Techdiplomacy

This is in response to Patrick Serfass who commented on my piece posted a few days ago. For those who have not guessed, it’s “Hydrogen Economy? Not In The Near Future”. Patrick is employed by the National Hydrogen Association, more about that later. First, I would like to point out, this is a huge organization. That being the case, why would they care enough to attack my humble little blog? I’ll tell you a little story. The National Hydrogen Association or NHA is a group that includes sustaining members and industry members. In his comment on my piece, Patrick states that I should do some research at the NHA website. Well, I was way ahead of him there, I had checked the site before I started the piece. He further states that I had my facts wrong. I would like to say that my information is different from the information on the site for the most part. However, I stand by my data, I listed a reputable source as a reference for a great deal of the information contained in my piece. Patrick listed his employer as his only source of information. Can you say, “conflict of interest”? It would be the same if I used a relative of mine to verify information, they would have to disqualify themselves on ethical grounds. Let’s talk about ethics, you’ll be surprised at the identity of some of the sustaining members of the NHA. Most of the sustaining members are large corporations. Some, are familiar to us all as they have had a lot of news coverage of late.

You could go to the NHA website and see the list of members and you would be at least mildly surprised. For instance, there’s General Motors Corporation, and there’s Chevron Oil. Why are these guys in bed with NHA? In an article from earlier this month, I detailed the funds that big oil and dirty coal were spending to defeat the Waxman-Markey (Energy) bill. I revealed fraudulent behavior on the part of dirty coal. (see “Dirty Coal Industries’ Dirty Tricks”) These guys are not interested in cleaning up our environment, they are interested in raking in big profits.

What exactly does Patrick Serfass do for NHA? He’s listed as the Director of their support staff over technology and communications. Apparently the truth does not enter the discussion when you are communicating with people you don’t agree with. Everything I put forth regarding hydrogen technology is backed up by their website and the business their members happen to practice. Let me illustrate this point.

There are several types of membership with NHA, two of which are industry members and sustaining members. For instance General Motors is a sustaining member, so are Indian Oil, and Chevron. Westinghouse, on the other hand is an industry member. Indian Oil and Chevron are part of the ‘Big Oil’ industry. Last year this industry took Americans to the brink of disaster when they drove gas prices to four dollars a gallon. They are in the process of repeating this again now! They want to go from a fossil fuel infrastructure to a hydrogen infrastructure. Westinghouse, who serves the nuclear power industry, wants to produce this hydrogen from nuclear driven steam methane reforming or from nuclear driven water splitting. You can get this information from the NHA website, if you dig deep enough. Nebraska Public Power District is an industry member of NHA. They currently get 60% of the power that they sell their customers from our old friends the Dirty Coal industry, whose lobbists like to write fraudulent letters to congressmen. NPPD gets 20% of their power from nuclear power. Another of their members is a company known as Entergy. They believe in a partnership between hydrogen and nuclear power. My point is NHA has members who espouse all of the points that I made in the previous article published last week.

Patrick, our NHA friend, stated that there were police groups, cell phone companies and others using hydrogen for backup power, however, he never said when or how. That is because this is something that may happen in the future, but it has not surfaced yet. There is another point that seems to suggest my article rubbed NHA the wrong way for the wrong reasons. NHA has a section on their website for the press. One of their ‘fact’ sheets is called “Hydrogen Economy”, how’s that for irony? (I was not aware of this fact until I looked closer at the site than I had previously) No one need take my word for any of this, everything I said in this and the previous article is based on facts supported by their members, you simply have to look harder than you might normally. Use the links provided by our friend Patrick in his comment on the previous article. Any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to leave them, we will respond. See you around the galaxy…

One of the major reasons for increasing the use of biofuels is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The same can be said for switching to electric vehicles.

Recently in a study done by researchers at the University of California, Merced, an electric SUV was compared to a SUV using ethanol for fuel. The electric vehicle was powered by bioelectricity created with the same amount of switchgrass used to make the ethanol.

Well, the electric vehicle won, are you surprised? The SUV powered by bioelectricity could travel 14,000 miles on electricity created from an acre of switchgrass. The ethanol fueled internal combustion engine in the other SUV could travel 9,000 miles on the same amount of switchgrass. Eliot Campbell, one of the researchers explained, “the internal combustion engine just isn’t very efficient, especially when compared to electric vehicles.” “Even the best ethanol-producing technologies with hybrid vehicles aren’t enough to overcome this.” The researchers concluded that the obvious course is to convert biomass to electricity, rather than ethanol. This course of action would double the greenhouse gas offsets to bring about climate change. The researchers warn that the problem is more complex than this particular study covered. These results only cover the issues of transportation and climate. The problems of water consumption, air pollution and economic costs were not addressed. What is your take on the subject? Leave a comment and we’ll have a lively discussion about this or any other issue involving saving our environment. Let’s talk, see you around the galaxy…

Offshore Wind Turbines

 

Renewable energy grew in leaps and bounds in 2008, and the future is promising with wind, solar and  geothermal power gaining in the foreseeable future.  You have the nuclear and fossil fuel industries saying that renewable energy is a good thought but is it economically feasible?  The answer is yes, although those industries would have the public believe otherwise.

