Solar Roadways has raised $1,884,633 in six weeks from Earth Day to now
on a goal of $1,000,000 in indiegogo
(which was already
a record for most contributors with 36,000 people at $1.5 million).
Yes, to all those who have asked me, I think it could work.
Add solar roadways to rooftop solar and solar farms and wind,
and
the EPA’s new CO2 rule (which doesn’t even do much about coal for years
and does nothing about about “natural” gas)
will seem like a quaint baby step in a few years after this happens: Continue reading
Tag Archives: Oil
Energy Policy Act of 2005 considered harmful
The same Energy Policy Act of 2005 that
subsidized dirty oil and fracked methane including LNG exports
also funded
that oxymoron “clean” coal such as Southern Company’s Plant Ratcliffe
in Mississippi,
ethanol production lining the pockets of Monsanto, and
the $8.3 billion loan guarantee
to Georgia Power for the new nukes at Plant Vogtle.
2005 was a very long time ago in solar PV years:
prices are halved, and installed solar power production is up more
than ten times and growing exponentially like compound interest.
We need to stop throwing money at dirty, water-sucking,
centralized baseload 20th century non-solutions and get on with
clean 21st century distributed solar and wind power
for jobs, for energy independence, and for clean air and water,
not to mention less climate change.
-jsq
The fragility of centralized energy systems
All thermal power generation requires water for cooling, with nukes so vulnerable no private insurer will cover them anyway and failing frequently in recent heat waves. “Natural” gas is no better than coal or oil for water use; maybe worse because all those pipelines vulnerable to backhoes or corrosion or attack. Even hydro is vulnerable to lack of rainfall. Carbon sequestration doesn’t get good marks, while conservation and efficiency get rave reviews from a study of insurance perspectives on power generation. What’s the one power source this article about insurance risks does not say is fragile in the face of climate change? Hint: look up.
Limiting Liability in the Greenhouse: Insurance Risk-Management Strategies in the Context of Global Climate Change, by Christina Ross, Evan Mills, and Sean B. Hecht, Stanford Environmental Law Journal and the Stanford Journal of International Law, Symposium: on Climate Change Risk, Vol. 26A/43A:251, 2007.
Supply-side energy choices that may be made to reduce the carbon-intensity of energy services have their own distinctive liability characteristics. For example, switching to lower-carbon electricity generation technology based on thermal power plant technology (e.g., by substituting natural gas for coal) results in systems that are still heavily dependent on water resources for cooling. The Electric Power Research Institute has documented considerable risks to traditionally cooled power generation systems as a result of climate change-induced droughts.242 Similarly, “zero-emissions” hydroelectric generating systems are also sensitive to rainfall patterns.
242 Denis Albrecht, Electric Power Research Institute, Presentation: Climate Impact on Water Availability for Electricity Generation (April 11, 2006) (presentation slides associated with the Electric Power Research Institute).
Centralization considered harmful
Continue reading
ICLEI and sustainability
Have you heard there’s a U.N. agency going around getting local governments to sign “Agenda 21” into ordinances that will take away your private property through eminent domain? If not, you’ve avoided the propaganda put out by fossil fuel companies to subvert sustainability. If you have, here’s why it’s bunk.
There is an organization that promotes measures for sustainability to local governments. Sustainability as in arranging for local resources to be available for us and our children and grandchildren. Clean air, clean water, forests, education, and private property rights including not letting developers or big corporations damage your private property. Are you against any of those things?
An organization promoting sustainability with local governments is called
ICLEI–Local Governments for Sustainability.
ICLEI says it is:
the leading global network devoted to local governments engaged in sustainability, climate protection, and clean energy initiatives. The organization was formerly known as the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives.
ICLEI has heard about the conspiracy theories and has written up a rebuttal. Continue reading
VSU up there with Harvard about fossil fuel divestment
VSU is with the big schools, leading the stigmatization of fossil fuel
companies and the exodus from those stranded assets.
Students are leading on that and related issues,
more than our local elected bodies, but there’s an election going on.
Mary Schellentrager posted for PowerShift 29 April 2014, NATIONAL PHOTO ROUND-UP: BOLD ACTION FOR #BEYONDEARTHDAY: Continue reading
Videos: church parking withdrawn @ ZBOA 2014-04-01
North Valdosta Church of God came to a decision.
Plus
a house variance in
Lowndes County was approved unanimously,
and
a gas station variance got its building variance approved, but its other variance requests denided, all on a split vote.
in
Valdosta.
See
the Meeting Results Summary,
which also lists all of ZBOA members as present.
Here’s the agenda, with links to the videos and a few notes. The City of Valdosta puts ZBOA agendas and minutes online in real PDFs. Continue reading
VSU new special committee on sustainability to investigate fossil fuel divestment
PR from Students Against Violating the Environment (S.A.V.E.) today. -jsq
Hi everyone,
I’m very glad to announce that under the direction of President McKinney, there will soon be a new special committee on sustainability. One of the goals of it will be to investigate fossil fuel divestment and create a report that will be presented to the Board of Trustees. The description is as follows:
“The Valdosta State University President’s Special Committee on Sustainability is charged with Continue reading
Church parking back yet again @ ZBOA 2014-04-01
North Valdosta Church of God
is back for perhaps the fourth time about the parking lot for their new building.
Plus
a house variance in
Lowndes County
and
a gas station variance
in
Valdosta.
Here’s the agenda. The City of Valdosta puts ZBOA agendas and minutes online in real PDFs.
Continue readingWhom do you serve? A question for local government
A question asked about big oil and Mobile is just as relevant to every local and state government along the proposed Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline, and Transco and Florida Southeast Connection, too. A couple of local elected officials and several candidates did make public statements Saturday (stay tuned), so maybe we’re starting to get some answers to this question in Lowndes County, Georgia. Some other locations have already been getting answers.
Brad Nolen wrote for New American Journal 28 March 2014, How Big Oil Controls Local Governments: Whom Do You Serve? Thoughts on Local Government and Dirty Industries,
Now, it should go without saying that the purpose of councils, commissions and public office in general is to represent the varied interests of the citizens, and hopefully through consensus- seeking achieve some semblance of collective wisdom; and then, if we’re really lucky to apply said wisdom in charting our course toward a Mobile our great grandchildren will be proud to inherit.
Yet, when it came to finding a voice to protect our drinking water from Big Oil, we heard nothing substantive from our local leaders, even though we marched on their doorsteps in boots that are still wet with BP oil.
And now, Continue reading
Time to call it: Carbon Crash, Solar Dawn
Another observer gets it that green solar power is winning. Letting a fracking deliver company turn us into “stakeholders” in a white elephant methane pipeline would be an even huger waste after the pipeline stopped being used in a decade or so because sun, wind, and water power everything by then, winning like the Internet did.
Paul Gilding wrote on his blog 19 March 2013, Carbon Crash Solar Dawn,
I think it’s time to call it. Renewables and associated storage, transport and digital technologies are so rapidly disrupting whole industries’ business models they are pushing the fossil fuel industry towards inevitable collapse.
Some of you will struggle with that statement. Most people accept the idea that fossil fuels are all powerful — that the industry controls governments and it will take many decades to force them out of our economy. Fortunately, the fossil fuel industry suffers the same delusion.
In fact, probably the main benefit of the US shale gas and oil “revolution” is that it’s keeping the fossil fuel industry and it’s cheer squad distracted while renewables, electric cars and associated technologies build the momentum needed to make their takeover unstoppable — even by the most powerful industry in the world.
Why are the fossil fuel companies still pushing, then? Continue reading