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from Forbes – http://blogs.forbes.com/ericagies/2011/07/07/renewable-energy-production-surpasses-nuclear-in-u-s-2/
Green Tech
Renewable Energy Production Surpasses Nuclear in U.S.
Jul. 7 2011 – 2:17 pm | 877 views | 0 recommendations | 1 commentBy ERICA GIES
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In the first quarter of 2011, renewable energy production in the United States surpassed nuclear production in overall quantity and percentage. Also, the percentage of natural gas is growing slowly, while coal is declining.
Entrenched energy industries like to say that renewable energy can never provide a significant amount of U.S. energy needs. And while it’s true that some technologies still face barriers to widespread implementation and others, while technically renewable, might not be very green, renewables as a percentage of U.S. energy generation are creeping up steadily — and not just in California, with its target of 33 percent renewables by 2020.
In the first three months of 2011, renewable energy — hydroelectric, geothermal, solar/PV, wind, and biomass — made up 11.7 percent of the U.S. energy production mix, surpassing nuclear at 11.1 percent. The same period last year, nuclear was 11.6 percent, and renewables 10.6, according to a June report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (Table 1.2).
“The rise in conventional hydroelectric generation was by far the largest absolute “fuel-specific” increase as it was up 10,759 thousand megawatthours, or 52.2 percent,” according to Electric Power Monthly. This was largely due to heavy spring rains in Washington, Oregon, and California, which accounted for 71.5 percent of the national rise.
However, environmentalists find objectionable the two biggest technologies that make up the renewables sector: hydroelectric power at 35 percent and biomass at 48 percent.
While large hydroelectric power doesn’t emit emissions (at least not after accounting for the materials and energy expended in building it), it has harmful impacts on river ecosystems and has therefore fallen out of favor as a power source in the developed world.
As for biomass, there are many types of feedstocks, and each much be evaluated individually for its emissions profile, it’s water footprint, and other considerations, such as whether farm fields or forests need that material to decompose in place to retain soil or ecosystem function.
Wind was next highest at 13 percent of renewables, or 1.5 percent of total U.S. energy production, up from 1.1 percent the same time last year.
This represents a 20.4 percent increase from March 2010, and the third-largest fuel-specific increase, according to the report. “Wyoming, California, and Illinois had the largest gains, but the increase was widespread,” it said.
Natural gas plus natural gas plant liquids were 32.9 percent of U.S. production in the first quarter, a bit up over last year (32.7) and 2009 (32.4).
But overall U.S. generation was up 2.0 percent from March 2010 to March 2011, so in spite of small percentage gains, “natural gas-fired generation showed the second-largest increase over March 2010 as it was up 5.0 percent or 3,131 thousand megawatthours,” said the report. “Increased gas-fired generation in Pennsylvania and Ohio accounted for 78.8 percent of the national jump in gas-fired generation.” It would seem the recent hype about shale gas reserves is bearing some fruit — well, some gas.
Coal is declining, with 29 percent the first quarter of 2011, down from 29.4 percent the same time last year, and 31.1 percent during the same period in 2009.
Wikileaks cables suggest Saudis may have overstated their oil reserves by nearly 40%
WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices
The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh show.
The cables, released by WikiLeaks, urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom’s crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels – nearly 40%.
The revelation comes as the oil price has soared in recent weeks to more than $100 a barrel on global demand and tensions in the Middle East. Many analysts expect that the Saudis and their Opec cartel partners would pump more oil if rising prices threatened to choke off demand.
However, Sadad al-Husseini, a geologist and former head of exploration at the Saudi oil monopoly Aramco, met the US consul general in Riyadh in November 2007 and told the US diplomat that Aramco’s 12.5m barrel-a-day capacity needed to keep a lid on prices could not be reached.
According to the cables, which date between 2007-09, Husseini said Saudi Arabia might reach an output of 12m barrels a day in 10 years but before then – possibly as early as 2012 – global oil production would have hit its highest point. This crunch point is known as “peak oil“.
Husseini said that at that point Aramco would not be able to stop the rise of global oil prices because the Saudi energy industry had overstated its recoverable reserves to spur foreign investment. He argued that Aramco had badly underestimated the time needed to bring new oil on tap.
