Wind Solar & Storage

Wind Solar & Storage are key to solving our climate and energy challenges.

Here is a great article about your future. From Clean Technica 2012
Imagine, if you will clean, renewable energy almost fully powering a full-scale electricity grid.

Ok, it’s hard to believe now, but with recent advances in wind and solar power, it may not be that far off.

Wind Solar & Storage are key to our future

Image Credit: Wind turbine via pedrosala / Shutterstock

And, it may come within the next two decades, if researchers from the University of Delaware (UD) and Delaware Technical College (DTCC) have their way.

Wind Solar & Storage are here

A new report from the two institutions suggests that, by 2030, renewable energy could power a large electrical grid a stunning 99.9%, and at close to today’s energy costs!

Analysts at UD and DTCC suggest a well-developed mixture of solar, wind, fuel cells, and battery storage would produce greater supply than electricity demand, plus keep energy costs low.

“These results break the conventional wisdom that renewable energy is too unreliable and expensive,” said co-author, professor in the School of Marine Science and Policy in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment Willett Kempton in the phys.org article.

“The key is to get the right combination of electricity sources and storage—which we did by an exhaustive search—and to calculate costs correctly,” he said.

Researchers used a model with 28 billion combinations of storage schemes, and renewable energy sources. Each combination was tested over historical hourly weather data and electricity use over a four-year span. Analysts used data for the model from PJM Interconnection, representing one-fifth of the US electricity grid, which spans 13 states, ranging from the Midwest (Illinois) to the East Coast (New Jersey).

Wind Solar & Storage are developing fast

This report was a bit different than others in that it looked at cutting energy costs as much as possible, rather than simply focusing on matching energy generation to energy generation use.

Meanwhile, the report found that, creating more electricity than required during regular hours to meet high energy use (but during low wind hours) would have lower costs compared to storing the excess energy for higher consumption later (of course, this is based on the assumption we won’t see any storage breakthroughs in that time).

Storage can be more costly because storage mediation, hydrogen tanks, or batteries need to be bigger for an extra hour of energy held.

So, one new finding that should warm the hart of clean-tech fans out there is researchers believe a huge electrical system could be running nearly completely on renewable energy.

“For example, using hydrogen for storage, we can run an electric system that today would meeting a need of 72 GW, 99.9 percent of the time, using 17 GW of solar, 68 GW of offshore wind, and 115 GW of inland wind,” said Cory Budischak, instructor in the Delaware’s Technical Community College Energy Management Department and a U of D alumnus.

Wind and solar energy generators need higher installed gigawatt (GW) capacity; unlike conventional generators, because renewable energy forms do not achieve maximum capacity as much of the time, the report found. One gigawatt would equal 250,000 rooftop solar systems, or 200 large wind turbines.

Researchers gazed 18 years into the future on what a large-scale clean electricity system would look like and some of the findings are very interesting:

The study sheds light on what an electric system might look like with heavy reliance on renewable energy sources. Wind speeds and sun exposure vary with weather and seasons, requiring ways to improve reliability. In this study, reliability was achieved by: expanding the geographic area of renewable generation, using diverse sources, employing storage systems, and for the last few percent of the time, burning fossil fuels as a backup. During the hours when there was not enough renewable electricity to meet power needs, the model drew from storage and, on the rare hours with neither renewable electricity or stored power, then fossil fuel. When there was more renewable energy generated than needed, the model would first fill storage, use the remaining to replace natural gas for heating homes and businesses and only after those, let the excess go to waste.

Analysts, besides pointing to the possibility of a large, clean electric grid, pointed to such a grid being just as cost-effective. Researchers looked at technology costs in 2030, in comparison with fossil fuel prices today, not factoring subsidies. The report also factored as part of fossil fuel costs, external pricing, including air pollution due to fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, estimates in the report point to capital costs in 2030 for wind and solar to be 50% less than today’s capital prices, while maintenance costs would be in line with current costs.

“Aiming for 90 percent or more renewable energy in 2030, in order to achieve climate change targets of 80 to 90 percent reduction of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the power sector, leads to economic savings,” the report’s authors noted in the article.

