This is Not Cool

There was a flurry of discussion of offshore wind power potential in yesterday’s comments. Here’s good news.

This is the technology  that will open up huge areas offshore, along the coasts, and in the Great Lakes.

Cleantechnica:

We’ve been following the Principle Power and Vestas offshore floating wind turbine and floating WindFloat foundation for awhile. The exciting news is that today it was finally announced the the floating turbine was inaugurated on Friday, June 16.

“In addition to being the first offshore wind turbine in Portugal, this is the first offshore wind turbine to be installed without the use of any heavy lift vessels or piling equipment at sea,” Principle Power announced today. “All final assembly, installation and pre-commissioning of the turbine and substructure took place on land in a controlled environment. The complete system was then wet-towed offshore using simple tug vessels.”

The WindFloat is equipped with a Vestas v80 2.0MW turbine capable of producing enough electricity for 1,300 households. The system is located 5km off the coast of Aguçadoura, Portugal, and has already produced in excess of 1.7 GWh. The WindFloat ushers in a new era in the offshore wind industry permitting utilities to target the highest quality wind resources, independent of water depth. In addition, projects can realize significant cost and risk reductions as a result of the onshore fabrication and commissioning scheme.

The successful installation and on-going operations of the WindFloat in Portugal is the result of hard work and foresight on part of the WindPlus joint venture, comprised of EDP, Repsol, Principle Power, ASM, Vestas Wind Systems A/S and InovCapital including a subsidy from the Innovation Support Fund (Fundo de Apoio à Inovação – FAI). Additionally, over 60 other European suppliers, 40 of them Portuguese, supplied key components to the project. Repsol has recently joined the Windplus JV as a significant shareholder bringing additional offshore experience and operational capabilities to the project team.

The new industrial revolution, based on transition to renewable energy and sustainable technology is here.  Who will seize the initiative to lead in the coming century? The US has stumbled somewhat lately, with a growing anti-science and technology movement, funded by highly regressive fossil fuel interests doing everything it can to fog the issues, distort the science, and confuse the public on this critical area for technological competitiveness.

I present here an OpEd piece from Stanley “Skip” Pruss, former energy advisor to Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, on the prospects in renewable deployment and manufacturing in that key industrial state.  Then, lets compare to ongoing efforts in Germany, a region similar geographically, and with an equally renowned manufacturing tradition.

Skip Pruss in the Detroit Free Press: 

We got a glimpse this month of Gov. Rick Snyder’s view of renewable energy in Michigan.

Signaling likely opposition to the new proposed ballot initiative that would require 25% of Michigan’s electricity to be derived from renewable sources by 2025, the governor said during a visit to Port Huron that “Michigan is not necessarily a very good renewable state for wind or solar, relative to some of the states out west or in other parts of the country.”

Michigan’s present clean energy standard requires 10% of our electricity to come from clean energy sources by 2015 — the lowest requirement among the 29 states that have mandated clean energy standards.

While it’s true that there are areas within the U.S. that have more wind and solar energy potential than Michigan, any implication that developing Michigan’s clean energy resources would be economically inefficient is plainly wrong.

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Validating the cost effectiveness of clean energy, the Michigan Public Service Commission has determine that wind energy in Michigan costs about 40% less than energy from a new coal plant.

This is because innovation has led to dramatic improvements in wind and solar technologies, lowering costs and improving the economics — a trend that will continue. And because they don’t burn fossil fuels, there is zero threat of volatile or escalating fuel costs ratcheting up utility bills.

Meanwhile recent electricity costs are up 13.5% for DTE Energy customers and $4.28 per month more for Consumers Energy’s residential customers (using an average of 500 kilowatt hours of electricity per month). These increasing costs are largely attributable to the escalating cost of coal and coal transport — given the fact Michigan utilities import 100% of the coal they burn — and needed environmental upgrades to aging 20th Century infrastructure.

Gov. Snyder needs to take an energy lesson from Germany, an automobile manufacturing country with a highly skilled, unionized labor force similar to Michigan’s. Germany backed renewable energy policies aggressively and now gets 17% of its electricity from clean energy sources, with targets of 35% in 2030 and 80% by 2050. The result: 382,000 new jobs in thriving clean energy technology sector and a projected 600,000 jobs by 2020.

One would think that because Germany lies, on average, 400 miles farther north than Michigan, it might not necessarily be a very good place for solar energy. Yet Germany has deployed 6 times as much solar energy (25 gigawatts) as the entire U.S. (4.2 gigawatts) and has a vibrant wind sector as well.

Now, how does the US’s manufacturing giant compare to a close European counterpart?

Craig Morris, an American writer specializing in German energy issues, brings the current German posture on renewables into focus.