One cable said: “According to al-Husseini, the crux of the issue is twofold. First, it is possible that Saudi reserves are not as bountiful as sometimes described, and the timeline for their production not as unrestrained as Aramco and energy optimists would like to portray.”
It went on: “In a presentation, Abdallah al-Saif, current Aramco senior vice-president for exploration, reported that Aramco has 716bn barrels of total reserves, of which 51% are recoverable, and that in 20 years Aramco will have 900bn barrels of reserves.
“Al-Husseini disagrees with this analysis, believing Aramco’s reserves are overstated by as much as 300bn barrels. In his view once 50% of original proven reserves has been reached … a steady output in decline will ensue and no amount of effort will be able to stop it. He believes that what will result is a plateau in total output that will last approximately 15 years followed by decreasing output.”
The US consul then told Washington: “While al-Husseini fundamentally contradicts the Aramco company line, he is no doomsday theorist. His pedigree, experience and outlook demand that his predictions be thoughtfully considered.”
Seven months later, the US embassy in Riyadh went further in two more cables. “Our mission now questions how much the Saudis can now substantively influence the crude markets over the long term. Clearly they can drive prices up, but we question whether they any longer have the power to drive prices down for a prolonged period.”
A fourth cable, in October 2009, claimed that escalating electricity demand by Saudi Arabia may further constrain Saudi oil exports. “Demand [for electricity] is expected to grow 10% a year over the next decade as a result of population and economic growth. As a result it will need to double its generation capacity to 68,000MW in 2018,” it said.
It also reported major project delays and accidents as “evidence that the Saudi Aramco is having to run harder to stay in place – to replace the decline in existing production.” While fears of premature “peak oil” and Saudi production problems had been expressed before, no US official has come close to saying this in public.
In the last two years, other senior energy analysts have backed Husseini. Fatih Birol, chief economist to the International Energy Agency, told the Guardian last year that conventional crude output could plateau in 2020, a development that was “not good news” for a world still heavily dependent on petroleum.
Jeremy Leggett, convenor of the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security, said: “We are asleep at the wheel here: choosing to ignore a threat to the global economy that is quite as bad as the credit crunch, quite possibly worse.”
How I brought my electricity bill down to $5
MNN’s lifestyle blogger shares the details of her energy-efficient lifestyle.
Fri, Jan 07 2011 at 7:35 PM EST
Before I moved, the utilities in my apartment were included in my rent. That meant all my energy-saving efforts — from cleaning my fridge coils to installing Practecol switches to simply turning out lights when I wasn’t using them — didn’t reap any financial benefits.
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So when I moved to West Hollywood, I was kind of excited — to be paying for electricity. Why? I’m a curious person. I wanted to see just how much electricity I was using — or not.
I’m proud to say that my most recent Southern California Edison bill came to just $5.03. I used just 35 kilowatt-hours in December! Of course, I had to see how my energy usage compared to the average American. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, “the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 11,040 kilowatt-hours (kWh), an average of 920 kWh per month.” However, I live alone, while the average American household is made up of 2.59 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Calculated per person, the average American burns through 355 kWh a month — which means I use up a tenth of the energy the average American does! This despite that I work from home — which means my wireless router and laptop are sipping energy all day long, along with my mini-fridge. However, those — plus a CFL bulb, if needed — are the only things I have plugged in most days. All kitchen appliances (except the fridge) remain unplugged, as do the printer, stereo, cell phone charger, and a few other electronics, except when in use.
And at night, everything is turned off and totally disconnected from sucking vampire energy with the help of Practecol switches — the computer, the wireless gateway, and — believe it or not — the mini-fridge, because in my tiny studio apartment, the thing makes too much noise when I’m trying to sleep.
Yes, I have energy-efficient light bulbs, too. I have exactly three bulbs — two CFLs, and an even more efficient LED bulb for the closet.
I get an extra reward for using less energy. Southern California Edison’s tier system means that those who use less pay less per kWh. You can see from the handy chart SoCal Edison puts on each bill (delivered and paid for electronically sans paper, of course) that I’m in the low end of the “tier 1″ pricing level.
After comparing my energy usage to other Americans, I felt so awesome about myself that I declared yesterday’s No Impact Challenge topic — Energy: Replace kilowatts with ingenuity — conquered for now. I mean, my next steps would be somehow rigging up solar panels in my apartment complex or getting rid of the mini-fridge altogether or inventing a solar-powered laptop — and I’m not ready to go there yet. In addition to bragging, I hope I’m making clear in this post that steps like switching out light bulbs and turning off electronics when not in use and preventing vampire power loss really do make a difference — both for the environment and your pocketbook.
