Renewables/Biofuels (merged)

[yesplease]

As of October 2009 there were 37 coal plants either under construction (25), near completion (3), or permitted (9)-- each more than 1 gigwatt Tracking New Coal-Fired Power Plants (careful-pdf)

And as of ~2010 no new coal plant got through.

[Tanada]

The NREL study put the maximum at 37 trillion kWh/year from wind. Current generation is about 4 trillion kWh/year.

[Graeme]

A new source of power, the potential for renewable energy in the MENA region

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has the potential to become one of the world's largest producers of renewable energy. Renewable energy industry developments combined with the region's potential in wind and solar power could create significant advantage for countries that move to capitalize on them, according to a new study by Booz & Company.

There are at least seven reasons why the MENA region could be a world leader in renewable energy.

1. The region has an advantageous geography and climate. The MENA region has the world's greatest potential for solar power generation, offering 45 percent of the world's total energy potential from all renewable sources. If the region achieved this potential, it could generate more than three times the world's total current power demand. The region also has some potential for large-scale wind farms.

tmcnet

[dorlomin]

I can see North Africa but not really the Middle East. They would appear to be too geographically far from potential customers.

[Graeme]

Beyond Petroleum

You couldn’t call it a dialogue. It was more like a momentary rip in the global power continuum, a spill of outrage on the stage of a major oil conference in London.

On Tuesday, two Greenpeace activists interrupted a speech by British Petroleum chief of staff Steve Westwell — sandwiched him at his podium, trespassed on time and space that didn’t belong to them, and spoke to an audience that hadn’t come to hear them. They had about 20 seconds, not much time to talk about the complexity of ecosystems or draw attention, say, to the plight of the Gulf of Mexico’s Sargassum algae. They did the best they could.

One unfurled a banner that read “Go Beyond Petroleum.” The other, as she was being ushered off the stage and out of the hotel, shouted, “We need to speed up progress and make a push to end the oil age.”

That was it. Time’s up. That’s how protest is — shouted and emotional, sometimes illegal. Even when it’s videotaped and the world gets to witness those 20 seconds of public theater, all we hear are slogans, all we see are disruption and scuffle: disorder, quickly dealt with. Money gets its hair mussed a little, then returns to its agenda. Nothing seems to change. The disorder implicit in that agenda returns to “let our children worry about it” status, and we remain on the track described by Ronald Wright in A Short History of Progress, his investigation into why civilizations collapse:

“The concentration of power at the top of large-scale societies gives the elite a vested interest in the status quo; they continue to prosper in darkening times long after the environment and general populace begin to suffer.”

commondreams

[Graeme]

A global shift to renewable energy: But will it be fast enough?

As fossil fuel prices rise, as oil insecurity deepens, and as concerns about climate change cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new energy economy is emerging. The old energy economy, fueled by oil, coal, and natural gas, is being replaced by one powered by wind, solar, and geothermal energy. Despite the global economic crisis, this energy transition is moving at a pace and on a scale that we could not have imagined even two years ago. And it is a worldwide phenomenon.

Consider Texas. Long the leading U.S. oil-producing state, it is now also the leading generator of electricity from wind, having overtaken California in 2006. Texas now has 9,700 megawatts of wind generating capacity online, 370 more in the construction stage, and a huge amount in the development stage. When all of these wind farms are completed, Texas will have 53,000 megawatts of wind generating capacity -- the equivalent of 53 coal-fired power plants. This will more than satisfy the residential needs of the state’s 25 million people, enabling Texas to export electricity, just as it has long exported oil.


This century will also see the electrification of the economy. The transport sector will shift from gasoline-powered automobiles to plug-in gas-electric hybrids, all-electric cars, light rail transit, and high-speed intercity rail. And for long-distance freight, the shift will be from diesel-powered trucks to electrically powered rail freight systems. The movement of people and goods will be powered largely by electricity. In this new energy economy, buildings will rely on renewable electricity almost exclusively for heating, cooling, and lighting.

