Solar

Ten Things To Know About The US-China Climate Agreement

November 12, 2014 Bill McKibben, www.350.org Educate! China, Climate Change, Coal, Solar, United States

my take on what the just-announced plan from President Obama and Premier Xi is, and isn't: 1) It is historic. John Kerry was right to use the phrase in his New York Times oped announcing the deal: for the first time a developing nation has agreed to eventually limit its emissions. This is a necessity for advancing international climate negotiations. 2) It isn't binding in any way. In effect President Obama is writing an IOU to be cashed by future presidents and Congresses (and Xi is doing the same for future Politburos). If they take the actions to meet the targets, then it's meaningful, but for now it's a paper promise. And since physics is uninterested in spin, all the hard work lies ahead. 3) It is proof -- if any more was needed -- that renewable energy is ready to go. The Chinese say they'll be using clean sources to get 20% of their energy by 2030 -- which is not just possible, it should be easy. Which they know because they've revolutionized the production of solar energy, driving down the cost of panels by 90% or more in the last decade. 4) It is not remotely enough to keep us out of climate trouble. We've increased the temperature less than a degree and that's been enough to melt enormous quantities of ice, not to mention set the weather on berserk. So this plan to let the increase more than double is folly

Sunshine State Blocks Solar, Favors Coal And Nuclear

October 12, 2014 Evan Halper, www.latimes.com Create! Renewable Energy, Solar

Florida is one of several states, mostly in the Southeast, that combine copious sunshine with extensive rules designed to block its use by homeowners to generate power. States like Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York — not known for clear, blue skies — have outpaced their counterparts to the south in the installation of rooftop solar panels. While the precise rules vary from state to state, one explanation is the same: opposition from utilities grown nervous by the rapid encroachment of solar firms on their business. The business models that have made solar systems financially viable for millions of homeowners in California, New England and elsewhere around the country are largely illegal in Florida, Virginia, South Carolina and some other Southern states. Companies that pioneered the industry, such as SolarCity Corp. and Sunrun Inc., do not even attempt to do business there.

Confronting Not Only Climate Collapse But Energy Poverty

September 7, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! Climate Change, Energy, Inequality, Solar, wealth inequality

A significant part of their analysis is not only about confronting climate change but also confronting energy poverty where much of the world is unable to use enough energy to have a decent and healthy life. Most of these people are living in the developing world or global South. Another group of people, mostly in the global North, consume more than an equitable share of energy. In order to address energy poverty in the global South, as well as under-served people in the global North requires most countries in the global North, especially the United States, to reduce energy consumption, but the overall delivery to the global population needs to increase. As a starting point for their analysis they calculate that the rough minimum to achieve world standard life expectancy is 3.5 kilowatt/person, so for 7 billion this is equivalent to 25 trillion watts, with present consumption being 18 trillion watts. See their report "A Solar Transition Is Possible."

The Solar Revolution Is Underway

August 29, 2014 John Rogers, www.ucsusa.org Create! Energy, Finance and the Economy, Solar

Shining. Soaring. Skyrocketing. Solar is so exciting, we’re running out of adjectives. The what, the why, and the where-to of America’s solar power revolution are the subjects of a new UCS report and infographic. It’s a story worth celebrating. The 4 Ps of rooftop solar The story of solar, as told in UCS’s new Solar Power on the Rise report, is full of great news, such as: The amount of solar power installed in the United States by 2013 was more than five times 2010’s level. Our country has enough solar to power some 2.4 million typical U.S. households. In June California set a one-day solar record, with solar meeting 8 percent of its overall electricity needs. Rooftop solar, the photovoltaic (PV) panels dotting the roofs of a rapidly growing number of homes and businesses, is one big piece of the charge, worthy of a closer look. And one way to consider its progress is to borrow business types’ “4 Ps” of marketing, for our own 4 Ps of solar—Product, pricing, place, and policy.

Solar Power Gets Hot, Hot, Hot

August 16, 2014 Emily Schwartz Greco and William A Collins, www.truth-out.org Educate! Energy, Finance and the Economy, Fossil Fuels, Solar

With so many homeowners and businesses making greener energy choices, private utilities - along with big oil, gas, coal, and nuclear companies - see the writing on the wall. Unlike some other denizens of the fossil-fueled set, this gang isn’t beating oil wells into solar panels, retiring nuclear reactors, or embracing wind and geothermal power. Instead, these guys are trying to coax lawmakers into rigging the rules against increasingly competitive new energy alternatives. You see, the bulwarks of conventional energy are good at math. And the math is increasingly not in their favor. Solar panels are growing so affordable, accessible, and popular that sun-powered energy accounted for 74 percent of the nation’s new electric generation capacity in the first three months of this year. Wind power comprised another 20 percent, geothermal 1 percent, and natural gas plus other sources accounted for the final 5 percent. Coal didn’t even register. OK, so that first-quarter surge was kind of an anomaly because it included the inauguration of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, the world’s largest solar-concentrating power plant. Through a vast array of seven-by-ten-foot mirrors located on federal land along the California-Nevada border, this remarkable site produces enough energy to power 140,000 homes. Another vast utility-scale project aptly called “Genesis Solar” ramped up too.

