A Green Degree Blog: New Angles On Sustainability

September 22nd 2012

The Wind Industry Is Booming, But Boy Do Some Bleak Futures Lay Ahead

Of all the renewable technologies open to us these days, there’s no doubt that wind is the outright winner in the capacity and cost race, and more specifically, onshore wind, those gleaming white towers some countries are lucky (and tolerant) enough to have dotting their countryside and coastal regions.

Global wind deployment was once again up last year, this time by a relatively humble 6%, equating to just shy of 42GW of energy capacity installed, when compared to the average of 23% for the five years leading up to 2010, but is nonetheless signs of rampant and continued uptake the world over. Asia takes the biggest bite, with 52.1% of the global share, most of that in China, in which a recent study undertaken by multiple parties has concluded that Chinese capacity could reach 300GW by 2020, and 400GW by 2030; they are absolutely HUGE numbers, and if achieved, mark a seriously devoted agenda from the communist-cum-capitalist nation.

Closer to home, Europe has fallen in the rankings, taking just 24.5% of new installations for 2011, with again, a large majority of that down to one country, Germany, whose brilliant FiTs and policies allow for cost-effective and quick deployment of wind turbines throughout the country to the tune of almost a 1/3 of all European cumulative additions.

However, a draft government regulation released a few weeks ago in Germany seems to be stifling this growth just as it gets some real pace, or at least in the offshore department. Offshore has unfortunately been a much less avidly followed form of wind energy, due to its high costs, difficult maintenance and installation issues and generally poor policy and regulation worldwide, but Germany has always been one of the leaders. This new announcement would slash incentives for offshore generation prices, from 1 Euro/MWh to 0.75 Euros; whilst this cuts costs slightly for consumers on the renewable section of their bills, it will ultimately put future projects off and may stunt growth of a crucial area for the industry.

On the plus side, the UK achieved a milestone for wind energy generation recently by producing 4.1GW of electricity, over 10% of the country’s needs, using those spinning blades to boil cups of tea and burn toast, beating the previous 3.8GW record set in May. Some decided to lessen this triumph by stating that 4.1GW roughly equals the output of just one single coal and biomass-fired plant, Drax, which is not only more reliable but not as expensive. Surely they can’t be serious? When Germany produced over half their energy needs via solar and wind earlier this year, I don’t remember seeing any rabid comparisons to numbers of coal or gas plants over there, so why here?

Posted at 10:00am and tagged with: wind, energy, sustainable, renewable, emissions, coal, gas, turbines, economy, politics, policy, rewards, windfall, farm, clean, green, asia, china, trade, war, onshore, UK, america, USA, elections, europe, electricity, germany, investment, PTC,.

August 26th 2012

Stop Subsidising US Wind Power?!: A Rebuttal (Of Sorts) To An Ignorant Anti-Wind Rant

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I came across an article today priding itself on the subject of wind energy subsidies in the US and why investing in them any longer would be tantamount to breaking the law, and boy does the author do it with some vigour and confidence. Unfortunately, and I really doubt I will be the only one thinking the same thing, most of what this person writes is founded on ignorance, scientific falsehoods and a basic hatred for wind energy in any of its forms.

The article, titled ‘We Must Stop Subsidising Wind Power’, which you can find in the link at the end of this post, focuses on a myriad of detrimental effects the Federal Production Tax Credit (PTC), a hotly debated topic currently, as it stands to be shelved come the end of 2012, with so far no hope of a successor. While there are many powerful and well-informed societies, associations and individuals lobbying for its extension, its pieces like this which seriously undermine rational thinking.

Supposedly, American wind energy, and by logical assumption, the entire industry, is unreliable, severely expensive, economically damaging and highly dangerous to the environment, seemingly to the same degree that oil and coal are; a real and direct threat to the green side of life. It is simply deemed ‘not environmentally safe’. What an absolute load.

Let’s start with the first point, wind’s unreliability and thus pointlessly impractical employment as an energy source. The crux of the argument here is that due to the natural flux in wind strength and speed, turbines are entirely dependent upon fossil-fuel based sources to prop them up (I know) and therefore the price of this is passed onto consumers like you and me. Aside from this, it isn’t helping us reduce our emissions nearly as much as we hoped.