Hydrogen powered

Hydrogen powered vehicles have been around awhile. The challenge for driving cars powered by hydrogen is storage. Storage and availability of refueling stations. How do you store enough hydrogen to drive a car 350 miles? Where can you refuel your hydrogen powered car?

I blogged about a new car by Honda that can do these long range drives.

Now Honda has also started using hydrogen to power short range equipment too. In their own factory!

Hydrogen Powered material handling equipment

Briggs Equipment installed a hydrogen powered truck system at Honda’s Swindon manufacturing facility. The fork truck built by Yale has been converted to rely entirely on renewable energy sources. The new system  generates hydrogen from solar power via electrolysis.  Now all the energy to drive the fork truck is clean and renewable with zero emissions.

The Scottish Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association has a nice article about this.

Hydrogen powered Fork Truck!

All Green! All Clean!

The World Industrial Reporter also has a nice article about the new hydrogen powered fork truck at Honda’s Swindon factory.

The photo above comes from this article. Here is a bit of that article:

Richard Close, Briggs Equipment CEO explained how the consortium has worked hard with Honda to produce commercial volumes of truly ‘green’ hydrogen to power the converted Yale trucks in operation at the Swindon plant.

“These hybrid trucks are the first to use lithium battery technology with a hydrogen fuel cell to replace standard lead-acid batteries, resulting in materials handling equipment that produces zero emissions at the point of use,” he said. “The project has proved what can be achieved. The challenge is now to extend this as widely as possible.”

There you are folks. No drilling. No fracking. No mess. Clean green renewable energy today. That is what we need across the planet to save our climate and us. To quote Oliver Twist “Can I have some more please?”

Fracking unsafe

Fracking is unsafe. This is a well known fact. There are many reports and studies that prove this.

There was a meeting in Canterbury on the 19th of November 2014. This meeting was attended by many local citizens. The panel of speakers were from both sides of the fracking issue.

One panel member was Mr Michael Hill. Mr Hill is an expert adviser to the EU Commission on Shale Gas. Mr Hill said quit clearly that “Fracking in Kent is unsafe.”

Here is the article from the Canterbury Times:

From left to right: Nick Riley, David Smythe and Michael Hill

Fracking is unsafe

The whole article here:

“Fracking in Kent is unsafe,” said Michael Hill, an Expert Adviser to the EU Commission on Shale Gas, to hundreds at a heated fracking debate last night.

Mr Hill, who was part of the Royal Society team that made 10 recommendations on fracking in 2012, was one of a 7-member panel at the debate which was organised by Canterbury Christ Church University’s Sociology department as part of their new Engaging Sociology series.

According to Mr Hill, the proximity of the drilling sites to water basins means shale fracking, which is designed to extract gas and oil from shale rock, in Kent is likely to be unsafe.

“A 30% rise in birth defects and 38% rise in cancer mortality has been documented in areas where fracking took place,” he said, pointing out that it’s usually possible to extract only around 4% of the gas in the ground.

“So the question that needs to be asked is: how many birth defects should we have to carry out the drilling? If you say none then you’ve just banned fracking.”

“We do not have the same level of regulation that exists in the US in the UK,” he added. “We have not learned from the mistakes they had in the US.”

One of the pro-fracking participants, Director of Carboniferous Limited Nick Riley, blamed the media for what he called “scaremongering”.

“You need to go on the Environment Agency’s website and look at the facts,” he said.

Ian Driver leaves the meeting for good reason.

The debate saw Ian Driver, Green Party Councillor at Thanet District Council and a prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Thanet South, walk off of the podium after accusing the Dean of the Sociology Faculty and the event’s chairwoman, Professor Janet Haddock-Fraser, of poor chairmanship.

“I’ve never seen such poor chairmanship,” he said. “You did not let us answer one question.”

Professor Haddock-Fraser explained that the questions were technical and asked Mr Driver to return to the stage but he refused.

Another important pro-fracking participant was Gerwyn Llewellyn Williams, chairman of Coastal Oil and Gas which holds fracking licenses for east Kent, who was booed by the crowd after explaining why it is important to go through with the plans.

“In South Wales we see libraries closing, schools are struggling, many people out of work, something has to be done,” he said.

He added: “Fracking has been done, is done and will be done in the UK.”

