Hawaii goes Green and other Big Renewables Stories
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | –
The Hawaii legislature has just passed a bill by an overwhelming margin that sets a goal of 100% renewable energy in the state by 2045. The new law requires that the state get a third of its electricity from renewables by 2020, only five years from now. Electricity in Hawaii is expensive, about 34 cents a kilowatt hour for residences, since unlike most states it depends on petroleum as the fuel for its plants, and that has to be imported across long distances. The US average cost for residential electricity is 12 cents a kilowatt hour. New solar installations can provide it as low as 6 cents a kilowatt hour, and new geothermal plants are slightly cheaper (Hawaii has a *lot* of potential geothermal power but there is substantial public resistance, and solar may be the better play). So the legislature’s plan is the only thing that makes sense, and if anything its timeline is not nearly ambitious enough. Even a developing country like Morocco plans for 42% renewables by 2020, and Scotland may well be 100% by then. Costa Rica already is.
Solar energy is playing a role in post-disaster relief works in Nepal. Small solar kits power water purification and can charge phones and provide lighting in villages, where power lines are now often down because of the massive earthquake. donate here.
China put in 5 gigawatts of new solar plants in the first three months of 2015 alone. In all of 2014, the USA did not install that much new solar, and 2014 was a remarkably good year for solar power in the US. China is near to outstripping Germany for title of country with the most solar energy. It will likely have 45 gigwatts of solar generation capacity by the end of 2015, 10 gigs more than it had planned for.
Pakistan, habitually plagued with a lack of electricity and repeated brown-outs, has opened its first solar power plant. The newly opened plant generates 100 megawatts, but that will be increased 10-fold to 1 gigawatt over the next year. It only cost $190 mn. to build, took a year, and was installed by by China’s Tebian Electric Apparatus Stock Co Ltd (TBEA). The project is part of a $46 bn. development scheme proposed by the Chinese government for Pakistan.
Dubai has earmarked $3 billion to raise the generating capacity of the Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park from 1 gigawatt to 3 gigawatts. The United Arab Emirates also announced that it will install 100 MW of solar in the north.
If we don't kill ourselves first, Technology really will save us.
ReplyDeleteIt's the 21st. Century, and the race is on. :)
Elect Ben Carson
ReplyDeleteThis might endear Ben Carson to Rufus......
Ben Carson: Let’s slash Big Oil to pay for ethanol
posted at 5:01 pm on May 10, 2015 by Jazz Shaw
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Well this is certainly disappointing. With all of the newly emerging candidates running around the early primary and caucus states talking to anyone who will listen it gets difficult to keep track of them all. But there’s one bit of news out of Iowa from earlier this week which is definitely worth a quick rewind and a better look. Newly announced presidential contender Ben Carson was out talking to the Cornhuskers and the inevitable subjects of ethanol, the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and subsidies for King Corn came up. The answer from the esteemed neurosurgeon was dismaying even compared to some of the other pandering we’ve seen previously.
He started out on a fairly good note:
Carson, in his first speech in the state as a candidate, was asked by a voter about the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), the federal mandate that fuel refiners blend a certain volume of ethanol and biodiesel into their gasoline and diesel supplies.
“I don’t particularly like the idea of government subsidies for anything because it interferes with the natural free market,” Carson said, according to The Des Moines Register.
Not bad. Subsidies in general are detrimental. If he’d only stopped there. But sadly, he didn’t.
“Therefore, I would probably be in favor of taking that $4 billion a year we spend on oil subsidies and using that in new fueling stations” for 30 percent ethanol blends, he added.
How much wrong can you package into just one sentence? First of all… thirty percent blends? We’re fighting like mad to hold the line against E-15 as it is. I don’t even need to go back over all the reasons why yet again in this article. But let’s move on to the other half of that pitch.
He’s suggesting cutting subsidies for domestic energy companies in the oil and gas industry. Not for everyone, mind you. Just them. And then reallocating that money away from fossil fuels and into ethanol processing. Just five seconds before that Carson had been claiming that he didn’t want anyone interfering with the free market, but now he’s saying to cherry pick one specific set of companies in the energy sector, remove a subsidy from them, and then redirect it to benefit the ethanol industry? It’s difficult to imagine a more egregious example of the government picking winners and losers, with the winners just happening to be in the first caucus state.
Second, calling out the “subsidies for Big Oil” is the language of the Left, and as usual it’s complete horse hockey. As anyone who follows this topic knows, the subsidies received by oil and gas companies are not specific to them. They are precisely the same as subsidies given to almost anyone who sells anything, including Apple and Microsoft among so many others. In fact, you couldn’t just cancel the subsidies to the fossil fuel segment of the energy industry without rewriting the rules entirely just to exclude them. That’s a left wing, anti-energy talking point and Carson should be embarrassed to be saying it in front of an ostensibly conservative crowd.
If you want to have a discussion about removing all subsidies across the board, then fine. We’re all ears. Carly Fiorina has proposed the same thing and it’s a worthy topic of debate. But when you start talking about just picking the pockets of oil and gas developers and using it to pay for ethanol, you may as well be running for the Democrat nomination. Poor showing, Dr. Carson.
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/05/10/ben-carson-lets-slash-big-oil-to-pay-for-ethanol/
I like Ben and wish him well but think he's in over his head.
He's an asshole, and you're an asshole; please don't use my name.
DeleteFuck you, you old asshole.
DeleteHe's 100 times the man you are, you old ignorant drunk racist.
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Hawaii is a pretty easy place for renewable energy.
They ought to be able to make the 2045 date.
84% of New Electricity Generation Capacity in the U.S. in the first qtr. was Renewables.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that remains to be settled on the Free Speech debate is whether Quirk is willfully ignorant, or just ignorant-ignorant.
ReplyDelete6 Reasons Pamela Geller’s Muhammad Cartoon Contest Is No Different From Selma
by John Nolte9 May 20152301
When you are dealing with the mainstream media, it is always difficult to tell if you are dealing with willful ignorance or just plain old ignorance-ignorance. There are plenty of moronic savants in the national media who have cracked the “hot take” code to please their left-wing masters but have no fundamental grasp of history, or much of anything much of else.
The act of willful ignorance in the media manifests itself through bias, and lies of omission conjured up to serve that bias. These dishonest liars know they are dishonest liars, and willfully choose to not tell the world pertinent facts like, say, Baltimore has been run by Democrats for a half-century, Hillary Clinton is in favor of legally aborting infants born alive, Ted Kennedy abandoned a drowning woman, and George Zimmerman is Hispanic.
Anyone who knows anything about history understands that tactically and morally, Geller’s provocative Muhammad Cartoon Contest was no different than Dr. Martin Luther King’s landmark march from Selma to Montgomery.
The first thing the spittle-flecked will scream upon reading the above is that I am comparing Geller to King. I did not know King. I do not know Geller. I am not comparing anyone to anyone. What I’m comparing is one righteous cause to another......
The second thing the spittle-flecked will scream is that King never would have held a Draw Muhammad Cartoon Contest … which brings me to the first reason there is no moral or tactical difference between Garland and Selma................
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/05/09/6-reasons-why-pamela-gellers-muhammad-cartoon-contest-is-no-different-than-selma/
Quirk the Spittle-Flecked should stick to the 4th Amendment.
I'll handle the 1st Amendment.
Good pic of Pam Geller and Dr. Martin Luther King.
You can’t be serious.
DeleteAbsolutely serious, your Honor, on my honor.
Delete