Yes, wind is unreliable as a quantity, just like market prices for fossil fuels or the accessibility of reserves, but this hasn’t stopped wind becoming THE primary renewable energy source worldwide, demonstrating the biggest growth rates and deployment percentages of any type. Not only this, but some of the leaders of free political-thinking in regards to clean energy sources have proven this is not the issue it is made out to be. Germany for instance powers over 8% of it’s needs through wind, and has demonstrated that the apparent reliance on oil or gas for baseload on the grid is not true; wind and solar alone can power a nation if handled rationally and smartly, something the US is quickly catching onto. Only last year, the US installed almost 7GW of wind, up 31% on 2010, and could meet 10% of energy requirements in six greedy states, a hell of a lot more than most, and installation prices have also dropped, hitting just $2.1 per watt, down 10 cents on 2010.

With smarter systems, demand-response software and upgraded grids, all technology which is not only well established and on the rise but relatively cheap to put in place, the apparent issues with fluctuating wind and lulls in power can be negated almost completely. Combine this with CCGTs and solar, a nation as hungry as America can happily guzzle electricity without so much as a mention of oil, coal or shale ‘something’.

Posted at 2:01pm and tagged with: wind, energy, power, electricity, grid, america, USA, romney, PTC, federal, tax, credit, subsidy, renewable, solar, turbine, birds, bats, Environment, public, money, economy, jobs, news, rebuttal, society, installed, germany, china, trade,.

July 30th 2012

Why Germany Should Show Off It’s Dominant Renewable Economy

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Germany’s renewable share for the first half of 2012 has recently been released, and guess what, they’re thrashing the majority of EU nations comfortably, reaching 26% overall, a staggering increase from 20.5% during the same period last year. That means that over a quarter of the energy filling the German grid was produced purely by renewable means, and that is something they should be seriously proud of, and rubbing in our faces, as I’ll explain below.

What is even more interesting about this event, is the specific mix of renewables used in accomplishing this task. Wind sits in gold medal position with 9.2%, with biomass (surprisingly) taking second with 5.7%, whilst solar PV follows closely behind with 5.3%, expanding by over 40% in comparison to last year. That alone is an impressive stat to contend with, and was no doubt bolstered by Germany’s generous FiT, which although was recently slashed to save on funding, has been highly successful in generating consumer interest in solar as a viable energy alternative.

Hydropower boosted 25%, up to 4% in the overall mix, with all other renewables completing the lineup.

It’s no surprise that wind energy takes pole on the list given how perfectly flat, large and windy Germany as a landscape is, and their heavy involvement with the cheapest of all renewable technologies. Many have attributed the extra-impressive results to the weather this region of Europe has been experiencing over the past 6 months, with abnormally high winds spinning up the turbines country-wide, torrential rains over-powering the hydroelectric dams, and in the later parts of the year, intense solar radiations and clear skies bathing the abundant solar panels in beaming energy.

Then again, attempting to diminish the feats achieved by the German renewable grid by stating it ‘was the weather which made it so damn good’ is a tad cheeky, considering the very point of many clean energy sources is that the sun and weather itself drives the production. If we have optimal weather, then they’re working exactly as planned.

What was surprising is the biomass share, which was much more than I thought had been invested in, with this form of energy generally not so high on a country’s energy list. I’m assuming that good recycling programs and clever biomass burning policies mean that Germany’s energy production is relatively high here, although actual year-on-year growth has been the smallest in this sector, just 7.5%.

Posted at 10:11am and tagged with: energy, germany, EU, america, renewable, solar, wind, PV, biomass, clean, technology, hydroelectric, UK, economy, politics, news, electricity, grid, 2012, weather, climate, sun, france, spain, green, jobs, investment, morals, psychology, global,.

July 24th 2012

The Humble Carbon Tax: The Simplest Answer To Our Problems?

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‘Taxes’. It’s a word that tends to strike fear and hatred in many peoples hearts and minds, instilling thoughts of slashed income earnings, costly purchases and the downfall of many a society. When we see it plastered over the news headlines and atop papers, we instantly think that once again, our governments are stepping up their efforts to screw us over financially by taking our rightfully earned money and wasting it away on projet that us as the taxpayers never see the light of.

Tax however is something us in the developed economic world have to deal with, it’s a power we cannot afford to ignore (excuse the pun). Without income tax and VAT, our nations would be without the cash to make our lives as good as they are, and they are good, even if economic downturn and suffering seem so rife at the moment. It’s never so much the idea of the tax itself that angers us, but the level we have to deal with, and its no surprise that us Westerner experience some of the highest in the world. Then again, we also experience the best living standards globally, so it can’t be all that bad can it?

