North Sea and Baltic Sea wind all over the continent. (click to enlarge)

"Greenpeace said the cost of strenghtening cross-border lines and building new interconnections to create so-called smart or supergrids [209 billion euros, or $310.9 billion] would be small [0.15 cents per kilowatt-hour over 40 years, or euros (40 cents) per month] if it was spread over 40 years and split between hundreds of million of Europeans…

"…[T]here is also concern that over reliance on wind or solar could leave consumers short of power when the wind does not blow or the sun does not shine…The Greenpeace study compared 30 years of weather data with European annual demand curves and concluded that there is only a 0.4 percent -- or 12 hours a year -- chance that high demand correlates with low solar and wind generation."

Another part of EU transmission will deliver North African sun. (click to enlarge)

"Apart from wind and solar, [the Greenpeace study] also mentioned chances to exploit geothermal and ocean energy, and biomass…

"The 209 billion sum was broken down into 100 billion for 11 new connections inside Europe, 90 billion euros for new lines to capture Sahara desert solar power, 16 billion for upgrades of direct-current high voltage lines between European countries and 3 billion for alternating-current ones."


GAS DRILLING POISONS WATER
Natural Gas Drilling Poses Toxic Threat to Illinois’s Drinking Water
Max Muller, November 4, 2009 (Environment Illinois)

"Toxic chemicals used in natural gas drilling could pose a threat to water quality near Illinois’s 733 gas wells according to [Toxic Chemicals on Tap: How Natural Gas Drilling Threatens Drinking Water]…by Environment Illinois…The report…details the multiple ways chemicals employed in gas drilling could endanger clean water in Illinois…

"To extract natural gas, drillers often inject a toxic mix of fluids into the ground to create fractures which allow natural gas to flow to the surface. This process can force toxic substances already underground into drinking water. Some of the pollutant laden fluids drillers inject remain underground, and can also end up contaminating water supplies."

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"The fluids recovered by drillers can contaminate water as well. The recovered fluids are frequently stored in open-air pits, which have the potential to leak or flood, and can overwhelm local water treatment facilities. Also, the amount of water needed for the process- often millions of gallons- may drain local watersheds. In some cases, it has caused streams to run dry.

"Due in part to a 2005 exemption to the Safe Drinking Water Act, the EPA cannot fully regulate gas drilling. Moreover, the federal government does not require drillers to publicly disclose the fluids they use in some of their processes and only 5 states out of 32 states with gas drilling require public disclosure…Illinois does not require drillers to disclose the fluids they use…"

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"Environment Illinois asks that drillers be required to disclose the chemicals they use, as well as where and how much they use them. The group also calls for gas drillers to replace toxic chemicals with safer alternatives…[and says] a variety of regulations and improvements are necessary: improved monitoring in order to better catch gas or chemical leakage, improved disposal methods for recovered drilling fluids, and assurance that drillers are not operating in locations that may lead to the contamination of drinking water.

"This report comes as pressure to expand natural gas drilling builds. Some are hoping for natural gas to increase its share of our energy mix, but natural gas still emits a significant amount of global warming pollution…"


NUKES DON’T STAND UP TO REASON
Nukes battling a green headwind?
Tim Wheeler, November 18, 2009 (Baltimore Sun)

"Aiming to head off a budding bipartisan move in Congress to boost nuclear power, environmentalists took to the streets - and the Internet - to dismiss atom-splitting as too slow and costly to help fight climate change.

"Environment Maryland released a new report…arguing that it would take a decade or more and cost upwards of $600 billion to build 100 more nuclear plants, as some have advocated to ease planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. The group argues that the time and money could be better spent promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy such as wind and solar…"

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"…[Generating Failure; How Building Nuclear Power Plants Would Set America Back in the Race Against Global Warming comes as two senators, Republican Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Democrat Jim Webb of Virginia, introduce a bill that would funnel federal funds and loan guarantees into reviving the nuclear power industry as well as promoting renweable energy…"

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"To highlight their objections, Environment Maryland and other activists staged a press conference outside the downtown Baltimore headquarters of Constellation Energy, which has applied for a permit to build a new, third reactor at Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant…[N]ot all environmentalists oppose nuclear power. Locally, the Maryland Conservation Council has endorsed Constellation's bid…The group is concerned about industrial-scale wind and solar projects gobbling up land and wildlife habitat, and argues that nuclear power is safe and least expensive…

"By coincidence, wind energy advocates were huddled nearby…conferring on how to boost the prospects for turbines atop mountains and offshore in the Mid-Atlantic region. They have issues to overcome as well, including public resistance in some locales, and… [the lack of adequate transmission]…[Already an issue]in some western areas…[it is] likely to be a concern in the East as well as more turbines get built."