E is for Energy

We are blessed to have so many brilliant minds creating our renewable energy future NOW! Let’s use them today to create the future we all want.

The area of renewable energy production that we will explore today is called wave energy.

Aquamarine’s wave generator

This is, to pull a pun, the wave of the future. Using nothing more than the action of waves moving towards a beach, this design can harvest the energy within the wave. Electricity generated by this action is constant, like nuclear power.

One of the LIES used to promote new nuclear power projects is that it is the only way to provide a constant source of power.  A constant source of energy is required to keep the national grid operating. This is called the grid ‘baseline.’

Every National Grid Needs a Base line

This graph is for the US grid but it is similar for the UK grid. Without a baseline of energy ‘charging’ the network of power lines, all your electricity production will sink into a black hole of energy loss. This black hole of demand is the grid itself.

Wave technology that can harvest the power of our shores will provide a constant source of energy. This constant source can be used to power our renewable energy grid of the future.

In our renewable energy future we wont have a power grid like the 19th century dinosaur we use today. Wave energy, wind farms, solar energy, and energy storage systems will make up our energy grid of the future.

We can do this!The only thing stopping the progress of renewable technologies are the greedy lying corporate interests that are ripping you off with ever higher energy bills. These corporations are being helped by the likes of David Cameron and his cronies.

Cameron has cut the Feed In Tariff, which cost UK workers between 30,000 – 40,000 jobs. Cameron then went to France to sign a new deal with EDF to build nuclear plants. Nuclear plants that the UK public have said over and over again that they don’t want. Nuclear plants that we would not need if the Feed In Tariff had been left alone to gradually reduce over time. Germany has created a mega solar industry using the same FIT method that Cameron trashed.

Cameron has now changed the government target for the ECO program. We will see 10,000 more jobs lost. Energy companies have already canceled contracts with major suppliers of efficiency measures and taken away the funding that supported these jobs. We will miss our carbon reduction targets and people will die in their thousands because of Cameron’s greed.

Germany employs over 300,000 workers in their renewable energy sector. We can do the same if we get Cameron and his Big Oil Cronies out of the way.

Wave technology is moving forward in Scotland. Jobs are being created. We can do the same thing in England. Please tell your MP to stop the madness and the greed of Cameron. Our future is at stake!

Write your MP now!

I used to have a great job. I went to work earlier than normal. I worked more than 8 hours a day, and I made a good wage. I sold insulation, boilers, and solar energy systems for home owners. They all loved their upgraded homes and their PV systems and are now enjoying the benefits of the FIT. They are warm and have lower energy bills.

David Cameron cut the FIT payment scheme by more than half and the great job ended. I was out of work, unable to support myself or my family. The higher tax rates I had been paying to the government turned into a JSA – Job seekers allowance payment to me. I was not alone. The entire division of my company that used to sell and install solar systems went under. The parent company was bought for peanuts by a capital investment company. More workers lost their jobs. Estimates are that the radical and needless cut in the FIT tariff caused around 40,000 to lose their jobs.

I have finally found a new job working for a big company selling insulation, boilers and solar systems. This company had contracted with the BIG 6 energy suppliers to use their ECO contributions to help those families in fuel poverty.

Over 2 million homes in the UK have problems with energy bills and have to chose between heating or eating. I have blogged in the past regarding the rip-off rises in electricity and gas over the last few years. Cameron has wrongly blamed these rises on the ECO and Green Deal programs that the government has put in place. This is not true. The cost increases are due to greedy energy suppliers who are manipulating the wholesale cost of energy and then passing the charges on to YOU the poor consumer. They make lots more money each time they do this.

Now Cameron is pushing back the ECO targets. Eco funding was set to help the poor and unfortunate who can’t heat their homes because it costs too much. New boilers and insulation in an older home will help reduce the costs of heating a home. It will also reduce our dependency on foreign fossil fuels and remove the need to frack in the UK.

