Over 50 Percent of New Power Came From Renewable Sources in 2009
wind energy is becoming more efficient. With wind energy, bigger is better for energy return. Energy return increases with the square of rotor diameter. If the rotor is twice as big, it produces four times the power. Turbine size has been increasing for many years, which is the key reason for the steep rise in EROEI.
Global investments in renewables top non-renewable investments for 2nd year in a row.
July 15th 2010
More than 50 percent of the newly installed power capacity in the U.S. and globally, came from renewable energy sources, according to a new report, released July 15th 2010, by the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century, a United Nations-backed organization. The Renewables 2010 Status Report provides a comprehensive breakdown of the the movements, trends and innovations globally in renewable energy.
The year 2009 was unprecedented in the history of renewable energy, despite the headwinds posed by the global financial crisis, lower oil prices, and slow progress with climate policy. Indeed, as other economic sectors declined around the world, existing renewable capacity continued to grow at rates close to those in previous years, including grid-connected solar PV (53 %), wind power (32 %), solar hot water/heating (21 %), geothermal power (4 %), and hydropower (3 %).
For the second year in a row, in both the United States and Europe, more renewable power capacity was added than conventional power capacity (coal, gas, nuclear). Renewables accounted for 60 % of newly installed power capacity in Europe in 2009, and nearly 20 % of annual power production.
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Calif. Sues Fannie, Freddie Over Solar Energy Financing
By JAMES R. RIFFEL, CNS - July 14, 2010
The state of California is suing federal mortgage lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for blocking implementation of a program that helps property owners to install solar energy systems, it was announced today at a San Diego news conference.
State Attorney General Jerry Brown also announced that he sent a letter to President Barack Obama, asking the nation's chief justice to intervene so that the problem might be solved without litigation.
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Report bolsters White House energy agenda
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a steady severe loss of jobs month after month during the last year of the Bush Administration and has reported a steady improvement, month after month since Obama took over.
By Katherine McIntire Peters - July 14, 2010
A report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers measuring the effects of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the second quarter of 2010 found the $787 billion economic stimulus package created or saved between 2.5 million and 3.6 million jobs. "The results, ... are strong enough and clear enough that we are confident that the basic conclusions are solid." Vice President Joe Biden: "The economic initiatives we took are working."
Additionally, the report said spending and tax incentives in clean energy had generated the largest co-investment from the private sector, noting, "A federal contribution of $46 billion will support more than $150 billion in total investments in energy efficiency, renewable generation, research and other areas of the transformation to a clean energy future."
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California’s climate-change law
update July 6th 2010 PG&E Joins Opposition to Proposition 23
SAN FRANCISCO, July 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) today announced that it will join other California business, civic, labor and environmental organizations in opposing Proposition 23, a new state ballot initiative that would suspend California's landmark Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.
California's New Energy Divide
A new ballot initiative threatens to suspend the Golden State's climate-change law.
Saturday, July 3, 2010 by Ronald Brownstein
In 2006, the Democratic Legislature passed, and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed, a pioneering law mandating ambitious reductions in the emission of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global climate change. That law is scheduled to take effect in 2012.
But last week, an alliance of business and conservative groups qualified an initiative for the November ballot to suspend the law until state unemployment drops below 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters -- a standard that California has met only three times in the past three decades. Outside of those three instances, California unemployment hasn't dipped below 5.5 percent in any other quarter since 1980. That record suggests that the initiative aims more to inter the greenhouse-gas law than to defer it.
The California initiative has been bankrolled primarily by two Texas oil companies (Valero and Tesoro). But California groups representing manufacturers and small businesses are also behind it. "The last thing a small-business owner needs now is a new and onerous mandate," insists John Kabateck, executive director for the state's National Federation of Independent Business. If California votes to shelve its climate law, the outcome could intimidate politicians around the country and set back prospects of national action on climate change for many years.
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California PG&E spending over $46 million to stop competition
California PG&E trying to monopolize energy production and squeeze out competition across the entire state.
By Erin Milnes; June 5, 2010
If passed, Proposition 16 will amend the California constitution to require two-thirds voter approval before a local government can establish a community choice aggregator, or CCA, an energy-supply approach a bit like a buying co-op, in which municipalities group together to purchase electricity wholesale. The two-thirds "super majority" requirement would make it harder – some say nearly impossible – for communities to leave their incumbent private utility and compete in the electricity market.
