The Future Could Not Be Clearer for Renewable Energy

[kristopher]

Garvin Jabusch, Green Alpha Advisors
May 30, 2013

<snip>

Renewable energies and sustainable practices can now credibly be said to have the power to increase our standards of living since they provide far greater benefits for far less cost than their economic predecessors. Moreover, since fossil fuels are demonstrably destructive - to the point that their use threatens our society and its ecological underpinnings - arguments that continuing to expand their use somehow minimizes economic risks are nonsense on their face. On the contrary, it’s now clear that failing to reduce use of fossil fuels is among the riskiest things we can do.

Piecing together how the emerging sustainable economy might look turns out to be surprisingly simple, at least in principle. In each area of the economy, we need ask only two questions of each of the various ways of doing business:
Is it notably less destructive to our economy’s ecological underpinnings than other methods of getting the same result?
Can it be employed via a working, profitable business model that lifts the economy and provides employment?


If the answer to both is yes, there’s a good chance that we’ve identified a next economy business idea. Getting at the same things another way, we might ask of a business:
Is it environmentally sustainable?
Is it economically sustainable?

Different people will bring different standards of ‘sustainable’ to this way of defining the green economy, so there will be lots going on and a ton to learn as we piece together the next economy, but the principle, if not the execution, is not complicated. Ideas that lighten our footprint on global ecologies while simultaneously accelerating the world’s economy are emerging, they’re working, and they have every chance of radically altering our up-till-now recklessly destructive path....

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/05/the-future-could-not-be-clearer-for-renewable-energy?cmpid=WNL-Friday-May31-2013

[kristopher]

1. Really interesting comment to that article

12,000 tons of new ultra-low water use, non-food pure oil fuel crop cultivars planted, grown, and harvested, without petroleum fueled tractors is one of the fundamentals of the Carbontech Cooperative, Inc. renewable energy project. The crop grain is processed in distributed facilities to produce pure oil for jet fuel, lubricants, and additives. The cellulosic bagasse from the crop is employed as feedstock on the same site without the use of water, enzyme, acids, or other chemical preparation in a modest-temperature (600 degrees F) small cookie-cutter engineered non-pyrolysis bioreactor. The Organic Energy Transfer (OET, LLC) bioreactor was first proven by University of Arizona research in 1978. The OET bioreactor produces a new long-chain hydrocarbon modern organic crude oil (MOCO) that contrasts to antique organic crude oil (FOSSIL). MOCO is 100% soluble in FOSSIL. Has high aromatic and many of the chemical characteristics of Sweet West Texas Intermediate FOSSIL. MOCO can be used as an asphalt or coal fine binder, or refined by an adjoining small-footprint bio refinery to produce FOSSIL compatible, green diesel and green gasoline. The emission from the bioreactor is odor and smoke negligible. The process recycles and employs much of the CO released from the process. The green methane emission from the biorefinery is captured and directed on an on-site non-water use gas generator. The generator produces QF certified REA electricity to power the facility, provide thermal energy to dry the pure oil seed and bagasse, and deliver QF certified dispatchable around the clock electricity to a local substation. Another residue of the process is substantially sanitary high-value field crop fertilizer, and grey water for agriculture, or that can easily be cleaned for drinking water. The MOCO and organic wastes to green products, green fuels, and green electricity is the Carbontech Cooperative, Inc. project has been developed under the radar without publicity. The strategically integrated agriculture program includes the University of Arizona Colleges of Agriculture and Agriculture Research Farm, BioEngineering, and Chemical Engineering, the USDA ARS, the Institute of Technology and Science of Northern Mexico, and numerous small business members of the Cooperative. The program is designed to use previously unused arid, semi-arid, and salt contaminated lands in the 20 western states and northern Mexico. The program is not on the WEB by choice. Information is available to all interested parties after execution of an NDA. For an NDA please contact:
Bob Shatz, COO, Carbontech Cooperative, Inc. [e-mail]

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/05/the-future-could-not-be-clearer-for-renewable-energy?cmpid=WNL-Friday-May31-2013

[dumbcat]

2. I saw that article early this morning.

I wondered if you were the author. It sounded so much like you.

That's not your real name, right?

[kristopher]

3. Is it true...

...that you are still abusing your pets?

That is what you screen name means, right?

(just wanted to post something that demonstrates the level of your previous comment.)

[dumbcat]

5. No.

"That is what you (sic) screen name means, right?"

No, my screen name is from a TV show in the 50's.

I see this isn't going anywhere productive, so I bid you adieu.

[dumbcat]

4. Here is another article I saw this morning.

It sounded like many here would agree with it.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2013/06/its-time-to-invest-in-a-21st-century-power-system

A modern power system takes advantage of the latest technologies to meet the growing demand for reliable energy. Increased distributed generation will protect homes, businesses, and industries from cascading blackouts by mitigating the impact of any single power station or transmission line failing. Intelligent grid solutions — such as demand response, advanced inverters, and energy storage — enhance the ability of the grid to ride through potential disruptions, while locally balancing all vital dimensions of the power grid: energy, voltage, and frequency. Importantly, distributed generation integrated with intelligent grid solutions delivers power without sags, surges, or other disruptions in voltage or frequency that currently plague manufacturing lines and sensitive electronics. In addition, modern grids lay the foundation for standalone energy "islands" to provide continuous power for essential services during widespread grid failures, which several universities and research facilities successfully relied on for power during Hurricane Sandy's costly and prolonged outages.

Despite broad claims that renewable energy is unreliable and expensive, the exact opposite has been proven true. As Germany and Denmark have shown, renewables are intermittent but not unpredictable, and superior grid reliability can be achieved even with far higher penetration levels of renewables than the U.S. is anticipating within the next 10 years.

A failure by the U.S. to invest in a 21st-century power system would prove significantly more expensive than the cost of transitioning to a modern power system. The Galvin Electricity Institute estimates that the annual cost of power outages is more than double the annual cost of preventative intelligent grid investments. To even maintain our antiquated power system, massive investments estimated at $673 billion are needed by 2020. Why not invest this money into the creation of a modern power system that is actually capable of meeting the full set of America's energy needs?

The Clean Coalition has developed a roadmap for the United States to achieve a timely and cost-effective modern energy system. The roadmap includes summaries of the key technologies and policy solutions for getting there efficiently. As long as the nation continues to rely on centralized energy generation and over 280,000 miles of transmission lines, the power system will remain overly vulnerable to widespread failures from accident, weather, and intentional attack. It's time for America to invest in a 21st-century power system, rather than spending hundreds of billions of dollars maintaining a pitifully outdated one.