The more energy efficient we become as a nation the more we become independent from foreign energy suppliers. Greater efficiency leads to reduced need, which leads to no new nuclear power plants being build. Reducing our energy usage also helps us to meet the carbon targets we have agreed to reach. Our climate is changing and we are paying the price with greater storms and flooding. We need to change our ways to help our climate and our country.

David Cameron has decided to use the fraudulent rises in energy prices as an excuse to cut funding to the ECO program. Employers have already begun laying off staff because the energy companies have said they don’t have to fund these programs any more. The cut in funding has been immediate. The loss of jobs has been as fast. Has your bill gone down yet??

Mine hasn’t gone down. IF your bill does go down please comment on this blog so I can spread the good news. I don’t expect to see allot of comments. Cameron is once again helping his friends in#stead of you. Cameron is cutting government support for ECO like he did FIT and we are paying the price with climate change, new nuclear plants, fracking, and a loss of jobs.

Write to your MP and tell them to return the ECO funding now!

Mr Cameron is quoted again on the 24th supporting fracking as a way to create much needed jobs. Perhaps it is his Big Oil connections that are driving his agenda. We do need more good jobs but David: you are taking the mick!

You are the man who cut the FIT payment that was supporting the solar PV business.  40,000 jobs were lost in the FIT cut disaster. Solar PV sales have not yet recovered the pace of pre-FIT-cut period.

Now you say you think we can make more jobs by fracking? How about creating more jobs in the renewable energy industry David? You are so keen to advance the agenda of your pals in the oil and gas sector. You ran to France to sign deals for nuclear power plants that most people do not want.

England does not have all the nuclear engineers need to build the new plants. We will have to hire them from abroad. That is not helping the UK it is helping your friends.

How about we start looking for renewable energy programs to fund and build? Germany has over 300,000 jobs in renewable energy and we can too. Maybe if your cronies were not telling you how to reap more profits you could see the truth about job creation in the UK economy, David.

Are you tired of the hype? write to your MP and tell him/her to stop Cameron in his tracks!

What happens when the wind blows in the UK? We get cheap electricity from wind farms right? Er.. well no that is not happening.

The national grid is paying for windmills to stand idle because they have too much energy on the grid. In a process called Grid balancing the grid operator Transco pays out millions to wind farm owners, and other electricity producers, to stop them from making energy.

Previous blogs on this site have discussed the need to upgrade the electric grid in the UK. Providing a smart grid for our renewable future is one step in the right direction. If we owned the national grid we could start building this smart grid and save almost £ 500 million pounds a year in ‘Constraint Payments.’ Transco wants you and me to pay for this grid upgrade with more money while they make record profits.

I  thought that capitalism worked in a different way. If I pay for resources and then produce something, I need to charge enough to make back what it cost and a bit more for profit. Transco is making record profits and wants to increase your bill to pay for a modern Grid system! It used to be that a company would invest some of its profit into buying new equipment to become more competitive. Transco has no competitor so they can do what they want.

In the USA the renewable energy marketplace is in an even worse state. The power companies are now charging the owners of solar roof top systems for ‘maintenance for the grid.’ Needless to say that folks in Arizona are not rushing to buy solar systems. It is a real shame too. Arizona could be free of the need for a utility company or a grid operator if they just build more rooftop solar systems. Arizona has a LOT of sun that is going to waste. The energy operator in that state is still making big profits on the backs of the good folks that might be getting energy for free. Welcome to Corporate America!

Will we see this kind of pressure put on the renewable movement by the energy industry in the UK? I think we already are seeing this happen! More later in the saga of renewable energy VS the energy Goliaths.

I have been posting about David Cameron’s lack of Green credentials for some time. Yesterday we saw again how Cameron is willing to put the full weight of his government and the media behind a destructive and needless energy policy that helps Big Oil and not you.

All the environmental damage that will be done can be avoided. Previous posts here have shown clearly how fracking creates earthquakes and environmental damage.