Wind Power

In the past year we have seen wind power grow in places where there is surplus wind to be harnessed.  That would include Texas, Kansas, and Missouri.  There is a wealth of wind in Texas and they have done their best to utilize this power to grow tax revenues, create jobs, create a large tourism industry (people actually come to see the wind turbines in operation) and increase educational resources.  Towns that used to see most of their population moving on as they reached the age of the majority.  Now these towns are witnessing a rebirth of sorts as young people are staying in droves. 

The year 2008 was the best year in United States wind power history.  The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has released reports stating that the industry will easily surpass 2007, they added Wyoming and West Virginia to the list of states with the highest volume of wind power.  The AWEA revealed that only Germany, India, and Spain had more wind power capacity than Texas at the end of 2007.  They noted that West Virginia had the fastest wind power capacity growth which tripled it’s capacity.  Wyoming reportedly could have added 1,856 more turbines and around 2,800 MW of wind generation capacity. 

On the eastern seaboard offshore wind turbines seemed to be the answer according to the AWEA and is more cost effective than fossil fuel and nuclear power.  Plans have been revealed to build 96 offshore wind turbines arranged in a grid 16 to 20 miles off Cape May and Atlantic counties.

Congress has awarded wind a one-year Production Tax Credit (PTC) extension in the Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.  AWEA advocates a long term extension of the wind PTC.

Geothermal Power

The Geothermal Energy Association said 47 new geothermal projects are in various stages of development in California and Nevada.  When completed they will provide more than 2,100 MW, and there are projects getting started in Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington.  The U.S. Department of the Interior said in October that more than 190 million acres of federal land in 11 western states including Alaska will open to geothermal energy resource development. 

The Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency  and Renewable Energy report “Geothermal Tomorrow 2008″ stated that improved geothermal technologies have “the potential to access vast untapped geothermal energy sources.”  One such technology, enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) involves digging wells into hot rock, fracturing it to create a reservoir and then extracting the heat with a second well, making geothermal a viable source of power generation in areas that don’t have naturally occuring hydrothermal reservoirs.  This would mean geothermal generation could take place in much of the United States. 

There was a two year congressional PTC extension for geothermal energy, however costs are becoming economical without the PTC.

Solar Power

Solar Photovoltaic Panel Roof Installation

A congressional investment tax credit (ITC) extension is helping solar’s fast track growth.  The 30 percent federal ITC is for residential and commercial solar installations, has been extended for 8 years.  The director of research, Mike Taylor at the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA), stated that was the largest solar milestone for 2008.

New Energy Finance has seen a possible change in the photovoltaic (PV) and solar thermal electricity generators markets.  Some analysts think that supply will exeed demand and the result could be price decreases and consolidation. 

SEPA noted the large number of solar projects announced in 2008, both CSP and distributed PV was considered to be worthy of milestone status.  Recent estimates have CSP plants with an estimated total of 4,000 MW are in the planning stages. 

In 2008 utilities and the general public started to see the benefits of rooftop solar photovotaic and(PV)  installations, that was very fortunate rooftop PV installations are now in great demand.  Southern California Edison in March 2008 started to build what they said would be the largest solar cell project in the US.  This will be built on two square miles of commercial building roofs where they would generate 250 MW of advanced PV technology.  Duke Energy in North Carolina has stated they will build a 50 million dollar solar rooftop installation, they will generate 8 MW of of power from 425 sites over the next two years.  In April of 2008 the Center for Revolutionary Solar Photoconversion (CRSP) was launched.  Fourteen companies belong to the CRSP, the newest research center of the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory.

The Future of Renewable Energy

The sector will show strong growth in 2009, although it may not be a record year due the economy.  The poor economy will not affect European expansion in wind.  The US is as usual having growing pains and they need to be overcome in order for our country to keep up with our European counterparts.  The renewable energy industry need only keep up with demand for transmission, match renewables with demand response.  This is our business model for this sector.  We’ll save Americans money and we’llsave the planet as well.  We will need intelligent infrastructure from the generating station to the customer.  This fits in nicely with our next President’s (Obama) plans.  We will need to give our president help, where is the old American spirit of invention?  Donate 50 cents or a dollar, it will go to organizations involved in saving the environment.   Let’s see what we can do working together!