Other panel members include: Distinguished Fellow at The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Paul Stevens, Former Vice Chair of East Kent Against Fracking and campaigner, Julie Wassmer, and Emeritus Professor of Geophysics University of Glasgow, David Smythe.

The event was part of Christ Church University’s Engaging Sociology series which promotes debates on key issues that have an impact on society.

Article Ends…

Two points here that show the biased nature of the Fracking debate.

The first point involves the refusal of the chairwoman to allow audience questions to be answered by the panel.

From the above article again:

The debate saw Ian Driver, Green Party Councillor at Thanet District Council and a prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Thanet South, walk off of the podium after accusing the Dean of the Sociology Faculty and the event’s chairwoman, Professor Janet Haddock-Fraser, of poor chairmanship.

“I’ve never seen such poor chairmanship,” he said. “You did not let us answer one question.”

Professor Haddock-Fraser explained that the questions were technical and asked Mr Driver to return to the stage but he refused.

End of excerpt..

So because the audience is educated enough to ask a technical question about  fracking, the panel should not be allowed to answer? That makes no sense at all.

The audience are deeply concerned and against fracking due to the environmental damage caused. This usually is labeled by the media and pro-fracking pundits as emotional tree hugger syndrome or similar.

In fact the anti-fracking public are well educated and from a very diverse set of fields. Homeowners, engineers, laborers, and others come together to oppose fracking. We all oppose fracking for the same reasons.

Fracking damages the environment. Fracking pollutes ground water tables forever. Fracking is a method to extract more fossil fuels from the ground.

We must stop using fossil fuels or our planet’s climate will be rendered unfit for humans. We can not live on a planet where temperatures are spiraling out of control.

The second point concerns the ridiculous comments made by the oil and gas representative on the panel, Gerwyn Llewellyn Williams.

Gerwyn Llewellyn Williams, left, has some very stupid things to say.

Excerpt from the article:

Gerwyn Llewellyn Williams, chairman of Coastal Oil and Gas which holds fracking licenses for east Kent, who was booed by the crowd after explaining why it is important to go through with the plans.

“In South Wales we see libraries closing, schools are struggling, many people out of work, something has to be done,” he said.

Editor:

Wait just a minute Gerwyn. You think that if you can frack wherever you want without restriction you can help keep libraries open? Fund struggling schools? or increase employment? You are wrong.

The money promised is nothing short of a bribe to local cash strapped councils to look the other way. ‘Don’t worry about the environmental disaster, here is some cash.’

Gerwyn added: “Fracking has been done, is done and will be done in the UK.”

You do not have the right to tell the UK public what will happen in their own local communities. We have the right to deny you access to drill. We will exercise this right. You will not frack here.

FYI:  France has BANNED FRACKING FOREVER! They are not the only country to do this. The UK WILL do the same.

Future or Mirai

Future or Mirai is today! the past is yesterday. Now that we have that part explained, what does it all mean?

The Future is here!

This is an exciting time for humans and our global climate. For over a year now I have been blogging about the desperate need to reduce carbon output. We are a world dependent on dirty and damaging fossil fuels and disastrous nuclear energy. Energy giants of the world are a monopoly that seek to continue the use of oil and gas. There is another way, and there has been for over 100years.

Hydrogen

Many previous blogs on this site have covered the production, storage, and use of Hydrogen. Hydrogen is the new energy medium. You can generate it from many sources including water. Hydrogen is stored in portable cylinders, underground chambers, and national gas grids. Hydrogen is used to turn carbon dioxide into methane. Hydrogen is transported via pipelines, trucks, or ships. Hydrogen when burned or consumed in a fuel cell has only one byproduct, Water!

Save the Planet

Please help save our home

Hydrogen will save the planet from the ultimate destruction of global climate change. Does your country have renewable energy like solar or wind? Great! Use hydrogen as a storage medium to save the excess production of electricity. Here in the UK our national grid is paying wind farm operators to NOT produce energy. Solar energy is only available during the day so storage is a must for use during the night.

Now Toyota has unveiled their new Miria. This will be the first production fuel cell vehicle in the world. And it is a game changer. Oil and gas oligarchies be ware! your time is over! Free energy form the sun and wind will now be used to generate hydrogen for use in cars. Now we do not need oil or gas. To the  investment bankers reading this; the time is now for divesting from oil and gas companies. Divest while you still can.