Can we expand renewable energy use fast enough? I think so.

grist

[Graeme]

Civilisation Has a Future Beyond Oil

Each generation takes care of its descendants: This basic tenet is ignored when it comes to the energy systems deployed by most of the industrialised nations. The 'western' lifestyle today is based almost exclusively on fossil fuels. This will have to change if we want to pass on a more-or-less intact world to the generations to come. Not sometime in the distant future but now!

The discovery of fossil fuels cleared the path for industrialisation with the automation and acceleration of work processes. It ignited a self-perpetuating cycle of burning fossil fuels to build bigger machines to drill for more oil, gas and coal to gain capacity for an even bigger technical exhaustion of fossil fuels. The availability of previously unknown quantities of oil, gas and coal triggered electrification, mobility, mass production, speed, large-scale infrastructure measures, etc.

Between 1950 and the year 2000 alone the global demand for fossil fuels went up by 500% with devastating consequences for the environment -- the rapidly increasing emissions of greenhouse gases that cause climate chaos as well as the pollution of the air and our flora and fauna. Since oil prices are rising again a more deeper look into this fossil fuel and its impact on our societies deserves attention.


The good news however is that there are alternatives to fossil fuel life styles. The industrialised nations which are mainly responsible for the problems described above must act resolutely by way of encouraging massive push for renewable energy and energy efficiency, renewable energy access in developing countries, forest protection and support of organic agriculture.

Alternative policy proposals need to be integrated, need to encourage innovation, need be easily understood, and need to promote resilience and rapid change. We must build economies that serve the people -- rather than people serving economies -- and economies that internalise environmental costs. Markets are good servants but bad masters.

Also we must start taxing "the bad", not the good. A shift from labour to resource taxes is a pre-condition for a shift to a sustainable, energy-efficient economy.

Solar and other renewable energies can deliver abundant long-term energy for all, if we stop rejecting projects for short-term 'cost' reasons. The German Renewable Energies Act, the so called Feed-in-tariff is a good example of how a well designed policy can unleash the renewable energy uptake and make these technologies competitive.

The legislation resulted into a 15% share of Germany's total electricity demand only within 10 years. 300,000 jobs were created and Germany became a world leader in this innovative technology sector, holding out fresh opportunities to thousands of small electricity suppliers.

indepthnews

Stefan Schurig is Director Climate Energy, World Future Council Foundation in Hamburg, Germany.

[vision-master]

The good news however is that there are alternatives to fossil fuel life styles. The industrialised nations which are mainly responsible for the problems described above must act resolutely by way of encouraging massive push for renewable energy and energy efficiency, renewable energy access in developing countries, forest protection and support of organic agriculture.

Ask those guy's @ Roswell. The elites have hidden unlimited free energy technology available. Of course the sheeple cannot see father than the end of a nose and regard this as myth, as always......

But then a again, of course we all know the Spaniards had no maps of the 'new world' either.


Sheeple respond below..........

[americandream]

Ask those guy's @ Roswell. The elites have hidden unlimited free energy technology available. Of course the sheeple cannot see father than the end of a nose and regard this as myth, as always......

You really post some of the most absurd logic. Why in heaven's name would a wealthy class of the elite who depend on an energy intensive culture to maintain their capital rich way of life withold an energy source that promises unlimited free energy! Your logic mirrors that of the poor Medieval serf who believed that the elite were some super human group with special powers. And yet the rise of America from a boatload of wretched religious refugees amply testifies to the rather modest origins of the wealthy class, worldwide.

[vision-master]

I wonder what would happen to the 'elites' (the ruling class) if we all had free unlimited energy available? Thud!

Carry on sheeple - you're doing just fine.

[Sixstrings]

Solar and other renewable energies can deliver abundant long-term energy for all, if we stop rejecting projects for short-term 'cost' reasons. The German Renewable Energies Act, the so called Feed-in-tariff is a good example of how a well designed policy can unleash the renewable energy uptake and make these technologies competitive.

