Rank Place name 2013 Estimate 2010 Census Change
1 Houston[2] 2,195,914 2,100,263 4.55%
2 San Antonio 1,409,019 1,327,407 6.15%
3 Dallas 1,257,676 1,197,816 5.00%
4 Austin 885,400 790,390 12.02%
5 Fort Worth 792,727 741,206 6.95%
6 El Paso 674,433 649,121 3.90%
7 Arlington 379,577 365,438 3.87%
8 Corpus Christi 316,381 305,215 3.66%
9 Plano 274,409 259,841 5.61%
10 Laredo 248,142 236,091 5.10%
Cologne, Minnesota, is a town of about 1,500 near Minneapolis. It recently decided to power all of its facilities with renewable electricity from solar power — in fact, community solar. 2,700 solar panels in SunShare solar gardens will provide the electricity. They are being constructed under Excel Energy’s Solar Rewards Community program. The point of investing in solar power is to disconnect the city’s facilities from fossil fuels and their fluctuating prices.
“This decision creates a win-win for our community members and the City. By joining SunShare’s Solar project, the City is both doing the right thing environmentally and cutting down on our electricity costs, our taxpayer dollars can more efficiently be used for additional projects and infrastructure. Whatever we save can be put back toward the community,” explained City Administrator Jesse Dickson.
The facilities of a town with 1,500 residents might not sound like much, but there are hundreds of such towns in the state that could follow suit. With one setting an example of success, it might not take that long for others to go entirely solar, too. Such an example may also inspire residents to go solar. Some research has concluded that peer influence plays an important role when people are deciding to invest in energy conservation.
Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin signed into law a comprehensive energy bill that will create 1,000 new jobs, save Vermonters $390 million on energy costs, and help Vermont combat climate change by putting the state on track to achieve a quarter of its greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. The legislation also creates an innovative new program under which Vermont utilities will help customers reduce fossil fuel use and save money on their energy bills.
A group of researchers at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, led by Stanford’s Mark Jacobson and Mark Delucchi, says that the United States can get 100 percent of its energy from renewable sources, using existing technologies, by 2050. And they lay out a state-by-state plan for doing so. Jacobson and Delucchi had previously calculated that the world could theoretically go 100-percent renewable by 2030; in this more practical plan, they focus on the United States and look forward to 2050.
They conclude that, in aggregate, the the United States’ energy mix could be: 30.9 percent onshore wind, 19.1 percent offshore wind, 30.7 percent utility-scale photovoltaics, 7.2 percent rooftop photovoltaics, 7.3 percent concentrated solar power with storage, 1.25 percent geothermal power, 0.37 percent wave power, 0.14 percent tidal power, and 3.01 percent hydroelectric power.
Every state, of course, will have a different mix. The report concludes that California can meet 54.5 percent of its energy needs with some type of solar power, with wind power accounting for 35 percent. Five percent will come from geothermal, with hydroelectric power, wave power, and tidal turbines making up smaller percentages of the mix. North Dakota, the study says, can look towards meeting its energy demands with 42 percent solar power and 55 percent wind power. And Maine will be able to draw 70 percent of its energy from the wind.
Becoming a renewables-only country will require a number of steps besides building new large scale solar plants, installing rooftop solar, creating wind farms, and rolling out wave-power generating systems, the report indicates. For one, ground transportation will have to be entirely electrified. To do this, the researchers envision: battery-electric vehicles with fast charging or battery swapping dominating long-distance, light-duty transportation; battery-electric/hydrogen fuel cell hybrids dominating heavy-duty transportation and long-distance shipping; and electrolytic cryogenic hydrogen fuel used to power aircraft flight, with batteries providing energy for idling, taxiing, and internal electrical systems.
But change, the researchers indicated, will have to go beyond the way power is generated and used. The report contains a long list of other things that will need to be done—new building codes, improved data center design, surcharges on utility bills to fund the transition, easing the permitting process for electric car charging stations, improving bike routes, and much more.
Jacobsen and his colleagues insist that this is all quite feasible—and that the economics make sense. “When you account for health and climate costs—as well as the rising price of fossil fuels—wind, water, and solar are half the cost of conventional systems,” Jacobson said in a prepared statement. “A conversion of this scale would also create jobs, stabilize fuel prices, reduce pollution-related health problems, and eliminate emissions from the United States. There is very little downside to a conversion.”
yellowcanoe wrote:People who talk about health care savings due to less air pollution, reduced smoking, less exposure to cancer causing materials, etc. etc. rarely discuss the impact on pension funds. Reducing the number of premature deaths means that people will on average collect a pension longer. Eliminating the health costs associated with a premature death doesn't necessarily translate into an overall savings in health care as it is merely postponing a death that may involve just as much health care expenditures as would have been entailed by the premature death that was avoided.
pstarr wrote:-snip-
I am a bit confused here. Either every fueling station required to have a NG fuel delivery (of magnitude) or a solar PV electrolysis system? Which is it? How much?
Depends entirely upon how close you are to the high tension power lines, and how many customers would be served by 3-phase power. Today's residential infrastructure is mostly single phase, whereas most commercial buildings, manufacturing sites, etc are fed by 480-volt, 3-phase busbars.pstarr wrote: -snip-
The technology is the easy part. How much to intall 480 to my driveway?
pstarr wrote:-snip-
Why didn't you say so. Of course. Once we wave our magic wand (and reduce the defense budget by about $300 billion and return troops from 120 countries) and finally bioengineer that flying pig then it will be a go!
ennui2 wrote:Public policy is more than a math formula, otherwise we'd be living in a THX-1138 dystopia where everyone's life is calculated in terms of net GDP. People being healthier should be its own reward. Having to make an economical argument for it just plays into the whole Adam Smith invisible-hand-of-the-market-is-everything paradigm.
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