Tag: Alt Energy

IS Alt Energy The Answer?

I wrote this draft before the idiot won the election…..and Donny has a hard on for alt energy so this may be a moot point I will make.

We are bombarded daily by ads telling us the strives that big business is making to save the environment…..big oil, auto makers, bottlers, etc…..but are these forward looking business just blowing smoke up the consumers ass?

The latest report on CO2 emissions is not a good one (btw it may be the last report we get for at least 4 years)….

The Met Office has issued a dire warning: global warming is accelerating beyond control, pushing Earth off-track from meeting the 1.5°C (2.7°F) target set in the Paris Agreement.

The latest data shows a rapid rise in carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and record-breaking temperatures – raising serious concerns about the future of our planet.

Scientists warn that without immediate and drastic action, we are heading toward a climate crisis that will be difficult to reverse.

The year 2024 officially became the hottest on record, with global average temperatures exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for the first time. This milestone highlights the increasing intensity of climate change and the urgent need for action.

https://www.earth.com/news/global-warming-is-accelerating-beyond-control-as-co2-levels-rise/

But the problem is the energy production…..trying to solve our energy problem we are embracing alt energy…..or are we?

Rising energy costs, unreliable power grids, and climate change continue to exacerbate the global energy crisis and its impact on both businesses and households.

To be sure, electricity access has been improving, the cost of solar energy has dropped by over 80% since 2010, and renewable energy installations have consistently outpaced fossil fuel developments. But even with all that progress, projections signal a rough road ahead for energy usage around the world—one that will continue to impact families struggling to pay bills, industries facing operational disruptions, and economies hindered by resource instability.

One major contributor to the calamity: the world’s reliance on centralized energy grids. Although centralized grids are pivotal to the generation and distribution of energy across many major cities of the world, a lot of these grids are getting old and outdated, overburdened, and ill-equipped to handle the demands of modern economies.

Fortunately, decentralized grids are emerging to help solve that problem. “The rise of decentralized energy solutions, like microgrids, is a direct response to the limitations of traditional grids,” Gil Kroyzer, CEO of Solargik, tells Fast Company. “Unlike centralized systems, decentralized solutions bring energy production closer to the end consumer, improving reliability and reducing infrastructure stress.”

https://www.fastcompany.com/91257084/can-renewable-energy-really-fix-the-global-energy-crisis

There are no easy answers and kicking the can down the road at every opportunity will do nothing to save the planet.  Plus we have a new admin in DC that hates the environmental oversight and will work tirelessly to overturn any and all progressive we have made as little as it may be.

I am glad I am old and will not see the final destruction of the planet.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Something To Look Forward To!

There are many things things that we voters have to look forward to…..like all the gun laws that allow guns in bars and churches and………but there are some things that are just to moronic for words…….speaking of moronic……Oklahoma comes to mind……..

They have a couple of laws being considered that even the moronic would find moronic……

In response to a federal court ruling that Oklahoma’s same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional discrimination, a state lawmaker says he wants to skirt the equal protection argument by banning all marriages in the state.

“[My constituents are] willing to have that discussion about whether marriage needs to be regulated by the state at all,” Rep. Mike Turner (R) told News 9. He said the idea has the backing of other conservative lawmakers, and could be achieved through a shell bill he filed in the state legislature, intended to adapt to any court rulings on same-sex marriage.

Oklahoma tried a similar tactic in November to avoid granting military benefits to same-sex spouses, by stopping spousal benefits for all married couples at state National Guard facilities. But the state remained in technical compliance because couples could obtain National Guard IDs from federal facilities in the state.

But wait!  Would that not make couples living together for procreation be living in sin?

It’s not over…..if you live in Oklahoma and are considering trying to lower your electric bill…..the state has a deal for you……..