How are your own energy-savings efforts going? And do you have any not-too-far-out advice for me so I can get my bill under $5 a month in 2011?
January 11, 2011
The growing popularity of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems across the United States has made it more important to maximize their power input. That’s why UC San Diego environmental engineering professor Jan Kleissl is working on technologies and methods that will better predict how much power we can actually harness from the sun.
In a paper recently published in the journal Renewable Energy (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09601481), “Optimum fixed orientations and benefits of tracking for capturing solar radiation in the continental United States,” Kleissl and his Ph.D. student Matt Lave explain why it’s important to strategize on solar installation, depending upon the location of the building relative to the sun. For example, Kleissl and his students at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering have improved the solar map (http://solar.ucsd.edu/) for the state of California, which allows homeowners, photovoltaic installers and utilities to better predict how much energy they will get out of their solar systems. The map can be viewed via Google Earth for free.
“Probably the most important result of this work for California is that in all coastal areas (Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego) it is advantageous to install the panels facing about 10-degrees west of south,” Kleissl said. “This not only optimizes energy production, but it also improves the correlation of solar power production with the load. Panels facing southwest ‘see’ the sun longer and at a better angle than panels facing south, which means that the energy generated is larger during the peak demand hours (3-to-5p.m.), making the energy more valuable. The generally clear conditions during the annual load peaks (also known as Santa Anas to Southern Californians) mean that the solar panels produce at the optimum power. On the other hand, wholesale energy prices during the peak time may be 10 times those during other days. In a future with more variable electricity rates this margin may tip the balance of economics in favor of solar energy and there will be greater incentives for installing panels facing southwest. Our maps show that there are already benefits of doing so now as the energy generation increases.”
Kleissl further explains his intensive solar research at UC San Diego in this recent video produced by SPIE (http://mfile.akamai.com/65904/mov/spiestorage.download.akamai.com/65904/SPIEtv/JanKleissl.mov) , the international society for optics and photonics.
Other related Kleissl links:
http://maeresearch.ucsd.edu/kleissl/
http://solar.ucsd.edu/
http://solar.ucsd.edu/education
Mojave Solar Plant: Feds Approve World’s Largest Solar Power Plant In Mojave Desert
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has approved a thousand-megawatt solar project on federal land in southern California, the largest solar project ever planned on U.S. public lands.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar hailed the $6 billion Blythe Solar Power Project, to be built in the Mojave Desert near Blythe, Calif., as the start of a boom in solar power on federal lands.
“Today is a day that makes me excited about the nation’s future,” Salazar said Monday at a news conference. “This project shows in a real way how harnessing our own renewable resources can create good jobs here at home.”
The Blythe project, being developed by Solar Millennium, a German solar developer, is slated for more than 7,000 acres of public land near the Arizona border, some 225 miles east of Los Angeles.
The project is the sixth solar power development approved by the Interior Department this month – all in California and Nevada. Approval of a seventh project – also in California – is expected in the next few weeks. All could start transmitting electricity by the end of 2011 or early 2012.
At full capacity, the seven projects would generate more than 3,000 megawatts of power and provide electricity for up to 2 million homes. The projects are expected to create more than 2,000 jobs during construction and several hundred permanent jobs.
A spokeswoman for the solar industry said the flurry of announcements shows that efforts made by the Obama administration and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to promote solar power are beginning to pay off.
“We’re finally going to see solar energy produced on public lands in the United States – and this is something the public wants,” said Monique Hanis, a spokeswoman for the Solar Energy Industries Association, a Washington-based trade group.
The announcements come about five years after solar developers began asking the Bureau of Land Management for rights to develop hundreds of solar plants on millions of acres of federally owned desert in the Southwest.
The bureau opened federally owned lands in 2005 to solar development, but an examination of records and interviews of officials by The Associated Press showed the program operated a first-come, first-served leasing system that quickly overwhelmed its small staff and enabled companies, regardless of solar industry experience, to squat on land without any real plans to develop it.
To expedite environmental review and bureaucratic red tape, the Interior Department identified 14 of the most promising solar projects among the more than 180 current permit applications covering about 23 million acres of federally owned desert in the Southwest.
