For the Price of the Iraq War, The U.S. Could Have a 100% Renewable Power System

by WashingtonsBlog

 

 

What Are We Choosing for Our Future?

Wind energy expert Paul Gipe reported this week that – for the amount spent on the Iraq war – the U.S. could be generating 40%-60% of its electricity with renewable energy:

Disregarding the human cost, and disregarding our “other” war in Afghanistan, how much renewable energy could we have built with the money we spent? How far along the road toward the renewable energy transition could we have traveled?

The [...]

Homeless In Japan, Renewable Energy Reality Check

Homeless, jobless forced to take refuge under Golden Arches (Japan)

“It takes 1,000 yen ($11) or so if I sleep at an Internet cafe,” a 37-year-old woman said. “I can stay at a McDonald’s for 100 yen over a cup of coffee.”

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/…/AJ201301310086

Reality Check

Experts who have considered the difficulty of powering the world without fossil fuels or nuclear power have come up with mind-blowing numbers. In an article published in Scientific American in 2009, engineer Mark [...]

CEO of GE says nuclear power “really hard” to defend financially — “At some point, really, economics rule”

Not so long ago, it used to be the opponents of nuclear generation who argued that the economics did not add up. Nowadays, at least one of the industry’s more influential proponents seems to agree.

In a Financial Times interview this week, Jeff Immelt, chief executive of GE, said nuclear power was “really hard” to defend financially, when compared both with gas-fired generation and certain renewables. “At some point, really, economics [...]

Denmark Is On Its Way To Becoming The First Country To Run Entirely On Renewable Energy

The holy grail for any U.S. administration remains energy independence.

 

Denmark is nearly one-fifth of the way there. And they plan to do it entirely on renewable energy.

According to BP’s annual statistical energy review released last week, the Danes now get 18 percent of their energy from renewables, which is the highest level of any country in the world.

It’s also a full four-percent gain from 2010.

And the BBC reported in April that the current Danish [...]

Germany Swaps Nuclear for Solar And Wind Power

Germany, the world’s most aggressive adopter of renewable energy, is taking a bold leap toward a future free from nuclear energy. In March, the German government announced a program to invest 200 billion euros, or approximately $270 billion, in renewables. That’s 8 percent of the country’s GDP, according to the DIW Economic Institute in Berlin.

Last year, in response to the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, Chancellor Angela [...]

HUFFPOST: PARTY LIKE IT’S 1929

From HUFFPOST:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — If Whole Foods were to sell a city, the proposal might look like how local booster Dan Murrey pitches Charlotte. In Murrey’s telling, this business-savvy city has the soul of a nonprofit, built around diversity, renewables and do-gooders. Charlotte may be more commonly known as the “Wall Street of the South,” but to Murrey, it’s more like Mayberry 2.0.

Charlotte is not just a city, Murrey says, it’s a [...]

Renewable Technologies And Our Energy Future – An Interview With Tom Murphy

by James Stafford of OilPrice.com

Renewable Technologies And Our Energy Future – An Interview With Tom Murphy

Rising geopolitical tensions and high oil prices are continuing to help renewable energy find favour amongst investors and politicians. Yet how much faith should we place in renewables to make up the shortfall in fossil fuels? Can science really solve our energy problems, and which sectors offers the best hope for our energy future?

To help us [...]

What really gets me mad is “Cost Externalization”.

It’s a term describing how “someone else” pays for the damage that comes from consuming energy, be it the tons of radioactive water released in Japan, to the groundwater poisoned by leaking gasoline tanks at petrol stations, to the vast damage caused in the gulf, to the cancer and other health ailments that come from being downwind of a refinery, to the cost of the America’s military operations in the [...]

Human Energy Consumption and the Energy Source Growth Path

http://static5.businessinsider.com/asset…); “>We are now burning 10 times as much energy as a century ago to provide the goods and services we consume.
http://static5.businessinsider.com/asset…); “>Energy consumption is still increasing rapidly, with an approximate 550 exajoules (523 Quadrillion BTUs) consumed at the primary energy level in 2010.
http://static5.businessinsider.com/asset…); “>Of this total 80% was provided by fossil fuels, 11.3% by bio-energy mainly from wood combustion, 5.5% from nuclear, 2.2% from hydro, and 0.4% from other [...]

The GHT & Industrial Hemp

These power sources can replace crude oil without using a drop of crude oil. http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/05spr/gorlov3.asp

http://www.votehemp.com/

The problem of course is monopolistic control of gov subsidies, and legislation prohibiting the cultivation of a non-psychoactive plant.

Both constraints are artificial, hypocritical, and extremely costly.

 

The fossil fuel industry sucks up $4B in subsidies annually and only a pittance to renewables and less than that to wave energy. Industrial hemp competes with fossil [...]

Shell: world’s biggest gas-to-liquids plant which will produce 140,000 barrels per day (bpd) to start soon

* World’s largest gas-to-liquids project to start in weeks

* Developed by Shell, Qatar Petroleum at a cost of $18-$19 bln

* Plant to produce fuels such as diesel, kerosene, naphtha (Adds decline in Malaysian field ouput, details on renewables)

By Florence Tan

KUALA LUMPUR, June 7 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) expects oil product output at its joint venture gas-to-liquids project in Qatar to start in weeks, bringing online the [...]