Month: August 2012

Fox News pundits, tea party wind baggers, and even certain Presidential candidates, have attempted to demonize anything that would curtail the planet’s thirst for fossil fuels.

Here’s a news flash.

It turns out that, since renewable energy  supports the bedrock values of thrift, local control, self reliance,  independence, and actually devolves political and economic power away from huge central organizations to communities, individuals and businesses, – the more people learn about it, the more they like it, and among the people that like it most are traditional Republicans. A perfect example is rooftop solar leader SunRun….

FastCoExist:

So in 2007, Jurich left behind her career in finance and venture capital to join fellow Stanford grad Ed Fenster and launch Sunrun, now the nation’s leading home solar company. “The utility industry and how energy is delivered had not changed in a hundred years,” says Jurich. “The key innovation we brought to the market was delivering solar as a service.” In a nutshell, Sunrun pays for the panels and the installation, and sells the resulting electricity back to homeowners at a rate that’s locked in for 20 years. “Imagine if you’d installed a gas tank in your backyard 20 years ago, when gas was $1 a gallon, and you could buy gas for $1 a gallon for 20 years?” Jurich says. Another analogy: It’s like Forever Stamps, but for your electric bill.

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The solar industry has indeed become something of a recent punching bag for those seeking to politicize the climate change crisis, thanks primarily to the infamous collapse of federal grant recipient Solyndra. But in light of that chorus of naysayers, Jurich says, the results of their customer surveys might surprise you. “Thirty percent of our customers are veterans,” she says. “Our target customer tends to be in their 50s, they have a couple kids at home, they could probably buy the system if they wanted to, but they don’t want to have the hassle of dealing with it.”

Even more unexpected: The majority of Sunrun’s subscribers self-identify as Republican. “I had a suspicion that that was the case, but I love it,” Jurich says. “Renewable energy is bipartisan. It appeals to anybody who is responsible about their home. All people believe in America, jobs, creating energy here, not being dependent on foreign energy sources. And then we save people money.”

Here is the future of the developing world. Sorry to break it to old-energy industries, but burgeoning populations around the world may not want to wait 10 years for a new coal powered plant, and another 20 for the grid to be extended to rural areas, as we once did in the developed world.  The technology exist to Leapfrog into the 21st century, and a new generation of entrepreneurs is seizing it.

Video description:

Fenix International (http://fenixintl.com) and MTN Uganda ( http://mtn.co.ug) launched the ReadySet renewable energy system in Uganda in 2011. Annette is a ReadySet entrepreneur who works with the Grameen Foundation AppLab (http://www.grameenfoundation.applab.org) as a Community Knowledge Worker.

With the ReadySet, she can now operate a micro-utility business by charging mobile phones, and no longer has to use dangerous and costly kerosene lamps. Anette was able to pay back the investment of the ReadySet in 3-4 months. She uses this additional income to better provide for her family. The ReadySet is currently available for sale at MTN outlets in Uganda.

FastCoExist:

We first covered Fenix International, a startup that manufactures a portable plug-and-play battery that can be powered by any number of sources (solar panels, electric grid, bicycle generators, micro-wind, etc.), when it participated last year in the Cleantech Open venture-capital pitch session. Since then, Fenix has secured funding from a variety of investors–and it has started rolling out its product in Uganda with an innovative business model: selling the ReadySet plug-and-play battery through MTN (Africa’s largest mobile telecom) directly to consumers, who earn money by charging the community money to use the device.

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MTN has sold approximately 2,000 units over the past year or so. Each device, which holds enough power to recharge a device seven to eight times, comes with a price tag of $150–not exactly cheap in the African market. But Fenix says that entrepreneurs can make back their investment in as little as three months by charging fees to the community. “If you can have [a product] make you income, people are far more interested in investing in it,” says Mike Lin, CEO of Fenix International. And, he adds, the ReadySet is durable. It won’t fall apart like so many cheap options. “When it comes to things like a solar panel or energy system, you need to invest in the quality of the components,” he explains.

The recent historic blackout in India only underscored and added more urgency to this evolving model. David Biello reports in Scientific America about the contrast between grid-dependent urban dwellers and “energy poor” rural residents with new solar technology.

Scientific American:

Oddly enough, some of the formerly energy poor—rural villagers throughout the subcontinent—found themselves better off than their middle-class compatriots during the recent blackouts, thanks to village homes outfitted with photovoltaic panels. In fact, solar power helped keep some electric pumps supplying water for fields parched by an erratic monsoon this year.