“Paul Monies reports at NewsOK that Oklahoma’s legislature has passed a bill that allows regulated utilities to apply to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to charge a higher base rate to customers who generate solar and wind energy and send their excess power back into the grid reversing a 1977 law that forbade utilities to charge extra to solar users. ‘Renewable energy fed back into the grid is ultimately doing utility companies a service,’ says John Aziz. ‘Solar generates in the daytime, when demand for electricity is highest, thereby alleviating pressure during peak demand.’

The bill was staunchly opposed by renewable energy advocates, environmental groups and the conservative group TUSK, but had the support of Oklahoma’s major utilities. “Representatives of Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. and Public Service Co. of Oklahoma said the surcharge is needed to recover some of the infrastructure costs to send excess electricity safely from distributed generation back to the grid,” the Oklahoman reported.

“We’re not anti-solar or anti-wind or trying to slow this down, we’re just trying to keep it fair,” Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. spokeswoman Kathleen O’Shea told the Oklahoman. “We’ve been studying this trend. We know it’s coming, and we want to get ahead of it.”

Gee….our society is just getting so…..so…..so…..PETTY!

Gas For Less

Today I want to touch on some subjects that are in the news but do not get much press…..I mean they are not as important as some rancher and his cows or the antics Kimye or yada…Yada…..

There has been much to do about the making of ethanol, a gas additive, it seems that many do not like the idea because it is made from corn and they point to a possible shortage because of our non-quenching thirst for gas……but what if there was a good method?

Could ethanol someday essentially be produced out of thin air? A group of scientists has published research in Nature detailing a new method of making ethanol out of carbon monoxide gas, instead of corn or sugarcane, Reuters reports. Researchers saturated water with the gas, then zapped it with a novel device featuring two electrodes, one made of what they’re calling “oxide-derived copper,” to convert it into fuel. “I emphasize that these are just laboratory experiments today,” lead researcher Matthew Kanan says. He expects to have a prototype device ready in two to three years.

The environmental implications are profound. Critics of ethanol say it drives up food prices and consumes loads of land and water. It can take more than 800 gallons of water to grow enough corn to make 3 gallons of ethanol, Phys.org points out. What’s more, researchers envision a two-step process in which the carbon monoxide is derived from carbon dioxide in the air, providing an “economic incentive” for scrubbing carbon from the atmosphere, the MIT Technology Review reports. The new process could also work on a far smaller scale than biomass methods; the Review envisions rooftop solar panels generating fuel that’s kept in water heater-sized tanks. (More on the toll ethanol takes on the environment here.)

Could this be a godsend or is it just another money making scheme?

Is Ethanol The Answer?

My Earth Day continues………..

Of course, almost yearly we here some goon spout the energy dependency thing…..and after that we here all the bobble heads chanting……”Drill Bay Drill”……and as always I ask….who will do the drilling?   If the answer is BP or Shell or Exxon then there is NO independence from oil….these goofs control the price….no matter where they drill….stop!  And smell the manure that is being spread!

Then there is all the buzz about natgas and ethanol……..and ethanol is where this post is going today……

(Newser) – President Obama, and President Bush before him, fought hard to make ethanol a central part of American energy. But an AP investigation finds that the program as it stands may be doing far more environmental harm than good. The effort to grow corn for fuel has meant the destruction of more conservation ground than “Yellowstone, Everglades, and Yosemite National Parks combined”—some 5 million acres. Billions of pounds of fertilizer have tainted drinking water, rivers, and wildlife habitats; wetlands and prairies have been ruined; and the farming process releases carbon dioxide once held in the soil.

“This is an ecological disaster,” says an environmental advocate. In fact, some environmental groups and big oil companies are fighting on the same side against the ethanol mandate. The Obama administration argues that even if such programs take a toll now, they’re an investment in future renewable energy that may be cleaner. But the AP investigation indicates that the White House is taking an unrealistically rosy view of the program—boosting corn yield assumptions, for instance, to make ethanol sound as green as possible. In further ethanol news:

  • The White House may actually be poised to reduce the amount of ethanol required in fuel blends, Politico notes. A draft of an EPA document set for release today suggests a drop to 2012 levels amid clashes between top special-interest groups.
  • The AP is getting some serious flak for its investigation from the ethanol industry, which calls it “rife with errors.” “There is probably more truth in this week’s National Enquirer than AP’s story,” says an advocate. But the AP points to government data and peer-reviewed journal articles to back its claims.
  • For a brief overview, the AP offers up a fact sheet.

