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One Bad Energy Subsidy Expires – NYTimes.com

7 Jan

The corn ethanol subsidy is gone. Now cut the oil subsidies and put money into renewables:

Congress should now focus on the oil industry, which has long enjoyed a web of arcane and unnecessary tax breaks — deductions for well depletion and intangible drilling costs. They are unique to the industry and, when combined with other subsidies, cost roughly $4 billion a year.

President Obama has tried twice to kill these subsidies, without success. We hope he tries again in his coming Budget Message. The Congressional Research Service says that ending the subsidies would have no effect on gas prices for consumers and only a trivial effect on industry profits, which have been at record highs.

via One Bad Energy Subsidy Expires – NYTimes.com.

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Solar PV: no longer “the energy of the future and always will be” — Crooked Timber

5 Jan

Economist John Quiggin writew:

I have piece in the National Interest about developments in non-carbon based energy. It ran under the headline “The end of the nuclear renaissance”, but that’s only half the story and probably the less interesting half. The real news of 2011 was the continued massive drop in the price of solar PV, which renders obsolete any analysis based on data before about 2010. In particular, anyone who thinks nuclear is the most promising candidate to replace fossil fuels really needs to recalibrate their views. There’s a case to be made for nuclear as a backstop option, but it’s not nearly as strong as it was even two years ago.

via Solar PV: no longer “the energy of the future and always will be” — Crooked Timber.

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Where the Real Jobs Are – NYTimes.com

2 Jan

The Republicans believe they have President Obama in a box: either he approves a controversial Canadian oil pipeline or they accuse him of depriving the nation of jobs. Mr. Obama can and should push back hard.

This is precisely the moment for him to argue the case for alternative fuel sources and clean energy jobs — and to lambaste the Republicans for doubling down on conventional fuels while ceding a $5 trillion global clean technology market (and the jobs that go with it) to more aggressive competitors like China and Germany.

via Where the Real Jobs Are – NYTimes.com.

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Report Condemns Japan’s Response to Nuclear Accident – NYTimes.com

26 Dec

From inspectors who abandoned the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as it succumbed to disaster to a delay in disclosing radiation leaks, Japan’s response to the nuclear accident caused by the March tsunami fell tragically short, a government-appointed investigative panel said on Monday….

The panel attacked the use of the term “soteigai,” which translates to “unforeseen,” by plant and government officials to describe the unprecedented scale of the disaster and to explain why they were unable to stop it. Running a nuclear power plant required officials to foresee the unforeseen, said the panel’s chairman, Yotaro Hatamura, a professor emeritus in engineering at the University of Tokyo.

“There was a lot of talk of soteigai, but that only bred perceptions among the public that officials were shirking their responsibilities,” Mr. Hatamura said.

via Report Condemns Japan’s Response to Nuclear Accident – NYTimes.com.

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Is Indian Point the Next Fukushima? – NYTimes.com

17 Dec

The lack of attention to possible land contamination is a major gap in the American system of nuclear safety regulation. After Fukushima, it should be the main safety concern — and one that is not addressed by evacuation, no matter how efficient….

The essential characteristic of this technology is that the reactor’s uranium fuel — about 100 tons in a typical plant — melts quickly without cooling water. The containment structures surrounding the reactors — even the formidable-looking domes at Indian Point — were not designed to hold melted fuel because safety regulators 40 years ago considered a meltdown impossible.

They were wrong, and we now know that radioactive material in the melted fuel can escape to contaminate a very large area for decades or more.

via Is Indian Point the Next Fukushima? – NYTimes.com.

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Could the desert sun power the world? | Environment | The Guardian

12 Dec

In 1986… [Gerhard Knies, a German particle physicist] scribbled down some figures and arrived at the following remarkable conclusion: in just six hours, the world’s deserts receive more energy from the sun than humans consume in a year. If even a tiny fraction of this energy could be harnessed – an area of Saharan desert the size of Wales could, in theory, power the whole of Europe – Knies believed we could move beyond dirty and dangerous fuels for ever….

Last month, at its annual conference in Cairo, Dii [Desertec Industrial Initiative] confirmed to the world that the first phase of the Desertec plan is set to begin in Morocco next year with the construction of a 500MW solar farm near to the desert city of Ouarzazate. The 12sq km project would act as a “reference project” that, much like Egypt’s own project at Kuraymat, would help convince both investors and politicians that similar farms could be repeated across the Mena region in the coming years and decades.

“It’s all systems go in Morocco,” announced Paul van Son, Dii’s CEO, to the visiting delegates. Talks, he added, were – given their shared close proximity, along with Morocco, to western Europe’s grid – already under way with Tunisia and Algeria about joining the “first phase” of Desertec. Countries such as Egypt, Syria, Libya and Saudi Arabia would be expected to join in the “scale-up” phase from 2020 onwards, once extra transmission cables were laid across the Mediterranean and via Turkey, with the whole venture becoming financially self-sustaining by 2035.

via Could the desert sun power the world? | Environment | The Guardian.

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Underground: The next urban frontier – Dream City – Salon.com

10 Dec

Underground development, done the right way, could be a perfect fit for this new mode of thinking. Historically, developers have spent a lot of time trying to make underground spaces feel like they’re not underground. But the weirdness of an underground park is exactly why we like it. It’s intriguing and strange and a little bit spooky. “The underground can be claustrophobic, but it can also be this cozy, Fantastic Mr. Fox layer of reality,” says Barasch. So, rather than turn underground spaces into sterile retail or prefab food courts, ablaze with primary colors and piped-in pop music, developers could instead embrace the natural state of these spaces — their “undergroundness” — when designing for them. This doesn’t mean making them cheerless, it simply means respecting their subterranean identity, much like the High Line kept in place some of the former railroad’s industrial decay.

via Underground: The next urban frontier – Dream City – Salon.com.

E.P.A. Implicates Fracking in Pollution – NYTimes.com

8 Dec

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that fracking — a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells — may be to blame for causing groundwater pollution.

via E.P.A. Implicates Fracking in Pollution – NYTimes.com.

Buffett Gets High Rates, U.S. Incentive in $2 Billion Solar Bet – Businessweek

7 Dec

By Christopher Martin

Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) — Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which agreed to buy a $2 billion solar farm in California may have picked the right time to invest in the industry.

The 550-megawatt Topaz project will qualify for a federal incentive because it began construction last month, and will sell power under a long-term contract that was completed before prices for solar panels fell 44 percent in the last year. Berkshire’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings utility unit and First Solar Inc., the project developer, announced the deal today.

Topaz, which will use First Solar panels, may be the last large solar farm to qualify for the U.S. Treasury Department incentive program, which is set to end this year. It will likely sell power at a higher price than projects that are seeking utility contracts now, said Paul Clegg, an analyst at Mizuho Securities USA in New York.

via Buffett Gets High Rates, U.S. Incentive in $2 Billion Solar Bet – Businessweek.

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Drilling Down – Fighting Over Oil and Gas Well Leases – NYTimes.com

2 Dec

Americans have signed millions of leases allowing companies to drill for oil and natural gas on their land in recent years. But some of these landowners — often in rural areas, and eager for quick payouts — are finding out too late what is, and what is not, in the fine print.

Energy company officials say that standard leases include language that protects landowners. But a review of more than 111,000 leases, addenda and related documents by The New York Times suggests otherwise…

via Drilling Down – Fighting Over Oil and Gas Well Leases – NYTimes.com.

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