E is for Energy

What if we could take carbon dioxide from a power plant’s chimney stack and turn it into a useful fuel? That would be a great boxing day present!

Our climate is changing due to man made products such as carbon dioxide. The idea of capturing carbon emissions and storing back underground has bee around for a while. This is called carbon sequestration. This is not an answer that is viable as it will push the pollution from carbon dioxide underground and threaten our drinking water supplies. What we really need is a magical box that we can put CO2 in and change it into something more useful, like say Methane.

*Waves magic wand* Presto! I give you the MAN re-gasification project. MAN is taking CO2 from a power plants exhaust stack mixing it with Hydrogen produced using renewable energy and creating Methane. The methane is stored on the gas grid in Germany for later use.

The design idea of creating synthetic methanation is not new but the method is. Taking excess renewable energy and using it to make Hydrogen is not new either. Combining the two concepts to make more fuel out of pollution and renewable energy is brilliant!

Audi calls this e-Gas and will use it to power a new line of cars that run on methane. Germany sure has some great ideas. Oh, they are using British Designs and engineering expertise too. I wonder why we are not doing this too?

This is a step in the right direction. Mr Cameron? Are you listening? maybe we should let our MP’s know what we think.

The last posting was all about fracking and how David Cameron is selling your environmental future to give away fracking rights. In the last post we looked at who will pay the cost of cleaning up any environmental disaster that occurs due to fracking: YOU!

So what is the alternative? Hydrogen of course. There have been many discussions about Hydrogen powered cars in the news for several years now. The fuel cell uses Hydrogen to make electricity which runs the car. This is the same technology that powered the Apollo missions to the Moon. Astronauts used the only two byproducts of this electricity generator – Fuelcell – to heat their cabin and drink the waste product, Water!

So instead of fracking for more natural gas or methane we can create the fuel for the future today. Hydrogen is normally produced in a petrochemical plant. Big Oil would dearly love to keep it that way. However, New methods of creating Hydrogen are available now that are clean green and use renewable energy.

One of the biggest drawbacks to wind and solar has always been the lack of sun, or wind. Another big drawback to wind and solar is that they produce too much when we don’t need the electricity. In Germany a hydrogen plant is being used to store excess energy created by renewable generators like wind and solar.

Governments are starting to see the benefit of promoting hydrogen. If David Cameron was working for the people he would be pushing these technologies. Cameron works for BIG OIL so he does what they want. Cameron works for BIG Electric companies so he does what they want.

So our environment continues to suffer. Our chance to switch to renewable energy now takes another step back. Feed in tariff cuts, new nuclear power plants, a reduction of support for wind energy, tax breaks and government sponsored cleanups of fracking pollution: Are you seeing the pattern here folks?

Hydrogen is the future, tell your MP to support it now please. The link will take you straight to a site that will help you send an email to your MP in just a few munites.

THE END OF ENERGY AS WE KNOW IT CAN HAPPEN NOW!

The full Article from Forbes:
Distributed Generation Poses Existential Threat To Utilities

To the list of industries at risk of complete obsolescence – which at the moment includes daily newspapers, government postal services, and men-only barbershops, among others – you can add U.S. power utilities.  The creeping sense of impending peril that has enveloped the power sector was made explicit earlier this year in a widely distributed, and remarkably candid, report from the Edison Electric Institute entitled “Disruptive Challenges.”

Warning of “irreparable damages to revenues and growth prospects” of utilities due to the spread of distributed power generation from renewable energy sources, the report foresees “a day when battery storage technology or micro turbines could allow customers to be electric grid independent.”  The result: a “cycle of decline [that] has been previously witnessed in technology-disrupted sectors (such as telecommunications) and other deregulated industries (airlines).”

A Bloomberg BusinessWeek story last week put an even finer point on it: “In about the time it has taken cell phones to supplant land lines in most U.S. homes, the grid will become increasingly irrelevant as customers move toward decentralized homegrown green energy.”  NRG Energy CEO David Crane told the magazine that microgrids, small wind and solar, and net metering constitute “a mortal threat to the existing utility system.”

In the Kubler-Ross end-of-life model, U.S. utilities are still mostly in the denial stage.  Utility executives spend a lot of time these days decrying government subsidies, particularly for rooftop solar.  To be sure, several big utilities have at least hedged their bets by investing in alternative forms of power generation; Duke Energy, for example, entered the renewables business in 2007 and has built some 1700 megawatts of renewable capacity since then.

Sabotage in the Suburbs

Gloomy prediction aside, it’s worth remembering that this transition is sure to be prolonged, that the utilities, in their respective regions, often enjoy quasi-monopolies, and that they have ample resources, both financial and political, to draw on to protect their positions.  Power from wind and solar still accounts for less than 1% of the electricity generated in this country.  Southern Company has a market cap of $37 billion.  This is not a sector that is going to meekly fold its tents and retreat.

