The excerpt below is just another confirmation of the move toward renewable and sustainable energy. It also speaks volumes to the shift in the attractive investment market in green technologies… specifically solar!
“Solar power grew most rapidly, attracting US $28.6 billion of new capital and growing at an average annual rate of 254% since 2004″
Photo Credit: Warren Gretz
The link to the full article is below.
Peace,
Bruce
###
London, UK [RenewableEnergyWorld.com] July 3, 2008
Worries about climate change, support from world governments, rising oil prices and ever present energy security concerns combined to fuel another record-setting year of investment in the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries in 2007, according to an analysis issued by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Globally, more than US $148 billion in new funding entered the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors last year, up 60% from 2006, even as a credit crunch began to roil financial markets toward the end of the year. This is the finding of the report, Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2008, prepared by UK-based New Energy Finance for UNEP’s Paris-based Sustainable Energy Finance Initiative.
“The clean energy industry is maturing and its backers remain bullish. These findings should empower governments-both North and South-to reach a deep and meaningful new agreement by the crucial climate convention meeting in Copenhagen in late 2009,” said Achim Steiner, the head of UNEP.
This is a very interesting article that is addressing exactly the same issues we are facing here in the US with moving toward decentralized energy distribution. Note the bold text below. It is exactly what Rob, myself and others have been saying about decentralized renewable energy.
In-joy,
Bruce
excerpts from:
### Will Renewables Trump Nuclear in Ontario?
by Stephen Lacey, Staff Writer and Lily Riahi, Correspondent
Ontario, Canada [RenewableEnergyWorld.com] July 2, 2008
In Canada these days, it’s almost impossible to talk about renewable energy without talking about nuclear power. With the recent freezing of Ontario’s Renewable Energy Payment (REP) system and a proposal from the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) to procure 14,000 megawatts (MW) of nuclear power over the coming decades, many in the industry question whether politicians and regulators in the province are serious about developing renewable energy.
Now Ontario — considered Canada’s most progressive renewable energy market — has become a staging ground for a philosophical war over how to develop the future energy market. The battle cry from the renewable energy industry was sounded at the World Wind Energy Conference in Kingston, Ontario last week, as advocates and businesses called on the OPA and government officials to make distributed generation a priority over centralized generation.
To illustrate that nuclear does not have to play such a prominent role, OSEA has rolled out a Green Energy Act campaign to raise awareness about the possibility of Ontario meeting 100 percent of its electricity demand from renewable resources within the same time frame proposed in the recent IPSP. But only when renewables are made a priority over nuclear can the province achieve such an ambitious goal, say advocates of the Green Energy Act.
“The government priorities are a bit puzzling. You wonder why renewable energy acquisition is put on hold while at the same time big announcements are made about nuclear energy,” said CANREA’s Peters. “It’s a bit difficult to understand how the government can say that renewable energy is the cornerstone of a good policy, while at the same time make such big investments in nuclear.”
“The Promise
Every hour, the sun delivers as much energy to the Earth as all of humanity uses in a year. The total energy from just 20 days of sunshine is equal to all the energy available in the total reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas.
If we converted only 10 percent of this solar energy into electricity, a square of land 100 miles on a side (about 0.26 percent of America’s total land area) could meet all of America’s electricity needs.”
This is such a welcome trend to see educated, environmntally concious consumers, making their choices based upon their concern for our planet and each other. A recent rmarketing eport from Unity Marketing has clearly indentified the luxury market is responding to the green market and it is not a fad or trendy short lived part of the economy. With gas prices exploding and climate change being a real concern not just the treehuggers and fashion challenged granola-heads are voting with their consuming choices and pocket books. Here is an excerpt from the article:
###
The Luxury Market Is Going Green — Luxury Brands Can’t Afford to Ignore It
Unity Marketing’s latest trend report uncovers strategies for targeting the affluent “Green” consumer
Stevens, PA June 6, 2008 — The typical ‘green’ consumer is no longer certain to be a fashion-challenged, granola-crunching wearer of Birkenstocks. Today, the consumer looking to go green is increasingly likely to be an affluent professional woman wearing an eco-friendly and animal-free Stella McCartney suit and satin shoes. And if you want her dollars and her loyalty, you need to pay attention to the priorities she finds important when making her selection of luxury goods and services.
