67 replies to this topic

[diogenes227]

Subsidies, subsidies. 

 

I'll trade my renewable energy subsidies for your fossil fuel subsidies any day. 

 

 

 

[diogenes227]

Musk - the goal is to have a solar roof that looks better than a normal roof, generates electricity, has better insulation, has less installed cost, and lasts longer than a conventional roof.

 

Elon Musk unveils solar roof by Solar City.

[diogenes227]

US SOLAR BOOM CONTINUES

 

From the link:

 

Solar is quickly becoming the energy source of choice because the economics have improved so drastically. An interactive map from the University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute depicts the competing technologies around the country, demonstrating how geographical differences go a long way in determining what developers decide to build when looking at new electricity capacity.

Looking at the map, wind power clearly wins in the heart of the country, from North Dakota down to Texas, as prairie winds and open spaces allow wind developers to beat out all competitors. Natural gas still has a grip on large parts of the country, however, including nearly all of the Southeast, parts of the Northeast and Midwest, and parts of the Mountain West and West Coast. But solar already has a foothold in the Southwest, a swath of territory which continues to expand beyond California and Arizona.

 

And there is this too:

 

 

(Coal is largely an afterthought at this point, with a shrinking footprint in only isolated parts of Appalachia. And even in places where coal is theoretically the most economical, coal-fired power plants are billion dollar assets that are amortized over decades. Since no utility executive can be confident that coal will be allowed to compete two or three decades from now without significant costs on carbon, it is almost impossible to build a new coal plant these days).

[stocks]

First Solar (FSLR) was a corporate donor to Anthony Podesta's "Center for American Progress" (CAP), a "pay for play" think tank that served as a corrupt systemic gateway to government for  lucrative subsidies

 

 

Wikileaks shows climate researcher targeted by "Center for Ameican Progress" (CAP) to be silenced

 

“The multi-year campaign against me by CAP was partially funded by billionaire Tom Steyer, and involved 7 writers at CAP who collectively wrote more than 160 articles about me, trashing my work and my reputation. Over the years, several of those writers moved on to new venues, including The Guardian, Vox and ClimateTruth.org where they continued their campaign focused on creating an evil, cartoon version of me and my research.”

 

Collectively, they were quite successful. The campaign ultimately led to me being investigated by a member of Congress and pushed out of the field.

 

 

http://joannenova.co...r-roger-pielke/

[diogenes227]

Nevada regulators fighting Las Vegas Casinos going solar

 

 

The glittering Las Vegas strip is not an obvious model for energy conservation.

Yet hidden above the glowing Eiffel Tower, neon resort awnings and a black pyramid that shines a beam of light into space, is one of the largest rooftop solar arrays in the country.
Nevada solar industry collapses after state lets power company raise fees
Read more

Twenty acres of sun-catching glass sit atop the Mandalay Bay convention center, and when new installations are complete, it will become the biggest rooftop solar array in the US.

In recent months, three of Nevada’s largest casino companies – MGM Resorts, Wynn, and Las Vegas Sands – have announced plans to buy and produce more renewable energy for their hotels, a move driven both by increasing demand for responsible energy use from the companies that rent their conference halls, and a surplus of cheap power from solar farms in Nevada and California.

“It’s no accident that we put the array on top of a conference center. This is good business for us,” said Cindy Ortega, chief sustainability officer at MGM Resorts. “We are looking at leaving the power system, and one of the reasons for that is we can procure more renewable energy on the open market.”

But there is a big shadow lurking over a rapid greening of the Las Vegas strip. Regulators will not let casinos simply walk away from the state’s monopoly utility provider, NV Energy.

Together, the casinos’ 15 properties account for 7% of NV Energy’s electricity sales, and if that income were lost, the utility says, its remaining customers would have to endure significant rate hikes. As a result, the public utility commission (PUC) of Nevada is demanding resorts pay tens of millions of dollars to leave NV Energy’s services, a December 2015 decision which one casino has appealed.

Las Vegas’s power drama captures an ongoing dilemma in the new energy economy. While corporations have been encouraged to go green, their efforts pass the burden of subsidizing old utility regimes on to retail consumers, which regulators cannot allow.