ClimateProgress:

Now that Mitt Romney’s campaign has officially declared the candidate’s desire to kill tax credits for wind while maintaining tax credits for the mature oil and gas industries, Midwestern Republicans are not happy.

Mitt Romney hasn’t made his position clear on a lot of things, but he’s come out quite strongly now as an enemy of renewable energy and wind power in particular.

In Iowa, more than 20 percent powered by wind – with over 80 percent approval by the people that know this energy best – being a Windbagger may not be good politics.
The Obama campaign video above picks up on this issue.

Speaking of Romney’s stand, Iowa’s Republican Governor Terry Branstad told Radio Iowa that the Mittster’s campaign was being shaped by a bunch of folks that “need to get out here in the real world and find out what’s really going on.”
In the real world, 7000 Iowa jobs are in wind energy. Even ultra-right wing tea party nut job Steve King told the Wall Street Journal – “We need to win Iowa this time. President Obama thinks it’s a must-win state for him, and I think it’s a can-win state for Mitt Romney, but this wind piece.…”

He faded off without finishing the sentence — unsure what Romney’s stance on wind will do to the candidate’s political prospects. The Journal also reported on a new poll that shows  “More than half of voters (57%), including 41% of Republicans and 59% of Independents, would be less likely to vote for a candidate for President if that candidate did not support expanding American wind power generation.”

American Wind Energy Association (AWEA):

AWEA this week expressed disappointment that the Romney campaign has come out with an anti-wind stance, particularly in Iowa, the state that gets 20 percent of its power from wind and the state with more major manufacturing facilities than any other.

According to a statement to the Des Moines Register, the presidential candidate supports letting the popular and bipartisan wind industry Production Tax Credit expire at the end of this year. On Thursday, subsequent to the Des Moines Register statement, the Senate Finance Committee passed an extenders package that included an extension of the wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) (see top story).

A poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies for AWEA shows that “an overwhelming majority of Iowa voters would be less likely to support an anti-wind candidate for office.”

Key findings from the Iowa poll include:

• Iowa voters are less likely to vote for candidates who do not support expanding wind power generation.
• Iowans are supportive of using renewable energy sources like wind energy to meet the growth in America’s energy needs.
• Iowans, particularly Independents, believe that wind energy has been good for the state’s economy and has helped to create jobs in the state.

The full poll memo can be found here.

More on Wind in the real world below:

Continue reading “Romney Now a Windbagger. In Battleground Iowa, That’s a Problem”

Myrtlebeachonline:

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina lawmakers have temporarily banned using a science panel’s recommendation to plan for rising sea levels, after the governor decided Thursday not to veto the measure.

The measure has been lampooned by comedians and has drawn the ire of environmentalists. It blocks the state from adopting any rate of sea level change for regulatory purposes until 2016, while authorizing more studies.

Gov. Beverly Perdue’s decision means the bill becomes law, bringing temporary closure to the debate that began when the science panel warned sea levels could rise by more than 3 feet by 2100 and threaten coastal areas. Coastal development group NC-20 rejected those findings and said the seas would rise only 8 inches.

ABC News:

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), sea level rise along the portion of the East Coast between North Carolina and Massachusetts is accelerating at three to four times the global rate. A USGS report published in the journal Nature Climate Change in June predicted that sea level along the coast of that region, which it called a “hotspot,” would rise up to 11.4 inches higher than the global average rise by the end of the 21st century.

The historical political clout wielded by North Carolina’s developers has led some critics of the law to accuse legislators backing it to promote those who line the pockets of their campaigns.

The largest industry contributors to McElraft’s campaigns have been real estate agents and developers, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Her top contributor since she was elected to the General Assembly in 2007 has been the North Carolina Association of Realtors, followed by the North Carolina Home Builders’ Association.

McElraft, who is a former real estate agent and lives on Barrier Island off the coast, denied that campaign contributions ever influence her decisions as a lawmaker, and said her votes have not always favored increased development.

NC-20 chairman Tom Thompson said he was pleased with Perdue’s decision not to veto the bill.

“What is the rush to judgment?” Thompson asked. “This has huge economic consequences. … There is absolutely no harm in waiting four years and looking at more science before we dive in and do something.”