Michael R. Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates the state's three large private utility companies, and himself a former president of Southern California Edison Co., has been quoted as saying Proposition 16 embodies a "blatant misuse" of the election process. He presented that view as his own and not the official position of the commission, which is not commenting on the measure. In an opinion article published in the San Jose Mercury News, Mr. Peevey said, "Pure and simple, Proposition 16 is a clever, brazen, buzzword-driven effort by one company to manipulate the California Constitution to protect its current monopoly."
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Small-Scale, more efficient, Urban Wind Turbines
Virtually silent, fully enclosed, Tesla - bladeless wind turbines on the way
High efficiency wind turbine based on jet engine technology
Schooling fish inspire new approach to wind farming - to 10 times more efficient
Reno and Boston Put Wind Turbines on City Hall Roofs
Jun 3, 2010, By Russell Nichols, Staff Writer
From the roof of Reno's City Hall, two 1.5 kilowatt wind turbines designed with special hoops to reduce noise
This week, Reno became one of the first cities in the nation to install windmills on a city hall roof. Two years in the making, this project marks the latest stage in Reno's ongoing effort to plant small-scale turbines throughout the city to produce energy and save money, said Jason Geddes, the city's environmental services administrator. The city has already installed a turbine at the sewage plant and one at a park. In total, nine urban turbines are slated to go up, so city officials can test how they perform in various environments.
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Oil Spill focuses our attention on foreign oil
By T. Boone Pickens - 05-20-2010
Without minimizing the environmental issues involved in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, let's focus on the economics of the situation. This accident has not disrupted the 19 million barrels of oil we used every day in April - 12.3 million of which was imported oil. In the weeks since the accident, crude oil prices have actually dropped about $15 per barrel - which shows there are much broader forces at work in pricing crude than even a spill like this one.
We should not allow this accident to divert our attention away from our continuing dependence on foreign oil - especially oil from OPEC nations. We are importing nearly two-thirds of our oil requirements, and 70 percent of that is used as gasoline to fuel our 250 million SUVs, cars, and light trucks; and as diesel to power our 8 million heavy trucks.
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Energy saving work being sabotaged!
IMPORTANT UPDATE 
THE ORION PROJECT
May 13, 2010
For the past two years, The Orion Project has worked to raise funds to build a facility where we can bring scientists and inventors together in a peaceful type of Manhattan Project for energy - to develop new sources of energy that will get us off the fossil fuel economy. We have also worked to identify scientists and inventors capable of this work. For the past hundred years, scientists such as Nicola Tesla have worked on such devices. The fact that many have tried, and we are still using predominantly fossil fuels - the same fuels used in the 1800s - can be illustrated by our recent experience.
We reported last December that we had under contract a very talented scientist who wanted to work with us. Because he still is doing work for a private company that is linked to the Intelligence Community, he preferred working with his identity concealed. A side note is that he had agreed to work with us in the fall of 2008. At that time, he met with the Board of Directors and took a contract home to read and sign, but called us within three days saying that he was being deployed abroad for fifteen months. We heard nothing else from him until a year later - precisely after Dr. Greer publicly disclosed the energy briefing he had put together for President Obama.
He resurfaced and said that he wanted to work with us to develop new energy technologies. He met with the Board of Directors again. He assured us that he was cleared by his "shepherds" in the Intelligence Community to work with us to build advanced energy systems, but he was not allowed to work on advanced propulsion systems - that is, he could build systems to power our houses and businesses, but he would not be allowed to reproduce the advanced propulsion systems he has developed in the past.
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Florida House committee approves renewable energy bill
A House committee passed a sweeping renewables bill -- but not without criticism.
BY MARY ELLEN KLAS, Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau, Saturday, 04-10-2010
TALLAHASSEE -- A House committee gave approval Friday to a bill that uses tax breaks, government-backed loans and $400 million of electricity rate hikes in an attempt to spark a renewable energy revolution in Florida and drive down the use of dirty fossil fuels - but, not mandate that electric companies lower their fossil fuel consumption.
Environmentalists called it a good first step but lamented the absence of a renewable-energy standard that other states have used to force a clean-up of the way they produce power.