For the rest of us the time to celebrate is now, well now in the USA and mid 2015 in Europe.

Look for Mirai in the US soon. I’m going to buy a fleet and make them taxis

A Better Deal

A better deal is available. Energy storage is a way to capture electricity generated from renewable sources. Here in the UK we have an abundance of renewable energy generation. Wind energy is abundant. Solar energy generation is a daytime only method.

A Better Deal = Energy Storage

Storage of electricity is the key to unlocking the many benefits of renewable energy. When the sun shines we can to store any energy that we don’t need. When the wind blows we can to store the excess energy produced.

Store Free energy – Use when required

From renewableenergyworld.com

The issue for power plants is flexibility. “Large amounts of wind energy are being reliably and cost-effectively integrated onto the power system today,” said Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), who added “Energy storage can be a valuable resource for the power system in maximizing the efficient use of this resource, and add flexibility for electric utilities.”

Here is a bit of an article at the Guardian article about grid storage:

Across the world, efforts are underway to improve the way we store and distribute energy, as we move towards more sustainable but intermittent forms of energy generation, such as wind and solar power.

Solar energy storage is the Key

Improving the way we store energy is important for the UK’s energy security, as it will allow us to decouple energy generation and its usage. If we can find a better way to store energy it will allow us to save it when it’s generated and use it when it’s required, replacing our current awkward system where generation has to match demand in real time.

Storage of electricity is not a new concept. There are many storage methods employed by the National Grid to save energy for a rainy day. There are many new ways to store energy too. I have written about several of these here on this blog.

From free energy generation created by school girls, to British energy companies that actually like the environment, we do have a green way forward. We can create all the energy we need without destroying the planet or building new nuclear power plants.

The key to making all this work is energy storage.

Bad Deal for us all

A Bad Deal? The EU recently approved the UK plan to subsidise a new nuclear power plant at Hinkley. Brussels gave the go ahead to the state subsidy scheme. The plan will offers EDF Energy a set price for 35 years. This clears another hurdle on the way to the  first nuclear reactors to be built in Britain for almost 20 years. This is a big backward step for renewable energy. This is a giant step back for the EU commission that only in January this year was highly critical of the plan.

Bad Deal – Critical beginnings

In January Greenpeace published an article on the EU Commission. Here is a bit of that article: “The European Commission (EC) has delivered a fiercely skeptical initial take on the UK Government’s deal with French state owned EDF to build the first new nuclear reactor in the UK for a generation, concluding the measures definitely categorise as state aid.

The government of David Cameron has always thought this is a great idea. He helps out his friends and you and I get saddled with the debt for 35 years.

The government report looks like this:

From The .gov website: “The State aid case included both the proposed Contract for Difference, which provides the developer with an increased price certainty for the electricity generated by the plant, and the proposed UK Guarantee for the project, which will help unlock debt finance.”

Now the EU commission has approved a plant they first thought was barmy. Fortunately the NAO – National Audit Office will also look into planed subsidies for Hinkley.

From stophinkley.org:  “The National Audit Office (NAO) has begun an investigation into UK Government plans to subsidise the proposed new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. The NAO is the financial watchdog which scrutinises public spending on behalf of parliament.”

Hinkley C will bankrupt us

Hinkley A is shut down and full of contaminated material with no place to go. The costs to remove all the radioactive material and dispose of it is in the billions. There is no place to put the radioactive material. That is why it is still there.

Sellafield is worse – Mirror – “The fluid is being kept in rotting containers which are open to the elements, according to a worker who leaked images of the 70-year-old plant. Crumbling containers of toxic waste abandoned 40 years ago at “rundown” Sellafield are putting Britain at risk of a nuclear disaster, it is claimed.”

Hinkley B is still operating even though many cracks to the core insulating material have been found. Many cracks in the carbon insulating material weaken the integrity of the reactor safety. If just one of these insulators gives way it could start a chain reaction.

Hinkley C will bankrupt us all due to excessive costs. The build price was £14bil, then £16Bil, and now the EU approved a state sponsored £20bil. The government is promising the operator twice the current price for electricity produced for 35 years. Here is the governments own spin.