Germany has a trade surplus with China; the uS, a trade deficit. The uS exported 94 billion dollars in goods to China in 2011, compared to 367 billion in imports from China – a deficit of 273 billion. The New York Times attributed the 12.7 billion dollar surplus that Germany had with China in the 12 months leading up to August 2011 “largely [to] the sales of capital equipment that helped China produce more products.” Solar production lines are one such example.

Continue reading “The Renewable Revolution is Here. Will the US Compete?”

Reuters: 

Japan approved on Monday incentives for renewable energy that could unleash billions of dollars in clean-energy investment and help the world’s third-biggest economy shift away from a reliance on nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster.

Industry Minister Yukio Edano approved the introduction of feed-in tariffs (FIT), which means higher rates will be paid for renewable energy. The move could expand revenue from renewable generation and related equipment to more than $30 billion by 2016, brokerage CLSA estimates.

The subsidies from July 1 are one of the few certainties in Japan’s energy landscape, where the government has gone back to the drawing board to write a power policy after the Fukushima radiation crisis, the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

The push for renewables is aimed at cutting reliance on not only nuclear, but pricey oil and liquefied natural gas for energy needs.

The scheme requires Japanese utilities to buy electricity from renewable sources such as solar, wind and geothermal at pre-set premiums for up to 20 years. Costs will be passed on to consumers through higher bills.

Utilities will pay 42 yen (53 U.S. cents) per kilowatt hour (kwh) for solar-generated electricity, double the tariff offered in Germany and more than three times that paid in China.

Wind power will be subsidized at least 23.1 yen per kwh, compared with as low as 4.87 euro cents (6 U.S. cents) in Germany.

Subsidies have spurred explosive growth in renewable energy in countries such as Germany, which has nearly tripled its output in less than a decade.

Bloomberg:

Japan is poised to overtake Germany and Italy to become the world’s second-biggest market for solar power as incentives starting July 1 drive sales for equipment makers from Yingli Green Energy Holdings Co. to Kyocera Corp. (6971)

Continue reading “LEED, Follow, or Get Out of the Way: Japan Full Speed on Solar”

The early trends in this arctic melt season have caught a lot of people’s attention, but it’s way too early to make any bets.

For a complete rundown, see Nevin Acropolis’ account at Climate Progress, or at Nevin’s Arctic Sea Ice Blog.
Nutshell version here:

A few months ago some strong winds stretched the boundaries of the winter ice further than usual, particularly in the Bering Sea area,  and a thin sheen of ice froze in behind the wind-blown leading edge.  The Denia-sphere did the usual round of high fives about the “return to normal”.
Now as the melt season has begun, that thin ice has disappeared even faster than expected.

In addition, large areas of melt water are ponding on the ice. This causes satellites to read the melt ponds in some cases as open water, giving a bit of an exaggerated read on the melt – however, this also means that large areas of ice are getting some serious insolation, and this pattern of large meltwater areas was characteristic of the record 2007 summer.

Important to keep in mind. The mass of perennial (multi year, thick) ice is much diminished from what it was 5 or 6 years ago. Watch the NSIDC video animation below – you can see the progressive disappearance of the thick, multiyear ice over 3 decades. Watch the dates in the lower left corner, and you’ll see how 2005 and 2007 just knocked the stuffing out of the ice thickness. It has not recovered.

So, in 2012, we start with a much lower baseline than in previous years. Summer weather like we saw in 2010 or 2011 could very likely result in a new record low.  If we see a set-up like 2007’s perfect storm, all bets are off.

Bottom line, its too early to tell, we’ll know more as we get into the peak months of July and August. I’ll be getting some regular briefings on this and will share what I find out.

Vancouver Observer:

The Americans? Really?

Every year the International Energy Agency (IEA) calculates humanity’s CO2 pollution from burning fossil fuels. And once again, the overall story line is one of ever-increasing emissions:

“Global carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel combustionreached arecord high of 31.6 gigatonnes in 2011.”

The world has yet to figure out how to stop the relentless increase in climate pollution. But mixed in with all the bad news there was one shining ray of hope. One of the biggest obstacles to climate action may be shifting. As the IEA highlighted:

“US emissions have now fallen by 430 Mt (7.7%) since 2006, the largest reduction of all countries or regions. This development has arisen from lower oil use in the transport sector … and a substantial shift from coal to gas in the power sector.”

It seems the planet’s biggest all-time CO2 polluter is finally reducing its emissions.

Until now, the failure by the USA to make significant emission cuts has been at the center of the global deadlock over what to do about climate pollution. Many of the biggest polluting nations — such as China, India, Russia, Canada, Australia, and Brazil — have been reluctant to create policies to reduce CO2 as long as the biggest bad-boy of them all, the USA, wasn’t joining in.

But now, Americans are both promising CO2 cuts and actually doing it. In doing so they are leading the world in total CO2 reductions. Can they keep it up? There are many hopeful signs.

Continue reading “Carbon Surprise: US Has Made Biggest Cuts in CO2”