Green luxury consumers look for social responsibility before making a purchase
According to Unity Marketing’s latest trend report on luxury, Green Marketing and the Luxury Consumer, luxury consumers are concerned about the environmental issues that hit closest to home, citing fuel and energy shortages and the use of renewable energy sources as top concerns. “With gas prices at $4 a gallon — and this might be the summer low — even the affluent find it hard to ignore the impact of filling your tank a couple of times a week,” says Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing and author of Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer Experience.
However, luxury consumers are also looking beyond themir pocketbooks to larger issues, like protecting the environment, global warming and avoiding water and air pollution. And the leaders on these issues are affluent women.
###
There is a $230 billion marketplace that exists for products and services that meet the needs of consumers who buy based on their personal, social and environmental values. This marketplace is predicted to grow to $845 billion by 2015! Here is Colette Chandler, Green Marketing expert, talking about the effects of Green Marketing and how consumer trends are driving profit… GO GREEN!
So going green and having some green now go together. It is great to see how the power of one person making green choices with their consuming can in deed change the world. I think another major shift is happening in the choices for the quality of the foods we eat. Qrganic, non-irradiated, Monsanto-free foods should be the norm. If the corporate strangle hold of our FDA drives their decisions… we can undernine the corporations by what we are willing to purchase…. one person… one purchase at a time… :~)
Peace,
That is exactly what Biosolar, a Santa Clarita, California based company is doing. Their CEO, Dr. David Lee, knows a bit about the current components of standard photovoltaic panels. He expects Biosolar to begin contribuing to a greener version of photovoltaic solar panels.
Biosolar’s goal: to replace all the pretoleum-based materials and glass coatings now used in current photovoltaic cells. Dr. Lee explained that up to 25% of the cost of any current solar panel is actually taken up with the coatings, front and back, portions not used to generate electricity. Portions that currently are made from petroleum, or glass, not renewable resources.
BioSolar, Inc. has developed a breakthrough technology to produce bio-based materials from renewable plant sources that will reduce the cost per watt of solar cells. Most of the solar industry is focused on photovoltaic efficiency to reduce cost. BioSolar is the first company to introduce a new dimension of cost reduction by replacing petroleum-based plastic solar cell components with durable bio-based components. Through the advanced manipulation of bio-based polymers, BioSolar intends to produce robust bio-based components that meet the stringent thermal and durability requirements of current solar cell manufacturing processes.
BioSolar materials can be used directly in conventional manufacturing systems, such as injection molding and thin-film roll-to-roll, to create superstrate layer, substrate layer, backsheet as well as module and panel components. Whether solar cells are produced using crystalline silicon, amorphous silicon or other solar technologies, BioSolar can help reduce the cost per watt through the use of its lower cost bio-based materials. By removing petroleum from solar cells, BioSolar makes solar energy a true green source of energy.
And doing this with plants not made from food crops! What a great green idea!
From: The Rocky Mountian Institute
- Amory B. Lovins, Imran Sheikh, and Alex Markevich
“Nuclear power, we’re told, is a vibrant industry that’s dramatically reviving because it’s proven, necessary, competitive, reliable, safe, secure, widely used, increasingly popular, and carbon-free—a perfect replacement for carbon-spewing coal power. New nuclear plants thus sound vital for climate protection, energy security, and powering a growing economy. There’s a catch, though: the private capitalmarket isn’t investing in new nuclear plants, and without financing, capitalist utilities aren’t buying. The few purchases, nearly all in Asia, are all made by central planners with a draw on the public purse. In the United States, even government subsidies approaching or exceeding new nuclear power’s total cost have failed to entice Wall Street.
This non-technical summary article compares the cost, climate protection potential, reliability, financial risk, market success, deployment speed, and energy contribution of new nuclear power with those of its low- or no-carbon competitors. It explains why soaring taxpayer subsidies aren’t attracting investors. Capitalists instead favor climate-protecting competitors with less cost, construction time, and financial risk. The nuclear industry claims it has no serious rivals, let alone those competitors—which, however, already outproduce nuclear power worldwide and are growing enormously faster.
Most remarkably, comparing all options’ ability to protect the earth’s climate and enhance energy security reveals why nuclear power could never deliver these promised benefits even if it could find free-market buyers—while its carbon-free rivals, which won $71 billion of private investment in 2007 alone, do offer highly effective climate and security solutions, sooner, with greater confidence.”
