Wednesday, February 13th, 2013
Stephan: Here is an excellent assessment explaining what is blocking the United States from developing a serious commitment to transit out of carbon based energy. President Obama mentioned noncarbon energy in his State of the Union address last night, but I think the truth is that once again the only real solution is for social progressives to vote. Both parties are certainly linked in many ways leading to the corruption of the democratic system in the service of corporate interests. But they are not the same, and it is a false equivalency to assert that they are. The idea that there is no difference between the parties is pernicious nonsense. Of the two, based on facts, there is a significant difference between the Republican and Democratic views on noncarbon energy.
Despite impressive green economic growth during this country’s job-challenged recovery, particularly in the wind energy sector, the conservative right is systematically seeking to reverse this trend by repealing state-mandated renewable energy targets, even if many of the states that stand to lose jobs and economic opportunity lean red.
AlterNet Right-wing groups funded by the fossil-fuel industry and the billionaire Koch brothers are rolling out a nationwide assault to repeal state Renewable Electricity Standards (RES), a key component, along with such federal tax incentives as the wind production tax credit (PTC), in driving renewable energy growth in the United States.
Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia currently have a state-mandated RES (also known as a Renewable Portfolio Standard). Traditionally, the renewable electricity standard has received bipartisan support. Efforts in recent years to repeal or weaken state renewable standards have largely failed.
But a November 2012 Washington Post investigation revealed that the fossil-fuel and Koch-funded American Legislative Council (ALEC) and the climate-denying Heartland Institute are making this a nationwide priority in 2013.
The push to repeal these renewable standards is already evident in state legislatures in North Carolina, Virginia and Ohio.
Still, Jeff Deyette, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, called this […]
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Tuesday, February 12th, 2013
Stephan: You just read the German report. I thought you might be amused, or possibly appalled, by how this story was played by the Theocratic Right's propaganda machine.
Click through to see the video of Fox News' take on German solar. You can't exaggerate the sheer stupidity of these people. They daily surpass anything I can imagine.
In this segment of Fox & Friends, called ‘Pulling the Plug: The Dim Future of Solar Power,’ co-host Gretchen Carlson asked asked Fox Business reporter Shibani Joshi why Germany has been able to generate so much more solar power than the U.S.
‘What was Germany doing correctly?,’ Carlson asked. ‘Are they just a smaller country, have they make it more feasible–‘
‘They’re a smaller country,’ Joshi answered, ‘and they’ve got a lot of sun. Right? They’ve got a lot more sun than we do.’
Well, no. What Germany has a lot of are solar panels. Their solar potential, however, pales in comparison with the U.S.:
The fact that Germany produces over four times the solar energy as the U.S. has a lot to do with the country’s aggressive solar subsidies, which make U.S. solar subsidies look like peanuts.
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Tuesday, February 12th, 2013
BRAD PLUMER, - The Washington Post
Stephan: Yet another report of the European energy conversion trend.
The main point here: Germany doesn’t get an enormous amount of sunlight, relatively speaking. Its annual solar resources are roughly comparable to Alaska’s. Just about every single region in the continental United States has greater solar potential, on average, than Germany.
Yet despite those limitations, Germany has still managed to be the world leader in solar power. At the end of 2012, the country had installed about 30 gigawatts of solar capacity, providing between 3 percent and 10 percent of its electricity. The United States, by contrast, has somewhere around 6.4 gigawatts of solar capacity.
Why the difference? Policy is the big factor. The German government has heavily subsidized renewable energy for years through a variety of measures. Perhaps most crucially, the country’s ‘feed-in tariffs
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Tuesday, February 12th, 2013
Stephan: Here is another European report.
Click through to listen to the npr package.
For the first time, electricity production from Spanish wind mills topped that of nuclear, coal and solar. Spain’s location in the south of Europe means it’s endowed with lots of sunshine and clear windy skies – which it’s put to use becoming a leader in renewable energy.
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DAVID GREENE, HOST:
We’ll begin NPR’s business news starts with strong winds in Spain.
GREENE: Spain has a pretty good location in the south of Europe. They are accustomed to good weather, plenty of sunshine, clear skies and wind – which the country is putting to good use. Spain has become a leader in renewable energy.
In fact, the countries wind farms have broken a new record, as Lauren Frayer reports from Madrid.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: High-tech wind turbines now dot these plains where Don Quixote’s windmills once stood. Spanish winters are windy, and since November these wind farms have made history. Their electricity output has topped that of coal, nuclear and solar energy for the first time.
HEIKKI WILLSTEDT: This is a real – an incredible feat.
FRAYER: Heikki Willstedt, with the Spanish Wind Power Association, says 26 percent of Spain’s […]
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Tuesday, February 12th, 2013
Stephan: While the U.S. kowtows to Big Oil providing the most profitable industry in human history with tens of billions of tax breaks and subsidies, even second tier nations are moving in the opposite direction.
Wind power in Central and Eastern Europe will become a significant source of electricity production by 2020 and Turkey’s wind power generation capacity will grow even faster – provided there is a stable legal framework in each country.
The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) has published a new report, ‘Eastern Winds’, analysing the emerging wind power markets in Central and Eastern European countries, plus Turkey, Ukraine and Russia. Twelve newer EU Member States in Central and Eastern Europe plan to increase wind power capacity from the 6.4GW installed at end of 2012 to 16GW by 2020. Turkey wants to increase wind power capacity from its current 2.3GW to 20GW by 2023. Poland and Romania almost doubled their annual installed wind power capacity in 2012. At the end of 2012, Poland had 2.5GW, Romania 1.9GW and Bulgaria 0.7GW of wind power capacity installed.
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