Those 14 “fast-track” projects alone would produce more than 6,000 megawatts, enough to power 4 million homes for a day at peak usage, officials said.
Hanis, the industry representative, said that even after the 14 fast-track projects are approved, solar energy will remain a tiny fraction of overall energy production on U.S. lands. The projects approved this month are the first ever approved by the land management bureau, compared with more than 74,000 oil and gas permits issued in the past two decades.
Final approval by the end of the year qualifies the solar projects for federal funds under the economic stimulus law approved last year. Solar Millennium is eligible to secure $1.9 billion in conditional loan guarantees from the Energy Department for the Blythe project.
The company will be required to mitigate the project’s effect on more than 8,000 acres of habitat for the desert tortoise, western burrowing owl, bighorn sheep and Mojave fringe-toed lizard, as part of an agreement with federal officials.
Silicon Valley’s Solar Innovators Retool to Catch Up to China
Noah Berger for The New York Times
Glass rods in Solyndra’s tubular solar modules. The company just opened a $733 million factory last month, and is already scrambling to lower production costs to compete with China.
By TODD WOODY
Published: October 12, 2010
FREMONT, Calif. — A few years ago, Silicon Valley start-ups like Solyndra, Nanosolar and MiaSolé dreamed of transforming the economics of solar power by reinventing the technology used to make solar panels and deeply cutting the cost of production.
A blog about energy and the environment.
Peter DaSilva for The New York Times
Innovalight has developed what it calls a silicon ink, which increases a solar cell’s efficiency when it is printed on a standard silicon wafer.
Founded by veterans of the Valley’s chip and hard-drive industries, these companies attracted billions of dollars in venture capital investment on the hope that their advanced “thin film” technology would make them the Intels and Apples of the global solar industry.
But as the companies finally begin mass production — Solyndra just flipped the switch on a $733 million factory here last month — they are finding that the economics of the industry have already been transformed, by the Chinese. Chinese manufacturers, heavily subsidized by their own government and relying on vast economies of scale, have helped send the price of conventional solar panels plunging and grabbed market share far more quickly than anyone anticipated.
As a result, the California companies, once so confident that they could outmaneuver the competition, are scrambling to retool their strategies and find niches in which they can thrive.
“The solar market has changed so much it’s almost enough to make you want to cry,” said Joseph Laia, chief executive of MiaSolé. “We have spent a lot more time and energy focusing on costs a year or two before we thought we had to.”
The challenges come despite extensive public and private support for the Silicon Valley companies. Solyndra, one of the biggest firms, has raised more than $1 billion from investors. The federal government provided a $535 million loan guarantee for the company’s new robot-run, 300,000-square-foot solar panel factory, known as Fab 2.
“The true engine of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra,” President Obama said in May during an appearance at the then-unfinished factory. But during the year that Solyndra’s plant was under construction, competition from the Chinese helped drive the price of solar modules down 40 percent. Solyndra rushed to start cranking out panels on Sept. 13, two months ahead of schedule, and it has increased marketing efforts to make the case to customers that Solyndra’s more expensive panels are cost-effective when installation charges are factored in.
“It definitely puts more pressure on us to bring our costs down as quickly as possible by ramping up volume,” said Ben Bierman, Solyndra’s executive vice president for operations and engineering.
Silicon Valley companies like Solyndra, Nanosolar and MiaSolé continue to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in customer orders and some plan to expand local manufacturing. But the rapid rise of low-cost Chinese manufacturers has made investors — who once envisioned the region’s future as Solar Valley — skittish about backing new capital-intensive start-ups.
“I don’t see another Solyndra being done,” said Anup Jacob, whose private equity firm, Virgin Green Fund, has invested significantly in Solyndra.
In the third quarter of 2010, venture capital investment in solar companies plummeted to $144 million from $451 million in the year-ago quarter, according to the Cleantech Group, a San Francisco research firm.
The paucity of capital and the sheer size of Chinese solar panel makers have proved particularly problematic for companies like Solyndra and MiaSolé, which make photovoltaic cells using a material called copper indium gallium selenide, or CIGS.