Conclusion
So why do otherwise well-informed people still consider nuclear power a key element of a sound climate strategy? Not because that belief can withstand analytic scrutiny. Rather, it seems, because of a superficially attractive story, an immensely powerful and effective lobby, a new generation who forgot or never knew why nuclear power failed previously (almost nothing has changed), sympathetic leaders of nearly all main governments, deeply rooted habits and rules that favor giant power plants over distributed solutions and enlarged supply over efficient use, the market winners’ absence from many official databases (which often count only big plants owned by utilities), and lazy reporting by an unduly credulous press.
Isn’t it time we forgot about nuclear power? Informed capitalists have. Politicians and pundits should too. After more than half a century of devoted effort and a half-trillion dollars of public subsidies, nuclear power still can’t make its way in the market. If we accept that unequivocal verdict, we can at last get on with the best buys first: proven and ample ways to save more carbon per dollar, faster, more surely, more securely, and with wider consensus. As often before, the biggest key to a sound climate and security strategy is to take market economics seriously.
###
RMI -The Pursuit of Interconnections A Solution to One Problem May Lead to Solutions For Others
“A feature that distinguishes RMI from almost every other organization is its unceasing search for interconnections between issues normally viewed as unrelated. The following story illustrates why we believe so strongly in the importance of a “vision across boundaries.”
In the early 1950s, the Dayak people of Borneo suffered from malaria. The World Health Organization (WHO) had a solution: it sprayed large amounts of DDT to kill the mosquitoes that carried the malaria. The mosquitoes died; the malaria declined; so far, so good. But there were side effects. Among the first was that the roofs of people’s houses began to fall down on their heads. It seemed that the DDT was also killing a parasitic wasp that had previously controlled thatch-eating caterpillars. Worse, the DDT-poisoned insects were eaten by geckos, which were eaten by cats. The cats started to die, the rats flourished, and the people were threatened by potential outbreaks of typhus and plague. To cope with these problems, which it had itself created, the World Health Organization was obliged to parachute 14,000 live cats into Borneo (See: “How Not to Parachute More Cats”).
The true story of Operation Cat Drop — now nearly forgotten at WHO — illustrates that if you don’t know how things are interconnected, then often the cause of problems is solutions. On the other hand, if you understand the hidden connections between energy, climate, water, agriculture, transportation, security, commerce, and economic and social development, then you can often devise a solution to one problem (such as energy) that will also create solutions to many other problems at no extra cost. Crafting solutions so that they multiply is RMI’s credo and the basis of its success.”
###
“I have summarized my discovery of the option of humanity to become omnieconomically and sustainably successful on our planet while phasing out forever all use of fossil fuels and atomic energy generation other than the Sun. I have presented my plan for using our increasing technical ability to construct high-voltage, superconductive transmission lines and implement an around-the-world electrical energy grid integrating the daytime and nighttime hemispheres, thus swiftly increasing the operating capacity of the world’s electrical energy system and, concomitantly, living standard in an unprecedented feat of international cooperation.”
“When Buckminster Fuller was asked by a 12 year old boy, “How would you suggest solving international problems without violence?” he answered: “I always try to solve problems by some artifact, some tool or invention that makes what people are doing obsolete, so that it makes this particular kind of problem no longer relevant. My answer would be to develop a world energy grid, an electric grid where everybody is on the same grid.
All of a sudden there would be no problems any more, no international troubles. Our new economic basis wouldn’t be gold or dollars; it would be kilowatt hours.”
Fuller’s Earth, 1983, Richard Brenneman
“Because energy is wealth, the integrating world industrial networks promise ultimate access of all humanity everywhere to the total operative commonwealth of earth.”
Utopia or Oblivion, 1969, Fuller
“This now feasible, intercontinental network would integrate America, Asia and Europe, and integrate the night-and-day, spherically shadow-and-light zones of Planet Earth. And this would occasion the 24-hour use of the now only fifty per cent of the time used world-around standby generator capacity, whose fifty per cent unused capacities heretofore were mandatorily required only for peakload servicing of local non-interconnected energy users. Such intercontinental network integration would overnight double the already-installed and in-use, electric power generating capacity of our Planet.”
Telegram to Senator Edmund Muskie, Earth, Inc., 1973, Fuller.