Think of Big Oil.  The “End of Oil” has been forecast now for decades, and oil consumption in many developed countries peaked in 2007 and has not yet reached those heights again.  It may never.  Nevertheless, the shale gas boom has given petroleum companies an unforeseen boost, and world petroleum use set a new record last year.  Many major oil producers are enjoying record profits.  The forces at work in the utility sector are very different (for one thing, technology advances, which are fueling the current oil and gas boom, are likely to work against utilities, not for them), but in times of upheaval and transformation, incumbents tend to do well, at least for a time.

What’s more, the recent glowing news in the renewable-energy business — which has seen prices for solar power approach grid parity as adoption by consumers, encouraged by no-money-down leasing arrangements, accelerates — is not guaranteed to last.  In fact, there are indications that solar markets in key states are slowing, as prices drop to levels unsustainable for providers.  “It is getting difficult to deliver a good product and still be profitable,” an executive with REC Solar told Greentech Media last week.

At the same time, the industry is fighting a delaying action on the policy front.  “The future of net metering in Arizona is under attack,” SustainableBusiness.com reported last week, “with the state’s largest electric utility Arizona Public Service (APS) proposing changes that undermine cost benefits for residential solar installations.”

Pushing back on net metering, investing in renewable capacity, and building new fossil-fuel plants are likely to buy the utilities some time.  And they may just figure out how to thrive in the new era of distributed generation.  But the threats they face are not going away – and they’re not just economic.  The FBI said last week it is investigating an act of industrial sabotage in Arkansas, in which an unknown monkeywrencher climbed a 100-foot transmission tower, cut a supporting cable, and brought down a 500-kilovolt power line.  That’s at least the second instance of destruction of utility transmission infrastructure this year.  When suburbanites putting solar panels on their roofs are joined by nighttime saboteurs, it might be time to rethink your business model.

The biggest advantage to solar power is the fact that it is owned by homeowners, local councils, social groups, and communities. The ownership of the means of producing electricity is the key to unlocking our renewable future and lower bills.

The big 6 energy companies are at risk of losing their business model because we can now make our own energy; we don’t need them any more. We can make electricity and charge a price we think is fair for all.

Here is an excellent article from the Guardian:

Westmill Solar, a 5 megawatt PV farm sited between Swindon and Oxford, is one of the largest arrays in the UK. It was built a year ago to profit from the high feed-in tariffs then available to large PV installations. Adam Twine, the farmer on whose land the 21,000 panels were sited, kept a right to buy back the solar farm from its original financiers. Twine is an enthusiast for community ownership and recently set up a cooperative to purchase the whole array. Small investors can apply to buy shares now, with local residents given priority. If successful, the new cooperative will be the biggest community owned solar farm in the world.

Read the whole article here.

Dirk Ketelsen is a farmer but these days most of his income comes from harvesting the wind. On Germany’s North Sea coast, where a fierce sea breeze blasts in across the polders, the generous financial support the government has poured into renewable energy has reared a crop of wind turbines as far as the eye can see.

Such policies have unleashed a boom for wind, sun and other sources of renewable energy, which now account for 23 per cent of the electricity consumption of Europe’s biggest economy.

They have also proved highly lucrative for farmers like Mr. Ketelsen. The tariffs set by the Renewable Energy Act, known as the EEG, not only give renewables priority access to the electricity grid – ahead of the electricity produced by traditional power plants – they ensure their owners a guaranteed return over 20 years.

“Before the EEG, we said we’ll do this for ecological reasons. Even if there’s just a little bit of profit. Then came the EEG, and it worked out very well financially,” Mr Ketelsen said.

Whether that continues remains to be seen. A growing chorus of critics complain that an earnest attempt to nurture green energy has spun out of control, creating a welfare system for farmers and landowners while saddling Germany with some of the highest household electricity bills in Europe.

Utilities, which have been forced to mothball gas-powered plants because they are no longer profitable, are also crying foul. “We are feeding a giant with baby nutrition, missing the point that this giant can and needs to walk on its own feet now,” Johannes Teyssen, the head of Eon, Germany’s largest utility, told the Financial Times recently.

Amid the outcry, Germany’s new coalition government has announced plans to rein in the subsidies. But doing so will put them on a collision course with citizens in places like Reussenköge, where renewables have transformed a way of life.

The 120 households in the village are supported by 70 wind turbines in a communally owned park. The return on the villagers’ investment depends on their share of ownership.

 One of Mr. Ketelsen’s neighbours, Johannes Rabe, said: “Let’s put it this way, a large part of the community is now in the top income tax bracket – and more than half of their income is from renewable energy.”

Farming, by contrast, employs ever-fewer people, Mr. Rabe said. “Seventy years ago, each farmer around here would have eight people to help him. Now, just one in four of the farmers is still in business, and they work alone.”