This is why it’s high time the developed world took a long hard look in the mirror (and wallet) and began seriously considering what has become known as the ‘carbon tax’. The concept has been around for decades, and has only grown in potential since its inception. Unfortunately, it has yet to latch firmly onto daily life, always sitting in the background as a mere point for consideration than an actual solution. This stance is well overdue in its updating, and now more than ever, the carbon tax could be the answer to so many of our problems.

In effect, a carbon tax places a price, usually called the ‘social cost of carbon’, on a single ton of CO2, taking into account estimated disadvantages to health, population, the economy and the environment, with a round figure calculated at the end. Once this value has been obtained, the government will then charge any polluter, small or large, for each ton of carbon emitted into the atmosphere, an element we know all too well as a highly damaging pollutant.

This encourages polluters to do many wonderful things, ranging from innovating greener technology, to reducing dirty practices, switching fuel and ultimately curbing climate change. At the same time, a massive stream of revenue is provided to the government which can be directly reinvested back into renewables and cleaner industries. I’ll get to the side-benefits later, but for now, that’s enough to know that carbon taxing has the potential to actually make a solid difference, both to the planet and our wallets.

July 15th 2012

It’s Time To Wake Up & Smell The Renewable Revolution, Soon We Won’t Have Any Other Choice

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As a global society, we currently stand on a precipice; the potential catastrophe that awaits us cannot be downplayed in any way. Brought about by fossil fuel greed, mass shortsightedness and a complete and frankly terrifyingly impressive ability to ignore all signs of danger and wrongdoing for decades past, humanity has ravaged the planet to a point where civilisation is at the fork in the road.

Unless we make a change, a global change, we begin the short walk down one road towards an extinction level event, bigger than any nature has wrought upon life before us, that will be impossible to turn back from. Forgive my foreboding and perhaps depressing approach, but I for one see only one route out of this. For centuries before now, humanity has prided itself on its ability to innovate and outsmart our way out of danger, and never more than now is it crucial we do this once again.

It’s with these thoughts ringing heavily in my ears, that I turn to what I feel are some of the most frustrating and dismissive problems large majorities of society have with certain renewable technologies, as well as some of those dirtier fossil fuels such as natural gas, which despite being part of the problem, are rapidly taking precedence as the answer to our carbon woes, a fantastic alternative to that old demon oil and coal.

Unfortunately I do not foster the same feelings towards natural gas, and also do not tend to follow suit in regards to issues with solar panels, wind farms or nuclear plants, all of which are the truly awe-inspiring innovations with which we can slow, stop and eventually reverse the once irreversible damage we have wrought upon this beautiful planet. As you will hopefully see in the following summaries, many of the so-called ‘negatives’ with each of these technologies, is in my eyes, and I’m sure the eyes of many others, both ridiculous and detrimental to society as a whole, a statement I do not wish to undervalue in this post.

Let’s get straight to the major players, solar and wind. The one complaint about these two absolutely wonderful technologies is one that angers me greatly - “they’re too ugly, don’t go putting them on my roof/in my garden/anywhere within a 50 miles radius or my house”. Apologies if you’re someone who shares these feelings, but I simply cannot agree with such a weak and destructive view when you consider the grand scheme. As job creators, solar and wind each produce at least 6x the number of jobs that coal and oil do, with a much larger percentage in long term maintenance, a highly secure career. Not only this, but subsidies, feed-in-tariffs and government funding has aided these industries in literally exploding in value and popularity, and lest not forget, solar and wind are entirely clean, completely renewable and have the potential to provide huge proportions of the world’s energy.

July 13th 2012

The ‘No More Solyndras’ Act - A Direct Threat To US Domestic Markets

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As I write this, the US government is mullung over claims by the GOP that the highly controversial, but equally highly successful government-backed solar loaning programme, is no longer worth anybody’s time or money, including the taxpayers of America.

The so-called ‘No More Solyndras’ Act, a cleverly named piece of legislation that aims to shut down all workings of the loan system is being hotly debated in the Houses involved, and there is no sign of Republican backing slowing. Standing on the shoulders of all those who were wronged and misguided during the entire Solyndra debacle and buoyed by the seemingly never-ending support for discontinuing further loans, it’s looking possible that the damn thing might actually get through the legal process.