Brad Pitt To Help Build 20 LEED Platinum Homes For Tribes In Montana

June 23, 2014 Beverley Mitchell, www.inhabitat.com Create! Housing, Indigenous Rights, Montana, Solar

The Make It Right nonprofit founded by Brad Pitt is partnering with the Sioux and Assiniboine tribes of Fort Peck, Montana, to build sustainable homes, buildings and communities on their reservation. In addition to 20 LEED Platinum certified homes, the project will develop a sustainable master plan for the entire reservation, which covers thousands of acres and is home to more than 6,000 Native Americans. Make It Right was set up in 2007 to provide housing for people in need. All Make It Right projects are LEED Platinum certified, Cradle to Cradle inspired, and designed by renowned architects in collaboration with the community involved. For the current project, architects and designers from GRAFT, Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative, Architecture for Humanity, Method Homes, and Living Homes spent four days meeting with tribal members before developing their designs. Currently, more than 600 people are waiting for housing on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. Overcrowding is a chronic problem, with multiple families commonly living together in two-bedroom homes due to lack of accommodation.

An Ecological Civilization For Addressing Climate Change

June 8, 2014 Jeremy Rifkin, www.huffingtonpost.com Create! Climate Change, Energy, New Economy, Solar, Wind

What's sorely missing from the climate change debate is a new economic vision that can quickly transition the US and global economy out of carbon based energy and into renewable energies, while simultaneously increasing productivity and reducing the amount of the earth's resources used in the economic process, ensuring a more prosperous and sustainable society. That vision is now taking hold. A powerful new technology revolution is evolving that will allow enterprises and prosumers to make and share their own green electricity, and an increasing array of sustainable physical products and services, at near zero marginal cost, just as billions of prosumers now do with information goods. (Marginal cost is the cost of producing an additional unit of a good or service after the fixed costs have been absorbed). The Communication Internet is converging with a fledgling Energy Internet and nascent automated Transport and Logistics Internet, creating a new technological infrastructure for society--a Third Industrial Revolution--that could fundamentally alter the global economy and usher in an ecological civilization in the first half of the 21st century.

Small Islands Facing Climate Change Are Beacons

June 8, 2014 Stephen Leahy, www.ipsnews.net Create! Caribbean, Climate Change, Global Warming, Solar

Facing potential extinction under rising sea levels, many small island nations are embracing renewable energy and trying to green their economies. Although the least responsible for carbon emissions, small countries like Barbados are on the front lines of climate impacts. “Small island nations’ voices have to be heard by the rest of the world,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). “Many will undergo fundamental changes. Some will lose 60 to 70 percent of their beaches and much of their tourism infrastructure. Climate change will destroy some countries and the livelihoods of millions of people,” Steiner told IPS in Bridgetown. Up to 100 percent of coral reefs in some areas of the Caribbean sea have been affected by bleaching due to too-hot seawater linked to global warming. Without global action to reduce emissions there may not be any healthy reefs left in the entire Caribbean region by 2050, according to UNEP’s Small Island Developing States Foresight Report. Released in Bridgetown on World Environment Day Jun. 5, the report calculates that island nations in the Caribbean face187 billion dollars in shoreline damage from sea level rise well before the end of this century.

Solar Roadways: A Reality That Can Solve Energy & So Many Other Problems

May 27, 2014 Staff, www.indiegogo.com Create! Energy, Environment, Solar

Solar Roadways is a modular paving system of solar panels that can withstand the heaviest of trucks (250,000 pounds). These Solar Road Panels can be installed on roads, parking lots, driveways, sidewalks, bike paths, playgrounds... literally any surface under the sun. They pay for themselves primarily through the generation of electricity, which can power homes and businesses connected via driveways and parking lots. A nationwide system could produce more clean renewable energy than a country uses as a whole (http://solarroadways.com/numbers.shtml). They have many other features as well, including: heating elements to stay snow/ice free, LEDs to make road lines and signage, and attached Cable Corridor to store and treat stormwater and provide a "home" for power and data cables. EVs will be able to charge with energy from the sun (instead of fossil fuels) from parking lots and driveways and after a roadway system is in place, mutual induction technology will allow for charging while driving.

Should Parking Lots And Roads Be Covered With Solar Cells?

May 10, 2014 Holly Richmond, www.grist.org Create! Energy, Solar

Think Joni Mitchell would object to a parking lot paved with solar panels? They’re cute, impact-resistant, honeycomb-shaped ones, if that helps. Idaho couple Julie and Scott Brusaw want to cover roads across America with solar cells, so they started with the 12-by-36-foot driveway outside their office. Solar Roadways’ panels have heating elements to melt snow and ice, five-color LED lighting to create road lines, and corridors for moving and storing stormwater. The surface is made out of textured glass, which sounds pretty fragile, but apparently the panels can withstand 250,000 pounds. The prototype shows dark blue solar cells on a green background; roughly 30 percent of the space is wasted. But in their Indiegogo campaign, Scott Brusaw says they’ve figured out a way to cover the entire hexagon with solar panels. Plus, each hexagon has a microprocessor — the makings of a smart road — and built-in power means overhead power lines aren’t necessary.