Lets stop it now Sign the petitions. Ban building new Nuclear Power Stations

More about the crazy new Hinkley design here ->

Fracking mess for YOU! K?

A fracking mess awaits us all. David Cameron is pushing fracking on our green and pleasant land. You and I and the whole country will pay the price.

The fracking mess, the damage done.

The damage is already done at many fracking sites. Fracking has stopped but the environmental damage is done.  The damage is irreversible and long term. Drinking water is polluted for future generations.

Fracking destroying water supplies

Excerpt from Desmogblog.com

Nearly 3 billion gallons of waste water were illegally injected into central California aquifers. Half of the water samples collected have high levels of dangerous chemicals. Arsenic, a known carcinogen that can also weaken the human immune system was found.  Thallium, a toxin used in rat poison was also found in the water.

Timothy Krantz is a professor of environmental studies at the University of Redlands. He says these chemicals could pose a serious risk to public health. “The fact that high concentrations are showing up in multiple water wells close to wastewater injection sites raises major concerns about the health and safety of nearby residents.”

MORE DAMAGE – A video we all need to see:

4 Mile Long eruption of Liquid Sand + stored CO2 @ Fracking operation in Colorado.

CAMERON CONTINUES PUSH FOR FRACKING.

From sumofus website:

Cameron close to fracking firms

A massive 40,000 people formally objected to proposals to change trespass laws so that fracking companies can extract oil and gas from under people’s land without permission. Showing utter disdain for democracy, the government has decided to ignore this outpouring of public opposition, and go ahead with changing the law in favour of the frack-happy 1%.

All this to get gas from the ground we do not need and must stop using.

WE CAN HAVE FREE ENERGY TODAY

In the UK wind, sun, bio-mass, heat from the earth, and tidal and wave forces can each provide a vast and constantly replenished energy  supply. These diverse sources of renewable energy have the technical potential to provide the electricity nation needs.

The Union of Concerned Scientists website has a nice article about this.

Write your mp now!

Community owned power is key!

Over the last few months my blog has examined the problems of climate change. We have read about the plans our government has to continue the disastrous march towards the brink of climate melt down. I have posted many articles about the renewable energy sources available today.

Democracy of power; Break fossil fuel monopoly.

Only by taking back ownership of the means of energy production will the people regain control of our environmental destiny. Below is an article about a courageous town that has stopped fracking in its tracks and created a renewable energy program to take their town off the grid.

From inhabitat.com article:

Tiny English Village Blocks Giant Fracking Operation, Announces Plans to Build Community-Owned Solar Power Plants.

No Fracking AND we will produce our own energy!

Normally, the village of Balcombe, West Sussex is just another picturesque spot in a valley where nothing really happens. But when Cuadrilla Resources–the UK’s fracking pioneer–announced plans to do some exploratory drilling just five miles from the town, the citizens sprang into action. For two months they protested in an anti-fracking camp set up on the outskirts of town. Finally, the company announced it was abandoning the drill site. Not because of the protests, of course, but because rocks at the site already contain natural fractures, making it unsuitable for profitable extraction. But the activism of this tiny down didn’t disappear with the drilling rigs. Now the citizens have formed REPOWERBalcombe, a community coalition that seeks to finance and build community-owned solar power plants, and someday, take Balcombe off the grid entirely.

Balcombe taking ownership of their energy!

 

Founded by a handful of motivated citizens, REPOWERBalcombe wants the town to “to take responsibility for meeting [its] own energy needs in a way that does not contribute to climate change or harm the prospects of future generations.”

Related: German Village Produces 321% More Energy Than It Needs!

“Our goal is to set up a program of renewable energy solutions based in and around the community. The aim is to generate the equivalent of 10% of Balcombe’s electricity usage through rooftop solar panels within the next 6 months, and eventually to generate the equivalent of 100% of the village’s electricity usage from clean, renewable energy sources,” explains the cooperative.

To do that, they’ll need to raise £300,000 (approximately $500,000). That’s a lot of money, so REPOWERBalcombe plans to offer shares to the community. They expect that residents who invest in the program will enjoy at least a 5% return during the 20-year lifetime of the scheme. Not to mention the knowledge that they helped finance a project that could make their community completely self-sufficient when it comes to energy.