Two decades
ago, the late R. Buckminster Fuller
proposed interconnecting regional power
systems into a single continuous global electrical
energy grid. • While this vision is still years away, tech-
nological advances have made the linking of international and
inter regional energy networks practicable today. • Transmission
lines allow utilities to level the peaks and valleys of demand. This is
accomplished between East-West time zones, as well as North-South
seasonal variations in demand. • The origin of the energy grid initiative
emerged as the highest priority of the World Game™. Its stated purpose
is “to make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible
time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or the
disadvantage of anyone.” Research reveals that these major benefits will
result from expanding electrical networks. • Increase in everyone’s stan-
dard of living • Reduction of fossil fuel demand and the resultant pollu-
tion • Relief of the population explosion • Reduction of world hunger
• Enhancement of world trade • Promotion of international
cooperation and peace • The purpose of GENI, Global
Energy Network Institute, is to educate all people,
especially world leaders, to the potential
benefits of this global
solution. •
THE CASE AGAINST NEW NUKES as a CURE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
Debunking the ‘Nuclear Renaissance’ (Jan.2008)
Michael Mariotte, Executive Director of the Washington, D.C. based Nuclear Information Resource service ( http://www.nirs.org/ ), talks about the many reasons that the claim - made by such pundits as James Lovelock and Stewart Brand - that a crash buildout of a new generation of nuclear power plants is a rational and necessary response to global climate change is a dangerous fallacy. He ticks off the list of counter-arguements - including waste storage, cost overruns, terrorism and nuclear weapons proliferation - and builds the cast for using our dwindling resources to develop renewable energy sources, rather than squander them on a ‘nuclear power renaissance’ which is doomed to fail.
The reason I started this thread was to forget nuclear and ReThink Solar. Or in other words… support our solar industry and allow the nuclear industry get out of our way.
No matter what the debate is about nuclear the fact is that if congress continues to pour good money after bad into a failed technology such as nuclear they are NOT helping our baby Citizenre walk or eventually to fly.
The real solution is all the renewables and conservation.
I am all for looking at as many solutions to the energy crisis as possible. Nuclear has played out it’s role and it is time for it to fade away. We have new and better technologies that will FAR out shine the toxic, unsafe and mushrooming expense of nuclear energy. (funny analogy huh?)
In it’s current incarnation or anytime soon… I don’t see nuclear as a viable part of our future… it does not make sense or cents.
Below is a five part educational program on “Good Nukes.” Well worth your time if you want to know more about the nuclear energy industry’s propaganda. It an older piece of anti-nuke propaganda that is full of facts still valid today…. in fact even more so.
They are eye openers not only on why more nukes would be a mistake on their own… but most importantly… why we need to focus on renewables NOW!
1832-1839
Scottish inventor Robert Anderson invents the first crude electric carriage powered by non-rechargeable primary cells.
1835
American Thomas Davenport is credited with building the first practical electric vehicle — a small locomotive.
1859
French physicist Gaston Planté invents the rechargeable lead-acid storage battery. In 1881, his countryman Camille Faure will improve the storage battery’s ability to supply current and invent the basic lead-acid battery used in automobiles.
1891
William Morrison of Des Moines, Iowa builds the first successful electric automobile in the United States.
1897
The first electric taxis hit the streets of New York City early in the year. The Pope Manufacturing Company of Connecticut becomes the first large-scale American electric automobile manufacturer.
1899
Believing that electricity will run autos in the future, Thomas Alva Edison begins his mission to create a long-lasting, powerful battery for commercial automobiles. Though his research yields some improvements to the alkaline battery, he ultimately abandons his quest a decade later.
1900
The electric automobile is in its heyday. Of the 4,192 cars produced in the United States 28 percent are powered by electricity, and electric autos represent about one-third of all cars found on the roads of New York City, Boston, and Chicago.
A Ford Model T 1908
Henry Ford introduces the mass-produced and gasoline-powered Model T, which will have a profound effect on the U.S. automobile market.
1912
Charles Kettering invents the first practical electric automobile starter. Kettering’s invention makes gasoline-powered autos more alluring to consumers by eliminating the unwieldy hand crank starter and ultimately helps pave the way for the electric car’s demise.
1920
During the 1920s the electric car ceases to be a viable commercial product. The electric car’s downfall is attributable to a number of factors, including the desire for longer distance vehicles, their lack of horsepower, and the ready availability of gasoline.