The legislation resulted into a 15% share of Germany's total electricity demand only within 10 years. 300,000 jobs were created and Germany became a world leader in this innovative technology sector, holding out fresh opportunities to thousands of small electricity suppliers.

We need to cut back for many reasons -- environment (even if AGW Doom ain't true there are many other problems like peak fish and pollution on and on), peak oil, peak resources, water.

What I don't quite get though is can you really get MORE growth while CUTTING BACK? Your article mentions all the jobs created, but at the end of the day if you're really cutting back then it's impossible to add net jobs. By definition, if you're growing then you aren't cutting back.

[vision-master]

One of the challenges we face in order to redo things is our concept of time. It's artificial, not natural and mighty enslaving. Our masters concocked this scheme way back when in order to control us plebs.

Jose Arguelles and Twinflame

[DoomersUnite]

One of the challenges we face in order to redo things is our concept of time. It's artificial, not natural and mighty enslaving. Our masters concocked this scheme way back when in order to control us plebs.

I've never liked seeing the world through the lens of being a victim, myself.

[vision-master]

But we all are owned by the 'clock' in some fashion or another.

[mos6507]

But we all are owned by the 'clock' in some fashion or another.

Blame the 4th dimension.

[americandream]

I wonder what would happen to the 'elites' (the ruling class) if we all had free unlimited energy available? Thud!

Carry on sheeple - you're doing just fine.

That is precisely why I say that you have the most absurd logic. Had you an understanding of basic capitalist social economy, you would know that energy has, through the ages, been a source of latent wealth in economic orders based around forms of accumulation. And that the most favoured of energy sources have invariably been the ones that were closest to zero cost (cheap labour and oil) or free of cost (slavery). The fact that the capitalist paradigm would have access to this free energy does NOT mean that all and sundry would suddenly have free access to all the goods and services that arises out of that energy source (manufacturing, financial services etc. etc). These fundamentals of the capitalist social economy would continue apace, capitalism would strive to meet its annual growth targets (now unfettered by energy concerns), increasing population would be an essential function of that growth paradigm giving rise to such enterprises as off-planet settlements and capitalists would enjoy unprecedented wealth!!

That's how absurd you paranoia is!!

[americandream]

Capitalism does not have a future beyond oil UNLESS it can invent an alchemy that renders its resourcing concerns redundant for ever, it can find the means to effectively dispose of its mountain of necessary obsolescence before it poisons itself into a non-viable planetary space AND it can find the means to maintain population growth somewhere in this solar system and within a radius that ensures that its markets remain cost effective.

As for this nonsense that there are aliens lurking in some vast government owned facility for some illogical objective of the elite, this is that fantasy of the dimwitted. I personally don't believe that there are any aliens within a whisker of this civilisation, both physically or in terms of technology transfer. Had there been, you can damned well rest assured that any technical innovation would be on the shelves, making someone a fast buck.

[vision-master]

Are we alone in the Universe?

Genesis 6:1-4


In the Shop...

As we went into his workshop in a barn behind his house, David illustrated to us some of his machines that demonstrate perpetual motion and produce free energy. In his drafting room we see hundred of detailed full color drawings and blueprints all drawn by David by hand, displaying saucer construction and new types of physics that are still yet unrecognizable to the scientific community today.

http://www.world-famous.com/DavidHamel.html

[Graeme]

Carbon Sciences' Breakthrough Catalyst Is Key to Replacing Foreign Oil

Carbon Sciences' breakthrough catalyst technology transforms natural gas and carbon dioxide into a synthesis gas (syngas), which can then be transformed into gasoline and other fuels using conventional Fischer-Tropsch ("FT") gas-to-liquids ("GTL") technology. Of the various methods used to produce syngas from natural gas, dry reforming using carbon dioxide is the most desired approach, due to lower projected capital and operating costs. Until now, there has been no commercial catalyst robust enough to sustain dry reforming reactions on an industrial scale. The Carbon Sciences technical team has solved this problem.

marketwatch

[Hughj]

Germany fought much of WW2 on synthetic gasoline.

Hugh