In late March 2014, the group “announced it has signed a lease to host the first 19kw array on the roof of a cow shed, at a local family-owned farm. Talks are under way about a further five sites, which could be fitted with solar this spring,” reports The Guardian.

“We all need energy, but buying dirty fossil power from giant utilities is no longer the only option,” REPOWER Balcombe spokesman Joe Nixon told the paper.

“Advances in renewable technology mean that communities like ours can now generate the energy we need ourselves, locally, in a way that benefits us directly instead of big power companies – and helps the environment instead of harming it. This is win-win for Balcombe and for the planet.”

+ REPOWERBalcombe

Via The Guardian and Treehugger

Images via REPOWERBalcombe and Frack-off.org.uk

This Blogger thanks the above for their work. Keep the faith and carry on!

Act now!

We can act now to stop more fracking in East Yorkshire. Time is running out for Crawberry Hill planning extension.

Anyone can add their comments to this process. If you care about your environment then you can add your thoughts to this important process.

From Frack Free East Yorkshire:

Rathlin was granted Planning Permission for exploratory work at Crawberry Hill for 2 years, rather than the usual 3 years, due to the sensitive nature of the site.  This runs out on 5th November 2014.

However Rathlin have failed to complete their 3 tests, and have applied for another 2 years.

This Planning Application is NOW OPEN FOR CONSULTATION until Thurs 11th Sept.

Summary

• Read the Planning Statement (the application) and make your own notes on issues

Planning Application Summary 14/02622/STVAR  >  Associated Documents  >  Planning Statement

• Check the guidance on how to send in your views – don’t undermine your impact by straying from “material considerations”.
• It may be wise to wait awhile to gauge the outcome of current serious issues after the mini-frac at West Newton; East Riding will need to demonstrate they have learned any lessons.
• You don’t need to cover all the concerns highlighted in this guidance which identifies most but not all the relevant issues; you may have important concerns of your own and should share them with the Council.
• The oil industry refers to “social license”. In other words if you decide it is not worth writing in it will be assumed you support the proposal. Even if it is only a short letter it is worth making your views known.
• The proposed extension is a key move in the national drive to exploit oil and gas at a time when the rest of the world, notably China, Japan, Germany, Italy and Spain are making rapid moves towards renewables. It is hard to see how we can move towards a low carbon economy by investing in exploration for more oil and gas.
• Please do register your concerns and encourage other residents and businesses in the East Riding and Hull to do so – we will all suffer, and have to pay, if our water supplies are compromised.

Go now and register your feelings with the planning office.

Save UK Park lands

Britain’s treasured national parks could become drilling sites in a recent move by the government to open them up to fracking by big oil companies. It’s part of a wider government plan inviting oil companies to apply for licenses to drill for oil all across the UK — and about half the country is up for grabs.

The current process to get a licence to drill for oil in the UK is long and relatively robust, but Minister for Energy Matthew Hancock wants to speed up the process so companies can start drilling with six months of making an application.

And we all know what that means: cut corners and bad decisions.Unfortunately, once our national parks have been desecrated by fracking, there’s no coming back.

An Ohio disaster coming to the UK?

Save Our Parkland From Fracking Devastation.

Ohio firefighters battled this blaze for an entire week. Before they managed to fully extinguish it, the fire caused some 30 explosions that rained shrapnel over the surrounding area; 20 trucks on the site caught fire; and tens of thousands of gallons of chemicals — including a toxic soup of diesel fuel, hydrochloric acid, and ethylene glycol — mixed with runoff into the nearby creek, killing an estimated 70,000 fish as far as five miles downstream. State officials physically removed the decomposing remains of more than 11,000 fish and other aquatic life in their efforts to reduce the damage to the waterway.

This could happen here: From Ecocidealert

Drinking Water Threatened
Severe damage to a local creek is troubling enough, but this particular waterway feeds into the Ohio River roughly five miles away where, just another 1.7 miles downstream, a public water intake on the West Virginia side of the river serves local residents.

Tell the government to immediately remove national parks from the list of areas open to fracking operations.

http://action.sumofus.org/a/national-parks-fracking/mtl