We can pretend all we like but ethanol is not the answer….may be, at best, one of the pillars of Independence….but by NO means a solitary solution.

The Truth About Renewables

Remember back about 6 months ago when gas prices were through the roof and it was all Obama’s fault….his policies were driving the prices of gas…..fast forward to today….gas prices are below $3 in some ares…and yet it is not Obama’s fault or his policies that are causing the price to drop…..why is that?

Sorry about that…but I had to get it off my chest…….and point a finger (middle one would be fine) at the morons that trys to tie gas prices to anything a president does….shows a serious lack of knowledge….but when have some ever let facts get in the way of their bullsh*t?

This post is about renewable energy and the problems……well the biggest problem…..

Electricity generated from renewable sources such as wind, marine and solar helps to cut carbon emissions by reducing the need for fossil fuel power generation. Renewable energy can also diversify supplies, helping to make a power system more resilient to failures and less exposed to fluctuating fuel prices. However, renewables pose a challenge in the form of intermittency, as their output varies with the available sunlight, wind speeds and wave activity.

Managing intermittency while keeping the system reliable can add costs. When renewables supply only a small proportion of the power on a grid this effect is negligible but as the proportion increases the costs can become more significant. For example, estimates suggest that managing intermittency would add about 1p to a unit of wind energy in the UK should wind supply around 30% of electricity. (That’s around a tenth of the current retail cost of power.)

In some situations, however, renewables can help meet peak demand, reducing the need for grid upgrading or new power stations. For example, in cities where the peak demand is for air-conditioning, solar generators can help supply power at peak times. Solar power can make a strong contribution to daytime power needs even in cloudier countries, as German experience has shown. Moreover, modern weather forecasting means that wind speeds can be predicted quite accurately over four-hour periods. This allows a planned response to variable generation.

In future, other options for managing intermittency may become cheaper. This will decrease the cost of adding renewables to the grid and allow the share of renewables to grow. Connecting grids over large geographical areas allows renewable power from a variety of climates to be combined, reducing overall variability and sharing out ‘backup’ fossil fuel power stations more widely. Storing electricity tends to be expensive, but innovation in storage technologies could make electrical backup systems cheaper. Finally, changes in consumer behaviour can help balance renewable electricity supply and demand. For example, the introduction of ‘smart’ meters will allow prices to be changed across the day to encourage people to shift consumption towards times of abundant supply. Householders in the UK have already been found to reduce their overall power use and shift towards daytime consumption after installing solar on their homes.

As the UK’s Guardian pointed out there can be some power problems with renewables….but personally I think it is worth the effort to try them and lessen our dependence on fossil fuel…..that is something we will never have until it is all gone….and then only then will companies start taking renewables seriously….

Safe, Clean Energy

That is what we are subjected to daily from the Nat. Gas people….they are pushing for more drilling in the US and selling the idea that it is cleaner then the alternative…..that it will be better for the environment……….is it?

From an article in Pro Publica……..

Advocates for natural gas routinely assert that it produces 50 percent less greenhouse gases than coal and is a significant step toward a greener energy future. But those assumptions are based on emissions from the tailpipe or smokestack and don’t account for the methane and other pollution emitted when gas is extracted and piped to power plants and other customers.

The EPA’s new analysis doubles its previous estimates for the amount of methane gas that leaks from loose pipe fittings and is vented from gas wells, drastically changing the picture of the nation’s emissions that the agency painted as recently as April. Calculations for some gas-field emissions jumped by several hundred percent. Methane levels from the hydraulic fracturing of shale gas were 9,000 times higher than previously reported.