Unlike conventional solar cells, made from silicon wafers, CIGS cells can be deposited on glass or flexible materials, much as ink is printed on rolls of newspaper. Though the technology is less efficient at converting sunlight into electricity, the promise of “thin film” solar cells was that they could be made cheaply. But producing CIGS cells on a mass scale has turned out to be a formidable technological challenge, requiring the invention of specialized manufacturing equipment.
While Silicon Valley companies were working on the problem, silicon prices fell and Chinese companies like JA Solar, Suntech and Yingli Green Energy rapidly expanded production of conventional solar panels, supported by tens of billions of dollars in inexpensive credit from the Chinese government as well as other subsidies like cheap land.
Arno Harris, chief executive of Recurrent Energy, a San Francisco solar developer acquired by Sharp last month, said he chose to sign a supply deal with Yingli because the Chinese company offered low prices, quality products and financing.
“We realized that would enable us to bid competitive power prices from projects that could also be efficiently financed,” Mr. Harris said in an e-mail.
Chinese solar panel makers now supply about 40 percent of the California market, the largest in the United States, and the bulk of the European market, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a research and consulting firm.
“We grow every year with double revenue and almost double capacity,” said Fang Peng, the chief executive of JA Solar, in a telephone interview from the company’s Shanghai headquarters. “At end of the year, we will have 1.8 gigawatts of capacity and will have grown from 4,000 employees at the beginning of this year to more than 11,000.”
By comparison, Solyndra expects to have a total production capacity of 300 megawatts by the end of 2011.
The competition from the Chinese prompted some Silicon Valley companies, like AQT Solar, to pursue new strategies to survive.
AQT has modified off-the-shelf machines used to make computer hard drives to create CIGS cells using a proprietary process. The Sunnyvale company, which has raised $15 million from investors, further cut its capital costs by manufacturing only solar cells, which it sells to other companies to package into solar panels.
Peter DaSilva for The New York Times
Innovalight executives elected to license its proprietary silicon coating material to the Chinese. Innovalight CEO, Conrad Burke, right, with JA Solar CEO Fang Peng.
A blog about energy and the environment.
Rather than build a factory from the ground up, the company recycled a 1970s-era rental building. “We moved in here in eight weeks, put our first 20-megawatt line up and did it for under a million dollars. That’s on Chinese time,” said Michael Bartholomeusz, AQT’s chief executive.
A mile away, another start-up, Innovalight, has abandoned solar module manufacturing altogether. The company had developed what it calls a silicon ink, which increases a solar cell’s efficiency when it is printed on a standard silicon wafer.
After installing a 10-megawatt production line, in late 2008, Innovalight executives decided that, rather than compete with the Chinese, they would license the patented ink technology to them and avoid having to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to build factories of their own.
“How do you fight against enormous subsidies, low-interest loans, cheap labor and scale and a government strategy to make you No. 1 in solar?” said Conrad Burke, Innovalight’s chief. “Innovation will be the heart of the U.S. strategy, and although it might not create the same scale, we’re exporting well-protected technology to China and creating well-paying jobs here.”
As part of its corporate sustainability policy, Wal-Mart Stores last month acted to bolster American CIGS companies by signing a deal with a Silicon Valley solar installer, SolarCity, to put 15 megawatts of photovoltaic panels on its big-box stores and requiring that a significant percentage of them come from thin-film companies like MiaSolé.
Even so, SolarCity’s chief executive, Lyndon Rive, acknowledged that his company would also be installing a large number of conventional solar panels for the retail giant — nearly all of them made in China.
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/33-renewable-energy-is-goal-for-california-2.html 
33% Renewable Energy is Goal for California
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By unanimous decision, the California Air Resources Board approved a new regulation to have 33 percent of California’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2020. Chairwoman Mary D. Nichols said, “The Renewable Electricity Standard means cleaner energy for California’s households and businesses. This standard is going to further diversify and secure our energy supply while also growing California’s leading green technology market, which will lead to cost savings for consumers.” (Source: UPI)
Reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are expected to be about 12 to 13 million tons of CO2 per year by the year 2020. Smaller goals are set for points along the way leading to 33 percent. For 2012-2014 the goal is 20 percent, 2015-2017 is 24 percent, 2018-2019 is 28 percent.