The trappings of success are evident. Mr. Ketelsen’s imposing farmhouse sports a four-wheel-drive with his company’s Dirkshof logo parked outside. The farm still grows carrots and peas for a well-known brand of organic baby food, but 95 per cent of his income now comes from renewable energy.

He sold off his cows and sheep to concentrate on running a consultancy advising on the development of wind farms across Germany. The barns where his cattle were once stalled have been converted to offices for the consultancy’s 14 employees, while the corn granary in the farmhouse’s spacious attic is now a meeting room.

We are feeding a giant with baby nutrition, missing the point that this giant can and needs to walk on its own feet now

– Johannes Teyssen, head of Eon, Germany’s largest utility

The benefits of the EEG, including the guaranteed price paid to renewables operators, are funded through a surcharge to household energy bills that are among the highest in Europe. The annual cost of supporting the so-called “feed-in” tariffs across Germany is set to rise to €23.6bn next year.

Schleswig-Holstein, the federal state that includes Reussenköge, is one of the biggest EEG beneficiaries. The state received €1.5bn in renewable energy compensation in 2012. After payments by its consumers and businesses are deducted, it still made a net gain of €400m.

It has even bigger ambitions: by the end of this decade, the state aims to produce up to four times as much renewable energy as it consumes. The plan is to export the excess to other states and Scandinavia – although new transmission lines will first need to be built.

Critics of Germany’s renewable policies say that the big winnings for Schleswig-Holstein’s landowners come at the expense of the country’s poorest citizens, who lose a bigger slice of their income to high power bills.

“In terms of political economy, it’s brilliant: Greens who live in the city and worry about the environment tend to be wealthier and willing to pay,” says Mark Hallerberg, professor of public management and political science at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. “Then there are the conservative Bavarian farmers – if you drive around the south of Germany, it seems like every other farm has solar panels on its roof. Then in Schleswig-Holstein all these farmers have wind farms. Usually farmers and Greens aren’t on the same side.”

He added. “From an economic perspective I think this is terrible.”

Germany’s freshly unveiled coalition agreementproposes sweeping reforms by next summer, with the aim of reducing costs. This includes a scaling back of feed-in tariffs and a review of the special exemptions that shield heavy industry from their full cost.

Mr. Ketelsen and the farmers of Reussenköge are already on guard. Last weekend, they joined renewable energy producers and environmentalists from across the country in a protest at the chancellery in Berlin.

The event was billed as a ‘rescue’ of Germany’s switch to renewable energy, known as the Energiewende. “In our view, the Energiewende is not to be stopped,” Mr. Ketelsen said. “And if any politicians think otherwise we will brief them, and demonstrate.”

This article is from the Financial Times. It is reprinted here as the ft will not allow a link to any article with out a subscription!

 This is how to get a renewable energy future built today!

This is why the German economy does so well even when there is a recession. This is why 25% of all electricity in Germany is produced by renewable technology. David Cameron needs to stop being a shill for the big 6 energy companies and start helping the UK create a renewable future for the people.

The German people get out and protest when they don’t like government policy. They do it often and the government listens.

What happens in a conservative led government to green building projects?

1. They don’t get built?

2. Funding is removed?

3. Award winning green structures get torn down?

The Answer? 3. Award winning green buildings get torn down!

I am in shock over the article I found about a Sainsbury’s getting torn down:

Sainsbury’s announced last year that it would be leaving the store in favour of a new larger supermarket nearby designed by Unit Architects.

It has now emerged that the old store, which won several green awards, is set to be demolished to make way for an IKEA outlet.

Writing in BD, Hinkin said the decision made him “mad as hell” and questioned the sustainability of knocking down a building after just 14 years.

Sainsbury’s is understood to have sold the site on the basis that it cannot be let to another food retailer, reducing the likelihood of finding another tenant.

Building performance consultant Doug King was lead engineer on the project. He said the decision to knock it down “defies belief” and is a “tremendous shame”.

“IKEA has described this as a sustainable development but it involves knocking down a building built to minimise the impact of retail operations,” he said. “These property owners make headline claims about sustainability but this demonstrates that they really don’t get what sustainability is. This really exposes the ‘emperor’s clothes’ of the sustainable property sector.”

Campaign launched to save Eco supermarket – The Green Building Press

We have already looked at Germany’s giant contribution to renewable energy. Let’s look at what the USA is doing. Remember that the US government has not signed up to the Kyoto protocol. They have no requirement to lower carbon output or reach any set level for renewable energy.

While our solar industry is floundering under cuts  in funding from our ‘greenest Ever Government,’ in the USA an article states that: Between April and June, the US installed 832MW, or enough energy to power all the homes in Austin, Texas, representing a 15% increase compared to the beginning of this year. It was solar’s second best quarter ever.

The RTCC article continues:
US Solar Energy Industry Association president and CEO Rhone Resch said:
“We’re helping to create new jobs, grow the US economy, strengthen our nation’s long-term energy security and fight climate change. That’s a win-win in anyone’s book.”