Billions of cubic feet of climate-changing greenhouse gases—roughly the equivalent of the annual emissions from 35 million automobiles—seep from loose pipe valves or are vented intentionally from gas production facilities into the atmosphere each year, according to the EPA. Gas drilling emissions alone account for at least one-fifth of human-caused methane in the world’s atmosphere, the World Bank estimates, and as more natural gas is drilled, the EPA expects these emissions to increase dramatically.

But roughly half of the 1,600 gas-fired power plants in the United States operate at the lowest end of the efficiency spectrum. And even before the EPA sharply revised its data, these plants were only 32 percent cleaner than coal, according to a lifecycle analysis by Paulina Jaramillo, an energy expert and associate professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University.

So we see that the promise of clean safe energy source maybe what it sounds like….too goo to be true…..and we know what they say about that…….don’t we?  If I recall correctly back in 2008, the McCain/Palin ticket, had this plank that was basically “cap and trade”…….but now Palin is calling it cap and tax……see if you snooze you lose….it is virtually impossible to keep up with politics and its leap Right, if you only watch the news once a day….

And the dance goes on for alt energy….but can we have an energy source that does not include drilling the crap out of the earth?  We need a renewable source that is almost limitless…..nat gas does not meet that criteria……but yet the Prez thinks it is a good idea….why?

Can we please stop all this now?  NOTHING will be done!  You know…..I know it…..Obama knows it!

Can The Addict Be Weaned?

Daily Agitator

It is all the rage now on the airwaves, everybody has jumped on the bandwagon of trying to break the US addiction to oil.  All I can say is…..GOOD LUCK with that.

First a little history in case you are not aware of the facts about our energy issues…..

From Info Ink page, “Will The Addict Return?”

If you can remember back to the 70’s when there was an energy addiction that made for an energy crisis.  We all started to think of ways to kick our oil habit like alt energy, wind, solar and other energy saving measures and for awhile we were moving in the right direction and were kicking the monkey on our backs.  But unfortunately we fell off our wagon.  The pushers, the oil companies, in the 80’s made the price of gas and oil cheaper and we stated thinking that we were not all that bad for the addiction.  It was something that we could live with.  We wanted our 4 gallon to the mile Hummers.  We began feeding our need heavier than before.

So the idea of a more liberal alt energy program as something new is just ignorant…….every president since Jimmy Carter has had the plan to break our dependence and so for we are more heavily addicted with the passing of each president.  The question to ask is, “Are we truly serious about breaking our dependence on foreign oil?”

You, personally, may be….but the government is NOT!  As usual, the government is offering a band-aid for a gunshot wound….absolutely NO one in Washington is truly supporting a total independence……they were not in the 70’s and they are NOT today.

Americans have talked a mean game, but NO where are they prepared to give up their addiction.  As long as the drug of choice is inexpensive enough to allow them to drive a car that gets 4 gallons to the mile then they will continue to use and use and use…..no matter how good the intention…actions speak louder.

So, to answer the question, “Can the addict be weaned?”….the answer is yes but it will be painful….and that is politically bad and will not be used….they will continue to offer up incremental changes that does little to solve the addiction problem….like the CAFE……does little about consumption of the drug…..the addict is here to stay and the government will make sure of it, as long as they work as paid agents for the suppliers of the drug….. oil industry.

A Side Note:  The new Energy bill is living proof of how the oil industry has its tentacles into the process……here is the new bill synopsis:

The bill includes as its centerpiece “oil spill response” legislation that would: require BP to pay for damage from its spill; require oil companies to invest in new spill cleanup and prevention technologies; improve federal spill response; reform the Minerals Management Service; and update maritime laws.