    It’s no accident that we put the [solar] array on top of a conference center. This is good business for us
    Cindy Ortega, MGM Resorts

“They need to maintain the grid. You cannot let these utilities go bankrupt or else every business in the city dies,” said Bill Ellard, an energy economist for the American Solar Energy Society. “What will happen if they don’t maintain the grid properly and the transformers blow?”

 

The Mandalay Bay Convention Center

[diogenes227]

SOLAR POWER TO RISE FROM CHERNOBLY'S NUCLEAR ASHES

 

From the link:

 

 

It was the worst nuclear accident in history, directly causing the deaths of 50 people, with at least an additional 4,000 fatalities believed to be caused by exposure to radiation.

The 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine also resulted in vast areas of land being contaminated by nuclear fallout, with a 30-kilometre exclusion zone, which encompassed the town of Pripyat, being declared in the area round the facility.

Now two companies from China plan to build a one-gigawatt solar power plant on 2,500 hectares of land in the exclusion zone to the south of the Chernobyl plant.

Ukrainian officials say the companies estimate they will spend up to $1bn on the project over the next two years.

A subsidiary of Golden Concord Holdings (GLC), one of China’s biggest renewable energy concerns, will supply and install solar panels at the site, while a subsidiary of the state-owned China National Machinery Corporation (Sinomach) will build and run the plant.

“It is cheap land, and abundant sunlight constitutes a solid foundation for the project,” says Ostap Semerak, Ukraine’s minister of environment and natural resources.

“In addition, the remaining electric transmission facilities are ready for reuse.”

In a press release, GLC state work on the solar plant will probably start this year and talk of the advantages of building the facility.

“There will be remarkable social benefits and economical ones as we try to renovate the once-damaged area with green and renewable energy,” says Shu Hua, chairman of the GLC subsidiary.

“We are glad that we are making joint efforts with Ukraine to rebuild the community for the local people.”

 

[stocks]

Solar Panels and the Uglyfication of America

 

Vermont court rules you can't stop your neighbor installing solar panels just because they are ugly.

 

At issue was a consolidated challenge to a solar power development on the basis that the solar power structures would be unsightly and reduce property value. In line with other courts, the Vermont Supreme Court roundly rejected the notion that ugliness or unattractiveness is a viable basis for a nuisance action under common law torts.

 

 

 

 

https://jonathanturl...im/#more-107395

[stocks]

Solar Panels and the Uglyfication of America

 

Vermont court rules you can't stop your neighbor installing solar panels just because they are ugly.

 

At issue was a consolidated challenge to a solar power development on the basis that the solar power structures would be unsightly and reduce property value. In line with other courts, the Vermont Supreme Court roundly rejected the notion that ugliness or unattractiveness is a viable basis for a nuisance action under common law torts.

 

 

 

You can be sure that wind farms and solar farms will not be located next to the mansions of the billionaires!

 

A promising offshore wind energy project has languished off Cape Cod on the East Coast for 15 years—and its enemies range from a Koch brother to the Kennedys.

 

 

http://www.takepart....energy-project/

Edited by stocks, 19 January 2017 - 09:41 AM.

[diogenes227]

Probably going to see a lot of fossil-fuel pollution and reckless environmental damage in the next few years, detrimental to all creatures large and small, so it might be time to take a moment and remember:

 

[stocks]

Short Selling Skeptic Cashing In On Solar Company Collapses

 

Gordon Johnson of Axiom Capital Management Inc. is short selling Solar Energy companies. His business is making money from the the failure of unsustainable renewable business models.

 

“Companies don’t like me because I have sell ratings on their stocks.”

 

Johnson has a sell rating on every stock he follows and he has a fresh reason — Donald Trump.  Johnson figures the president, a renewables critic during the campaign, may attempt to revoke federal subsidies for solar — a minority opinion, to be sure. “It would be a big negative for renewables, particularly solar,” Johnson says. Tax reform would also hurt.

…

Johnson’s contrarian view derives from a simple thesis: solar, he says, can’t compete with, or replace, natural gas because it can’t provide around-the-clock power and because it has needed subsidies to be competitive.

 

 

https://wattsupwitht...pany-collapses/