Supporting renewable energy technologies like solar wind and Hydrogen can solve our energy problems and get us off oil and gas dependency.

Cameron and his Big Oil cronies would rather bribe your local council to get access to that gas regardless of the destruction that will happen.

Don’t let him do this to our great and pleasant land! Write to your MP now and tell them to ‘STOP the madness and back renewable energy now.’

Step 1 was gaining ownership of the electric and gas grid in the UK. The national grid is, like any corporation, looking to make a profit. The cost of these profits adds 25% to the cost of your electricity and gas bills. If we buy back the grid then these costs can be reduced or eliminated.

Buying back the Grid will also stop corporate fleecing of the public by making the consumer pay for system upgrades that should be paid for by the owners of the grid system:

An Ofgem spokesperson told the BBC that over half of the £12 bill increase was not due to physical investment in the network, but was instead because of a change in accounting rules which would mean that energy firms could no longer claim back tax on the cost of replacing parts of the network.

Step 2 is to start building the grid system we need for a renewable energy future, today. The first step is to increase the grid storage capacity. In California new legislation is forcing the grid operators to build these new storage systems. We must have the ability to store excess energy produced using renewable energy. The ability to store and then use this energy is key to creating our renewable energy future today.

Ask your MP why we are not doing this now.

72 communities have already bought back their Grid systems. This has allowed the local community to decide how their energy is produced.

In Germany municipal utilities allow communities to focus on energy efficiency, renewables, and distributed co-generation without the need for nuclear and coal power. The study found that 60% of the installed capacity of municipals was co-generation in 2012, followed by 28% thermal capacity (fossil) and 12% renewables – putting municipals at half the national level for renewables but also as the main driver for co-generation in the country.

Here is the whole article: Recommunalization in Germany

In the UK wee need to take a first step by buying back our national grid. I have posted several times about the costs added to renewables by grid connections and the lack of energy storage capacity in the UK.

Owning the grid allows Us to decide how and where energy will be produced.

For longer than I have been walking the planet we have had the ability to make anything we want. In the first ten years of my life we went from no space program to man walking on the moon. The same companies that built the US Space Program were busy building other things. We used these companies to build weapons that were destroying a nation state and a people in the name of democracy. This proves that there are good and bad applications for our skills.

Now we have the ability to tap into an endless source of energy that can provide all the power we need for the entire planet. It is called the Sun. There were companies that  employed many British people and payed a fair share of taxes. They are no more. Sharp is yet another company to quit the solar industry because of a lack of support from the UK government.

Maybe it is time we committed to making some changes in the way we design and build our world. Time is running out.

Maybe we should start supporting Hydrogen cars.

Perhaps we should invest in Storage for Excess Power.

Creating energy with the sun can help us turn pollutants like CO2 in to Methane or e-Gas.

We can end our dependency on fossil fuels and the Big 6 energy suppliers by creating a revolution of Solar energy for rooftops.

Write your MP now and tell them this is what you want.

Commissioned in 1963, Ffestiniog Power Station was the UK’s first major pumped storage power facility. It is still in operation today. This area is in the middle of Snowdonia National Park. This is a hikers dream land. A pristine landscape with a power plant large enough to power the whole north of wales. And it is totally green. If the power feeding this facility was created using only renewable energy then it would be totally green and renewable.

Stored Hydro Electric Power stations can save our environment, our energy and our future too. Here is a link to the Wiki article regarding stored hydro electric energy systems.

Many countries arround the world are using  energy storage systems.  There are several different types of systems to store energy. Most of these systems are Dams holding back water from a river or snow melt. Some are designed and built just for the purpose of storing extra energy that we dont need. These systems are used to store the energy untill it is needed. The water flows down hill and drives generators like in a regular dam. The difference with stored-hydro-electric is that it is designed to push water up hill when there is an excess ammount of energy.