Firstly, a quick recap. The US doesn’t employ feed-in-tariffs like those of the relatively successful European and Asian nations such as Germany or Japan, meaning that to raise funding and popularity in the renewable markets, other measures must be taken not involving direct payments to consumers or utilities. To this end, the US government, under the peruse of George Bush, set up the solar loaning programme in 2005, which would aim to invest taxpayer and private investor money directly into companies producing, manufacturing and selling solar cells, panels, technologies and the like. By propping up the as-yet immature industry and lending them a helping hand to wade their way into the global market, there was really no other way to go about it.

For a good time the programme was rather successful, if not very, lending money to multiple solar ventures which ultimately allowed the US domestic market to regain leadership status in the global trade, rising up to join the ranks of its eastern cousins who had been running clever programmes for years before. All in all, 33 separate companies were funded through government loans, with a total of $10bn set aside for mitigating any losses during loaning of up to $26bn, the original figure accrued for investment. Without this, it’s highly likely the US solar industry would have stagnated, or at best regained a tiny proportion of the status it has today, and in a world where Chinese and European solar is booming, that is a necessity.

Given how paranoid the US is over its domestic markets and anti-competitive trade, this is a godsend; you only have to look at the current trade war with Chinese solar companies to see this paranoia in its rawest form.

Posted at 10:28am and tagged with: GOP, republicans, energy, solyndra, solar, carbon, science, US, government, beacon, loan, bankrupt, renewable, feed-in-tariff, fracking, asia, china, trade, markets, economy,.

July 5th 2012

The ‘Polluter Pays’ Principle V.2: Time For An Upgrade

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With Rio+20 long gone, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise to me that most of the global populace has quickly and without bother discarded any knowledge of the convention, as well as the few and flimsy results that come of it, as though the whole thing was one pointless affair.

You could easily be fooled into thinking this is the case, considering so little of any worth, useful to effectively nobody matured from the talks, of which a large majority of the human race were crossing their fingers in the hope of a final resolution on all our woes and sufferings. Yes, there were a few pieces here and there, and the aptly-named ‘Future We Want’ paper was signed, but you only have to look a little further to see that anything with possible leanings towards a solid commitment and legal bindings within text was literally wiped away, replaced by ‘ifs’ and ‘taking steps towards’.

So coming from this, I felt it prudent to look back on one of the key agreements signed and ratified under the ancestor of this failed attempt at global democracy, the Rio 1992 Declaration, which actually managed to achieve what practically all other conventions that have come our way have failed to reproduce since - something worthwhile to the global community, which has stuck to this day and actually made an impact on ALL of our lives.

The ‘polluter pays’ principle is at its most basic, a very simple law pertaining to pollution from industry, whereby those who pollute must pay for the damage and degradation they bring upon the surrounding environment, whether it be through monetary forms (hard cash), incentives or compensation, effectively ‘making up’ for their shortsightedness.

This principle had one major point when it was conceived and globally upheld, namely that the inclusion of ‘pollution’ meant such things as fertilisers or insecticides, but has been rapidly adapted since to include greenhouse gases which pollute the atmosphere, for instance methane or CFCs. Due to this principle, and many others working in tandem, values of damaging pollutants in the environment has dropped significantly, and we have been able to see a tangible change in our way of life involving these materials.

June 29th 2012

Bow Down & Worship A New Religion: Environmentalism

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Well this is certainly the next step of many in what is becoming a sinister and highly damaging movement against the entire environmental sector and it’s advocates, one which threatens in all seriousness to completely derail the impressive progress made over the recent decades; environmentalism is now being branded as ‘a new religion’. Yep, you read that right, if you’re green, you’re simply a sheep following the crowd into the abyss.

When I first read of this moronic idea a good few months ago, I wrote a blog piece on how enviromentalists were akin to satanists in their worship of Mother Earth, and that any who avidly follow it to the point of speaking out against the normal flow of things should be ignored on the grounds of simple heresy. Back then, I wasn’t too angered by the premise, and I actually couldn’t help but laugh at the entire ordeal, which to me felt like a badly visualised attempt at attacking the science of sustainability and the environment, which bombed like a lead balloon. I’m sure many of you who knew of it at the time laughed along with me, and didn’t give it much of a second thought.