Governor Schwarzenegger said, “With this long-term energy policy, California will continue to lead the transition to a clean-energy future and away from being so dependent on the volatile prices and harmful emissions of dirty oil and coal.” (Source: UPI)
The new regulation is not the same as the passing a new law, unfortunately. It is seen more as a spurring on of renewable energy activity both in terms of the number of projects, and the business created by them. A looming gubernatorial election and an anti-climate change ballot initiative make passing new legislation of dubious value. If elected, Meg Whitman has said she will place a one year moratorium on AB – 32 the law that has prompted the growth in renewable energy projects. She says it is a job killer.
Chairwoman Nichols said new renewable energy projects would create jobs, and observed, “I want to be clear that taking action today is consistent with and called for by the governor and our regulatory requirements under AB 32. We may move the ball forward in getting the legislature to act.” (Source: Sunpluggers.com)
Some energy companies in California will achieve the 18 percent threshold by the end of this year. This fact, was a factor in the decision by regulators to raise the bar from the previous target of twenty percent.
About 200 renewable energy projects are investigating the state as a home for their construction. California has one of the largest economies in the world, and it needs legislators who understand the relationship between policy-making and growing the green economy.
Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/33-renewable-energy-is-goal-for-california-2.html#ixzz10l4WlNoa
August 25, 2010, 6:11 pm
California Approves First New U.S. Thermal Solar Plant
By TODD WOODY
from: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/
California regulators on Wednesday approved a license for the nation’s first large-scale solar thermal power plant in two decades.
The licensing of the 250-megawatt Beacon Solar Energy Project after a two-and-a-half-year environmental review comes as several other big solar farms are set to receive approval from the California Energy Commission in the next month.
“I hope this is the first of many more large-scale solar projects we will permit,” said Jeffrey D. Byron, a member of the California Energy Commission, at a hearing in Sacramento on Wednesday. “This is exactly the type of project we want to see.”
Developers and regulators have been racing to license solar power plants and begin construction before the end of the year, when federal incentives for such renewable energy projects expire. California’s three investor-owned utilities also face a deadline to obtain 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by the end of 2010.
Still, it has been long slog as solar power plants planned for the Mojave Desert have become bogged down in disputes over their impact on protected wildlife and scarce water supplies.
In March 2008, NextEra Energy Resources filed an application to build the Beacon project on 2,012 acres of former farmland in Kern County. Long rows of mirrored parabolic troughs will focus sunlight on liquid-filled tubes to create steam that drives an electricity-generating turbine.
Some rural residents immediately objected to the 521 million gallons of groundwater the project would consume annually in an arid region on the western edge of the Mojave Desert. After contentious negotiations with regulators, NextEra agreed to use recycled water that will be piped in from a neighboring community.
“It’s been a lengthy process, an almost embarrassingly long lengthy process,” said Scott Busa, NextEra’s Beacon project manager, at Wednesday’s hearing. “Hopefully, we’re going from a lengthy process to a timely process.”
However, a lawyer for a union group that has been critical of Beacon told commissioners that obstacles still stood in the way of the power plant.
“Despite all the hard work that has been done, this project won’t get built anytime soon,” said Tanya Gulesserian, representing California Unions for Reliable Energy. She cited the absence of a deal to sell electricity from the Beacon power plant to a utility.
Mr. Busa responded that NextEra was in the final stages of negotiating a power purchase agreement.
The Grant Farm Secures $3M for Green Energy Projects
For Immediate Release Contact: Shawn Garvey 530.559.2791
shawn@thegrantfarm.com
$3 Million Awarded for Waste to Energy Facilities
Nevada City-based The Grant Farm secures $3 million for two energy projects that will create 525 construction jobs and 75 permanent green energy positions
Nevada City, California – The California Energy Commission approved nearly $3 million for two high profile projects represented by local Fund Development company The Grant Farm that will transform Waste-to-Energy facilities in Northern California.
The awards — $1.49 million for the Advanced Bioenergy Center Mendota, and $1.31 million for the Sacramento BioRefinery #1 – fund the pre-development and engineering costs to construct two landmark biorefineries that will utilize hundreds of tons of green waste by converting it to fuel for buses, electricity and high value compost.
Advanced Bioenergy Center Mendota
The Grant Farm managed, coordinated and wrote this successful application for $1.49 million in funds from the California Energy Commission for the Advanced Bioenergy Center Mendota (ABCM), a multi-partner collaboration that includes the Mendota Advanced Bioenergy Beet Cooperative, UC Davis, California State University, Fresno; Spectrum Energy Solutions, IR1 Group and Shell Oil. This application received the highest score of any competing application in the state of California.