Corporate Contractors Dance For New Energy Project

May 2, 2014 Staff, www.yeslab.org Resist! Arts, Energy, Environment, Solar, Wind

"Benedict Waterman"—a crazy-haired, bespectacled official supposedly from the U.S. Department of Energy—announces a revolutionary new energy plan to convert the U.S. power grid to entirely renewable sources by the year 2030, and give ownership of the new power-generation facilities to those on whose land they're built—from Native American nations (thus serving as reparations for genocide) to anyone who puts a solar panel on his or her roof. The plan, based on a number of sources including Stanford's Solutions Project (FAQ here), would produce nearly 8 million jobs; save $530 billion per year in health-care costs alone; result in much lower eventual fuel costs and greater price stability; and provide much greater energy security. It would also reduce the risk of the climate change effects that are projected to cost the US at least $2 trillion per year by 2100 if nothing is done to address it.

Solar Cooperatives Are On The Rise

April 27, 2014 Laurie Guevara-Stone, www.blog.rmi.org Create! Climate Change, Cooperatives, Energy, Solar

Over 100 households in Mt. Pleasant now have solar on their roofs thanks to the co-op, which has also supported the creation of other solar co-ops across the region. Louise Meyer, a Mt. Pleasant co-op member with a 2.85 kilowatt (kW) system on her roof, tried to install solar years before the co-op existed when the D.C. government offered a subsidy for PV systems. She was one of the many people who didn’t get selected, so she was ecstatic when the co-op was founded. “I felt like I was part of a team, it made much more sense, you could compare notes and not feel so stranded,” she says. “It was such a new area for many people and the paperwork is such a hassle, being part of the cooperative made it so much easier.” The cooperative has also become a major force for solar advocacy and is pushing for legislation to enable more solar in the greater D.C. area.

Solar Warriors vs. The Black Snake Of Tar Sands

April 23, 2014 Winona Laduke, www.commondreams.org Organize! Keystone XL, Oil and Gas, Solar

There are two very different ways of recognizing Earth Day In the Northern Plains and Washington, perhaps illustrating, what Native people call the choice between two paths, one well scorched and worn, the other green. This past week, Henry Red Cloud, a descendent of Chief Red Cloud and President of Lakota Solar Enterprises, was recognized as a Champion of Change by President Obama for his leadership in renewable energy. Red Cloud’s work has included installation of over 1000 solar thermal heating units on houses in tribal communities across the Northern Plains. Those units can reduce heating bills by almost one quarter, and cost, less than $2000 to install. The solar thermal panels harken a future with less reliance on propane and fossil fuels, something which proved deadly this winter, as the price skyrocketed, and many homes spent at least that amount to heat. Henry Red Cloud is one of many Lakota people who has been in DC this past month, and a large number of other Oglala tribal members will descend on Washington for theCowboys Indians Alliance encampment against the Keystone XL pipeline.

Big Energy Fights Back: Charging Extra For Solar

April 18, 2014 Matt Kasper, www./thinkprogress.org Educate! Energy, Solar

Oklahoma residents who produce their own energy through solar panels or small wind turbines on their property will now be charged an additional fee, the result of a new bill passed by the state legislature and expected to be signed into law by Gov. Mary Fallin (R). On Monday, S.B. 1456 passed the state House 83-5 after no debate. The measure creates a new class of customers: those who install distributed power generation systems like solar panels or small wind turbines on their property and sell the excess energy back to the grid. While those with systems already installed won’t be affected, the new class of customers will now be charged a monthly fee — a shift that happened quickly and caught many in the state off guard. “We knew nothing about it and all of a sudden it’s attached to some other bill,” Ctaci Gary, owner of Sun City Oklahoma, told ThinkProgress. “It just appeared out of nowhere.”

Microscopic Solution To Storing Solar Energy

April 17, 2014 Todd Woody, www.theatlantic.com Create! Energy, Solar

The next big thing in solar energy could be microscopic. Scientists at MIT and Harvard University have devised a way to store solar energy in molecules that can then be tapped to heat homes, water or used for cooking. The best part: The molecules can store the heat forever and be endlessly re-used while emitting absolutely no greenhouse gases. Scientists remain a way’s off in building this perpetual heat machine but they have succeeded in the laboratory at demonstrating the viability of the phenomenon called photoswitching. “Some molecules, known as photoswitches, can assume either of two different shapes, as if they had a hinge in the middle,” MIT researchers said in statement about the paper published in the journal Nature Chemistry. “Exposing them to sunlight causes them to absorb energy and jump from one configuration to the other, which is then stable for long periods of time.”

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