However, history has come back around, and this time it carries some real bile and the potential to cause extreme disruption to the entire green movement. Anti-environmentalists and climate deniers have spewed some wonderfully abstract and pointless words in the past in their vein attempts to collapse the industry before it gets fully rooted, and for the most part the wider public has been sane enough to see through these attacks and to focus on the bigger picture, where science and evidence prevail, not the blind punches dealt by the radical haters. Think of the Heartland Institute or fossil fuel lobbies - not the smartest of cookies, but rich enough to fool us into thinking it.

So then, what about environmentalism as a religion? That could actually mean something, something powerful, and the idea truly angers, scares and deeply worries me.

Religion as we know it is the following of a deity or faith, not often based upon evidence or solid fact, but something higher, a sometimes irrational belief that our world and lives are affected at every level by a force outside our control. This faith is stronger than any science can even attempt to rationalise, and can grow like wildfire into the wider public through simple preaching of the belief, with any counter argument shot down in the blink of an eye.

Now, we combine this with environmentalism, the crucial and utterly scientific understanding of our natural surroundings, how we consume and use them, what direction they’re headed in, how we can sustain them and simply put, how completely important they are in our everyday life. This field covers everything from sustainability, to renewable energy, climate change and food security, all of which are issues constantly debated on the global stage and described as the very defining problems of our time.

In recent years, environmentalism has grown in popularity and political attention greatly, but it has divided a good amount of people at the same time. Climate science, model simulations and renewables in particular have come under constant fire from the other side for being unreliable, expensive, unconstitutional and even backwards, all the while we continue to pump out carbon and pollute our only home. I for one consider myself a relatively open advocate of this movement, although the word movement degrades environmentalism to a simple fad, and am a complete atheist, which I should note does not come into this subject, which shouldn’t involve religion at all.

By placing environmentalism well within the realms of religion, you instantly take away all of the endeavour and scientific rigour that accompanies it. There is a clear divide - environmentalism is purely scientific and relies entirely on evidence from multiple fields coming together under one umbrella. Religion is purely faith-based; evidence does not come into it. Herein lies the crucial issue with this comparison. In effect, environmentalism is reduced from an evidence battle, to one which must be believed on faith alone, despite the mountains of data available.

No longer can those who speak out for the science side be seen as professionals or well-informed individuals, but instead as radicals and extremists who are akin to religious zealots, who everyone quickly learns to ignore. The public will become accostomed to viewing new advances in the environmental sector as nothing but a faith in science, and soon popularity will rapidly drop off the cliff.

Alongside this, those who come out as against environmentalism will feel secure and protected by those around them harbouring the same feelings. No more will climate deniers and skeptics be viewed as uninformed or illiterate, but as individuals with faiths in other things, a heretic if you like to the new green religion, and this is a much safer place to be than outside of the scientific crowd.

This entire idea is driven by the one thing that is becoming more and more evident as time goes on; those against sustainability and science are rapidly becoming the outsiders, and must be increasingly vocal in their attempts to shout us down and make themselves known. Branding their enemy as a religion is by far their most inventive way to do this, and proves their desperation in quelling it once and for all.

What’s more worrying is that some major names have begun to think and talk along these lines, including the very creator of the Gaia Hypotheis, James Lovelock, someone who could be viewed as a founding father of the green ideology from which environmentalism has stemmed. Even if his and others mention of religious comparisons was purely incidental and meant as a warning rather than a message, it is not a stones throw away to warp their words into evidence that even these great thinkers have cottoned onto the premise.

We cannot let this idea latch on and multiply like a virus, that is the simple truth. This could be far too damaging to everyone involved in the field and, to humanity as a whole. You may think I’m being over dramatic there, but think of it this way. Bringing the environment to the forefront of our thoughts is more crucia than ever, and finally it may actually be gaining some serious momentum, even despite the failings at Rio+20. To let it be ripped apart and have its reputation tarnished because it was morphed into a ‘faith’ and not a science would be, in my eyes, one of the greatest injustices committed against our intelligence in our entire history.

Environmentalism can be many things; a political agenda, a global convention, an individual hobby or a simple ideology, but to compare it to any form of faith, religion included, is just plain insanity. I almost can’t swallow it.

Posted at 10:26am and tagged with: Climate, Science, Religion, Faith, Environmentalism, Evidence, Carbon, Renewable, Gaia, Mother earth, Worship, Heretic, Politics, Rio+20, Green, Denial, Climate change, Sustainability,.