But other aspects of the bill, according to a draft summary of the legislation, step into other energy arenas by:

  • Providing incentives for turning the nation‘s heavy truck fleet to natural gas and toward electrification of the nation‘s transportation sector.
  • Promoting “clean energy job creation” providing $5 billion of rebates to encourage homeowners to make efficiency upgrades as part of the Home Star program.
  • Fully funding a Land and Water Conservation Fund over the next five years to ensure that vital US lands and waters are protected into the future from climate change damage.
  • Increasing the $1 billion liability cap of the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to $5 billion and increasing fees to pay for it by requiring that oil companies pay 49 cents per barrel into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.

This bill is a FAR cry from the bill promised by the Prez and his boyz…..it is weak…it is wimpy….it is impotent!   Nothing to control emissions…..EMISSIONS……that is the main problem that needs to be addressed and nothing……..all I can say is that the money spent by energy companies was well used….

So “Can the addict be weaned”?….. NOT BY THIS BATCH OF COWARDS!

Another side note:  the new Chevy electric car will start at $41,000…..yea!  That should get the Americans to think about a change……how many working people can afford that price?

I Have Gas!

Quick run to the car!

This is a novel idea to help break the dependence on foreign oil or coal, for that matter.  Reuters is reporting a innovated idea.

Manchester’s toilets will soon be contributing to the local gas network under a green energy project planned by United Utilities Group Plc and National Grid Plc.In a UK first, the two companies plan to turn a by-product of the wastewater treatment plant at Davyhulme in Manchester, northwest England into gas for the local network and fuel for a fleet of sludge tankers.

The Mancunian biogas will be upgraded to remove carbon dioxide and trace elements, leaving biomethane which will be conditioned with propane and odorants before being pumped into the network and back into their homes.

“Biomethane is a fuel for the future,” Janine Freeman, head of National Grid‘s Sustainable Gas Group said. “Not only are we reusing a waste product, but biomethane is a renewable fuel, so we helping to meet the country’s target of 15 percent of all our energy coming from renewable sources by 2020.”

Biogas is produced through a process called “anaerobic digestion” when wastewater sludge is broken down by the action of microbes.

“It is a very valuable resource and it’s completely renewable. By harnessing this free energy we can reduce our fuel bills and reduce our carbon footprint.”

One of United Utilities’ sludge tankers has already been converted to run on the gas and the company expects to save hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in fuel costs with the 24 tankers it aims to convert initially.

It was not clear whether Manchester’s home-made gas suppliers will get a discount on their own bills for their efforts.

IMO, this is an excellent idea….any idea that can generate enough product to keep the use of foreign oil down; is an excellent idea.

McCain And Alt Energy

IN the last two debates MvcCain has said much about alt energy but in reality he has not been that keen on it.
For the second straight presidential debate, John McCain delivered a confused and misleading picture of his position on renewable energy sources. In the Oct. 15th debate, McCain said, “So the point is, with nuclear power, with wind, tide, solar, natural gas, with the development of flex fuel, hybrid, clean coal technology, clean coal technology is a key in the heartland of America that is hurting rather badly. So I think we can easily within seven, eight, ten years, if we put our minds to it, we can eliminate our dependence on the places in the world that harm our national security if we don’t achieve our independence from it.”

While this rhetoric is laudable, it simply doesn’t reflect John McCain’s actual record on alternative energy. Between 1992 and 2006, McCain voted against tax incentives for the renewable energy sector at least nine times, according to the Senate record. Between 2002 and 2005, as the public grew more in favor of promoting alternative energy sources, McCain vote four times to block renewable energy mandates. And between 1992 and 2005, McCain voted an additional 12 times against alternative energy proposals.

John McCain has insisted that he has supported “alternate fuel all of my time,” but he just hasn’t seemed to ever cast his Senate vote for it. A recent analysis of McCain’s record by FactCheck.org showed that while McCain has lent rhetorical support for renewable energy, as a Senator “he has declined opportunities to support it.”

Sorry, but there is not much rubber left on the tires of the “Straight Talk Express”.  The “straight shooter” is shooting himself in the foot.  Does anyone in the McCain campaign know how to use a pc?