1966
Congress introduces the earliest bills recommending use of electric vehicles as a means of reducing air pollution. A Gallup poll indicates that 33 million Americans are interested in electric vehicles.
1970s
Concerns about the soaring price of oil — peaking with the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973 — and a growing environmental movement result in renewed interests in electric cars from both consumers and producers.
1972
Victor Wouk, the “Godfather of the Hybrid,” builds the first full-powered, full-size hybrid vehicle out of a 1972 Buick Skylark provided by General Motors (G.M.) for the 1970 Federal Clean Car Incentive Program. The Environmental Protection Association later kills the program in 1976.
Vanguard-Sebring’s CitiCar 1974
Vanguard-Sebring’s CitiCar makes its debut at the Electric Vehicle Symposium in Washington, D.C. The CitiCar has a top speed of over 30 mph and a reliable warm-weather range of 40 miles. By 1975 the company is the sixth largest automaker in the U.S. but is dissolved only a few years later.
1975
The U.S. Postal Service purchases 350 electric delivery jeeps from AM General, a division of AMC, to be used in a test program.
1976
Congress passes the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Research, Development, and Demonstration Act. The law is intended to spur the development of new technologies including improved batteries, motors, and other hybrid-electric components.
1988
Roger Smith, CEO of G.M. , agrees to fund research efforts to build a practical consumer electric car. G.M. teams up with California’s AeroVironment to design what would become the EV1, which one employee called “the world’s most efficient production vehicle.” Some electric vehicle enthusiasts have speculated that the EV1 was never undertaken as a serious commercial venture by the large automaker.
1990
California passes its Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate, which requires two percent of the state’s vehicles to have no emissions by 1998 and 10 percent by 2003. The law is repeatedly weakened over the next decade to reduce the number of pure ZEVs it requires.
1997
Toyota unveils the Prius — the world’s first commercially mass-produced and marketed hybrid car — in Japan. Nearly 18,000 units are sold during the first production year.
1997 - 2000
A few thousand all-electric cars (such as Honda’s EV Plus, G.M.’s EV1, Ford’s Ranger pickup EV, Nissan’s Altra EV, Chevy’s S-10 EV, and Toyota’s RAV4 EV) are produced by big car manufacturers, but most of them are available for lease only. All of the major automakers’ advanced all-electric production programs will be discontinued by the early 2000s.
2002
G.M. and DaimlerChrysler sue the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to repeal the ZEV mandate first passed in 1990. The Bush Administration joins that suit.
Crushed EV1 electric cars 2003
G.M. announces that it will not renew leases on its EV1 cars saying it can no longer supply parts to repair the vehicles and that it plans to reclaim the cars by the end of 2004. 2005
On February 16, electric vehicle enthusiasts begin a “Don’t Crush” vigil to stop G.M. from demolishing 78 impounded EV1s in Burbank, California. The vigil ends twenty-eight days later when G.M. removes the cars from the facility. In the film “Who Killed the Electric Car” G.M. spokesman Dave Barthmuss states that the EV1s are to be recycled, not just crushed.
2006
A few pure electric cars and plug-in hybrids are in limited production and new ones are on the horizon. Experts differ on how soon rising oil prices, peak oil forecasts, changing fortunes at car companies, and public demand for cars that run without gasoline will resurrect the mass market for electric car in the twenty-first century. The success of the gasoline hybrid Toyota Prius is a promising sign.
Sources: Hybridcars.com: History, Electric Auto Association: Electric Vehicle History, IEEE Power Engineering Society: “Electric Vehicles In The Early Years Of The Automobile” by Carl Sulzberger, About.com: The History of Electric Vehicles, Econogics: EV History, Smithsonian Institution: Edison After Forty, Who Killed the Electric Car?
Is this blog post accountable for even more CO2 in the atmosphere? Yep.
Two student entrepreneurs decided to do something about it. Now with over 1 million visitors they are having an impact and are looking to take the next step by finding green advertizing dollars to. empowured.net is proud to support them.
One who is mostly an observer thrives in good times but suffers in bad times because what he is observing is already vibrating, and as he observes it, he includes it in his vibrational countenance. As he includes it, the Universe accepts that as his point of attraction and gives him more of it. So the better it gets the better it gets. Or the worse it gets the worse it gets. While one who is a visionary thrives in all times. — Abraham-Hicks
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