At a recent conference at Michigan State’s Agricultural Research station, I observed ongoing research that  may help future farmers make choices among the many types of soil management practices. A guiding principle is that Ag policy too often encourages destructive farming practices, and we should be looking for ways to help farmers become the “white hat guys” in the climate story, which is what they want to be.

Tom Philpott in Mother Jones:

The message from the Midwest is clear: Chemical-intensive, industrial-scale farming is vulnerable to spells of hot, dry weather—some of the very conditions we can expect to become common as the climate warms. In my last post, I argued that the solution to this problem favored by US policymakers—to keep industrial agriculture humming along with novel seeds engineered for “drought tolerance”—probably won’t work.

What might? I think the answer lies outside of some Monsanto-funded university lab and right beneath our feet: in the dirt. Or, more, accurately, in how farmers manage their dirt.

A while back, I wrote about this 2012 Naturepaper comparing the productivity of organic and industrial ag systems. The study found that on average, industrial systems produce crop yields on average 25 percent higher than organic ones. (I took issue with some of the assumptions behind that conclusion here.) But under conditions of extreme weather, things change:

Soils managed with organic methods have shown better water-holding capacity and water infiltration rates and have produced higher yields than conventional systems under drought conditions and excessive rainfall.

In other words, organically managed soils deal with water better—both in conditions of drought and heavy storms (the frequency of which is also expected to increase as the climate changes). Soil rich in organic matter (well-decayed remnants of plants and other living creatures) bolster soil in weather extremes by helping store water in times of scarcity and by holding together and not eroding away during heavy rains.

Continue reading “Extreme Weather and the Future of Soil”

What does McKibben have to say about Muller? Not much, it turns out.

Muller may be politically, ephemerally interesting, but meanwhile, we still have a problem, and here it is  – basically summarizes his Rolling Stone piece.

I interviewed Gerald Meehl of NCAR by Skype for  the most recent Yale Video (check that out if you haven’t yet).

We discussed the ongoing drought, extremes in precipitation, and expectations for the future.

Here’s the extended interview, from July 18.

If the whole United States went dark, would we do something to address our dependence on centralized power and an aging grid?
In the third world, the leapfrogging has already begun.

Greentechmedia:

Like the United States and China, more than half of India’s power comes from coal-fired power plants, but in India’s case, it hasn’t been able to get enough coal lately, driving up prices. Meanwhile, poor rains have left the country’s hydroelectric dams — some 19 percent of its generation mix — without the water they need to generate power. Overall, India’s peak power demand has been outstripping supply by about 9 percent during the latest summer peaks, when air conditioning, a mark of an upwardly mobile lifestyle, starts to kick in.

All of that inefficiency and waste has a price. The Wall Street Journal reports that India’s poor infrastructure consistently shaves about 2 percent from its annual GDP growth. India’s fast-growing technology sector has had to build its own power plants, essentially, to make sure facilities don’t break down or sit idle. Most of that backup power comes from diesel generators, which are inefficient and pollute the neighborhoods they run in.

Smart Grid From the Bottom Up

But at the same time, all that backup power could be one key to unlocking India’s smart grid potential. Indeed, microgrids — islands of power generation and consumption that can run themselves, or maybe help the grid when it’s stressed — are how India’s grid is going to get smart, at least in the short term.

Microgrids can range from showcase technical campuses like Cisco and Wipro’s Lavasa City “e-city” project outside Mumbai, to commercial-scale business offerings like the oneEchelon is doing in a high-end residential development in Hyderabad. Most of India’s commercial and industrial buildings have backup power of some kind. Adding metering and control capabilities could help justify drawing that power more often — perhaps, preemptively to avoid stress during peak demand times.

Solar Power to the Rescue?

In the meantime, India’s potential to become the next hot solar power market may be cut short by an inadequate grid infrastructure. Dr. Murray Cameron, COO of Phoenix Solar AG, told us in May that India’s high-voltage grid was relatively stable, making large-scale solar farm integration tenable. But the “low-voltage grid is in a sad state, (and) the medium-voltage grid is shaky,” he said.

Perhaps solar-equipped microgrids could help solve the problem. India is emerging as a hotbed for off-grid solar power, with the potential for installing more than 1 gigawatt per year by 2016, according to GTM Research and Bridge to India. More than a third of the country lacks electricity at all, making rural micropower projects a big target.