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Renewable Energy Now Growing Faster than Coal in China
April 10th, 2010
New official stats from China show that renewable energy capacity is growing faster than coal now.
By the end of 2010, hydro, nuclear and wind power should account for 26% of the country's electricity generation, providing about 250 GW of capacity. "Thermal power", largely coal-fired power stations, accounts for about 700 GW of capacity. However, 96 GW of the China's 178 GW of new power capacity will be from renewables in 2010, compared to 80 GW from thermal power. So, the tide may be changing.
A record 10,010 megawatts (10 gigawatts!) of new wind capacity was installed in the United States last year, accounting for 39 percent of new electrical generation, the American Wind Energy Association said in its annual report.
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Clean Energy at half the dirty price in Calif.
Calif regulators issue new rules on public power
By JASON DEAREN Associated Press Writer, 04/09/2010
SAN FRANCISCO—State energy regulators have issued new guidelines meant to curb tactics used by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in its campaign against Marin County's new public power agency.
Among the new rules issued Thursday by the California Public Utilities Commission is one that says utility companies cannot refuse to supply electricity to community choice aggregators.
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Big Energy Firms Blocking Solar Power in Georgia and Washington
ATLANTA, Georgia, Mar 31, 2010 (IPS) The Atlanta Progressive News, updated, Friday, April 9, 2010
As citizens, businesses and non-profit organizations seek to transition to cleaner power sources like solar and wind, some big energy firms whose business models rely on polluting sources are standing in the way.
In Georgia, the energy company Georgia Power has lobbied for, and gotten, public policies at the Public Service Commission (PSC) and State legislature that are making it difficult for the state's residents to transition to solar power. The Dekalb County school system wanted to put solar panels on their schools, but could not do it because of state policies like the Territorial Electric Service Act of 1973 which gives Georgia Power a monopoly over the purchase of energy.
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Bloom Box: Bloom Energy Powers Your Whole House with a Box
The Bloom Box: Energy Breakthrough
March 4th 2010
At a news conference attended by Gov. Schwartzneger and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, K.R. Sridhar, founder of Bloom Energy Inc., launched what he describes as the next generation of electricity, The Bloom Box.
Financial News, Technology by Pradeep Kolla
February 26th, 2010
Bloom Energy Stock and Stock Price Among Bloom Box Buzz: Fuel Cell Energy Technology Explored. Bloom Energy is a Sunnydale, California start up company that just unveiled their brain-child, the Bloom Box. The invention uses state of the art fuel cell technology in order to convert fossil fuels into electricity, allowing a business or homeowner to create their own energy without tapping into the electrical grid.
The servers will not allow you total energy independence, as you will still rely on natural gas or propane to fuel the generator. However, the company hopes that within the next decade they will be able to create a server that uses solar energy to provide electrical services to homes.
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What Arab Nations do when their oil is running out
Arab Nations Want a Piece of the Green Energy Pie, Too
Feb 17th 2010
Europe, North America and Asia have been the primary drivers of the green tech industry thus far, especially in the realm of wind and solar power. Meanwhile, Arab countries have maintained their dominance over oil and gas exports, controlling 45 percent of oil and roughly one quarter of all gas reserves globally. But now, either to claim their stake in a burgeoning industry or to prepare for life after [their] oil and gas [is gone], several Arab states are making aggressive moves to develop their own domestic renewable energy industry.
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Nuclear Loans Have 50 Percent Risk of Default
US Energy Sec Steven Chu Unaware That Nuclear Loans Have 50 Percent Risk of Default
02-16-2010
The Obama administration on Tuesday announced a loan guarantee for the first new nuclear reactor to be built in the US in decades--part of a planned $54.5 billion program to kickstart a nuclear revival using government-backed loans. Yet Chu said he was not aware of a Congressional Budget Office study showing that the chances of default on these loans are "very high--well above 50 percent."
"I don't know of the CBO report," Chu told reporters during a conference call on Tuesday. "We don't believe the chance of default is 50 percent. We believe it's far less than that." The first loan guarantee, worth $8.33 billion, was awarded to two proposed reactors to be built by Southern Company at Plant Vogtle in Burke, Georgia.
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contact Obama! 