When complete, the proposed $200 million ABCM facility will:
- Process nearly 1 million tons per year of locally-sourced sugar beets
- Utilize 80,000 additional tons of almond prunings and other agricultural waste that state law will prohibit from burning on June 1, 2010
- Generate 6.3 Megawatts (MW) of certified Green-e electricity;
- Produce 33.5 million gallons of advanced ethanol and 1.6 million standard cubic feet (SCF) of renewable biomethane
- Process wastewater on behalf of the City of Mendota and create a net positive of 365 acre feet of irrigation water per year
- Create up to 325 construction, engineering and design jobs; 50 BioRefinery Operations positions, 40 to 50 Feedstock Operations jobs and 160 farm labor positions in a community which currently claims the highest unemployment rate in the United States
- Generate $90 million in direct economic activity
Sacramento BioRefinery #1
The Grant Farm has managed the Public Fund Campaign for Clean World Partners’ proposed Sacramento BioRefinery #1 (SBR1) since 2009. Partners in the project, to be sited at the Sacramento Recycling & Transfer Station, include the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), UC Davis, Yolo County Transit District, CALSTART, and others. SBR1 was awarded $1.35 million from the California Energy Commission to fully fund pre-development costs.
When complete, the proposed $23 million facility will:
- Provide a reliable, locally produced supply of 71,324,285 SCF of compressed natural gas (CNG) for the Yolo County Transit District (YCTD) CNG Bus fleet—displacing 584,000 gallons of gasoline a year, or approximately 84 percent of YCTD’s annual demand
- Produce average daily outputs equaling:
- 195,409 SCF of biomethane
- 19,977 SCF of hydrogen
- 3,313 gal of concentrated liquid fertilizer
- 8,521 gal of clean water
- 15 TPD of marketable compost
- Divert 36,500 tons of organic wastes annually from area landfills
- Reduce GHG by 15,512 metric tons per year
- Create 227 full-time, direct and indirect jobs during the project performance period and 16 full-time, permanent jobs
- Demonstrate a commercialized waste-to-energy solution developed with state funding at the University of California, Davis for national and global export. Successful commercialization and licensing will prompt private, state and federal investment in the billions of dollars
The Grant Farm specializes in identifying public funding partnerships and implementing public fund campaigns for organizations seeking state and federal loans, grants, and tax credits for critical renewable energy projects throughout the United States. Principals at the firm have more than 35 years of combined experience in public funding, technical writing, strategic planning, and advocacy. Since 1995, they have helped develop more than $375 million in renewable energy, cleantech, transportation and infrastructure, and conservation projects seeking funding from a variety of public agencies—including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, California Energy Commission, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Federal Transit Administration and the California Energy Commission.
The Grant Farm is a member of Sierra Commons, an innovative business community housed at the former site of the Stonehouse Brewery in Nevada City. Sierra Commons is a project of One-Stop Business and Career Center and the Private Industry Council of Butte County.
The Grant Farm recently leveraged its success at Sierra Commons, expanding to a second office in downtown Sacramento, California.
Korea’s First-Ever Residential Solar Hybrid Air Conditioner
from: http://greenopolis.com/goblog/green-groove/korea-s-first-ever-residential-solar-hybrid-air-conditioner
LG Electronics unveils a new eco-friendly residential air conditioner that draws its energy from the sun!
Koreans are getting their first taste of a new solar-powered air conditioner. It’s known as model F-Q232LASS, and it’s the brainchild of LG Electronics. The AC unit has a solar cell module that is attached to the top of the outdoor unit, which produces up to 70 watts of power per hour. This is enough power to keep the AC going and to run the unit’s purification process. That means Korean homeowners are getting clean, purified air, and they’re saving huge dollars on their energy bill at the same time!
According to an article in Infibeam.com, “LG’s hybrid air conditioner helps reduce approximately 212 kg of carbon dioxide over 10 years, equivalent to growing 780 pine trees over the same period.” Now who wouldn’t want a unit like this?
Images: fareastgizmos
Kudos to the Koreans and to LG for designing this eco-friendly AC unit. I hope that the rest of the world will get a chance to reap the benefits of model F-Q232LASS!
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