I just wrote a post on Renewable Energy World about the Tesla-Toyota deal this week that has so captured the attention of the electric vehicle world. In the article, I note that, while it’s reason to cheer, it gives us pause. Why exactly did it happen, and what does it imply about the EV movement as a whole?
Many of us have noted with some frustration that the US government has been conspicuously inactive in laying out a migration path to renewable energy.
Some have noted that the lack of a federal renewable portfolio standard (RPS) or national system to reduce emissions has created a climate in various states have taken the initiative. After all, shouldn’t we take solace in the idea that 27 states and the District of Columbia have binding renewable portfolio standards? Utilities that operate in these areas are must generate a certain percentage of their electrical power from renewable sources. It’s also true that many countries outside the US have taken aggressive posture with respect to clean energy. Every week we hear about enormous commitments in this direction from nations all over Europe, Asia, and South America. Shouldn’t we be happy about that?
Sure. But let’s keep asking the obvious question: What’s up with the US? What is it exactly that is causing our national leaders to sit on their hands – an approach that is so clearly wrong?
(more…)
The prestigious National Research Council, in laying out a roadmap for carbon reduction, has concluded that known technologies won’t be enough to save planet’s atmosphere. This should keep every investor looking over the horizon for the next potential breakthrough. No company is too small to be overlooked in investors’ search for returns of 100% and more. I predict there are going to many firms that double and triple in stock price in coming months and years.
Frequent contributor Jim Gilbeau writes that he and Jeff Bertsch started a new solar business, which he describes as follows:
Once elected, President Obama asked America’s business capitalists/entrepreneurs to use their abilities, to think up new and creative ideas to get America back on track, so we could remain the leaders of the world economy.
So the questions was, how could we create jobs (for us and our fellow citizens), and help create new manufacturing companies (for U.S. exports).
(more…)
I can’t say that I make a serious attempt to follow the politics of Great Britain — even as they apply to the energy sector — but I do check out BusinessGreen periodically. It’s really a wonderful source of information.
Whenever I read BusinessGreen, I’m reminded of how sessions of Parliament are peppered with loud grunts and groans from those dissenting from the presenter’s point of view. I can only imagine that this necessitates considerable care to walk a tight line if the speaker expects to avoid that type of heckling.
Good evidence of this came from recently appointed energy secretary Chris Huhne, who vowed that “the renewables industry will come of age under this government.” But while Huhne clearly embraces renewable energy, he is quite clear in his support of the fossil fuel industries, insisting that he is completely committed to the continued development of both North Sea oil and gas and low-carbon energy sources. Huhne said the new government would aim to “fully exploit” the remaining North Sea oil and gas fields, and would potentially reform licensing rules to encourage continued development in the sector.
Speaking during his first official visit as energy and climate change secretary to Aberdeen, Huhne said: “There could be 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent left to exploit, but the UK competes against every other basin in the world for investment and I am committed to making sure that we have a licensing regime and investment environment that attracts quality companies and investment to fully exploit the remaining potential.”
I can almost hear the grunts and groans from here.
I’m aware that the vast majority of those reading this do not live in the state of California, USA – and thus have no reason to want to understand “Proposition 16” as it exists on our June ballot. Why then would I burden readers with something that does not directly affect them? Because it illustrates exactly how power utilities can abuse the democratic process, and use huge sums of money (derived, of course, from the consumers themselves) along with deliberately misleading advertising to wrangle positions of even greater monopoly — while thwarting the adoption of renewables.
Pacific Gas and Electric is the sole sponsor of Prop 16. The measure exists on the ballot solely because PG&E spent $35 million getting it there. And the reason for the proposition is singular: if passed, the bill would further strengthen the stanglehold PG&E has over its customers, by changing the State Constitution to require a two-thirds majority from any community wishing to look elsewhere for electric power — making that possibility practically impossible to achieve. As PG&E CEO Peter A. Darbee proudly told investors on a recent conference call, Prop 16 would discourage communities within its massive jurisdiction from any attempt to buy power from a competitor – this is the one and only consequence of the referendum.
Outside of the media purchased with PG&E’s money, Prop 16 has been roundly jeered – largely for the sheer brazenness of the attempt to buy a constitutional amendment with only real beneficiary: PG&E itself.
According to a white paper from UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment:
An independent analysis of Proposition 16 finds that it would protect the monopoly status of investor-owned energy utilities and block the development of publicly owned electric power companies, if passed by California voters. At the same time, the initiative could conceivably slow the development of renewable energy.
I also have to say that this is the wrong state to try something like this. The proposition is broadly opposed by every group associated not only with environmentalism and sustainability – but also with basic fairness and belief in the democratic process. I’ll be very surprised if their $35 million buys PG&E anything more than the public loathing it so richly deserves.
My fine friend and 2GreenEnergy associate Terry Ribb did a long and productive stint at Deloitte Consulting, and thus I tend to put special value on the reports I get from that esteemed organization. But when it comes to market research, they seem to have made the same critical mistake that most people do: survey the wrong people. Here’s their recent report on the EV adoption curve.
Do you note anything startling?
In response to Deloitte’s question, “From whom would you be most likely to purchase an EV?” the top three responses are Toyota, Honda and Ford – none of which even have EVs in production yet — and two of the three — Honda and Toyota — are openly waffling on the idea.
The report goes on to suggest that Nissan needs to work extra hard to promote its LEAF, since it seems not to have been noticed by EV buyers. Bull manure. I find it hard to believe that almost anyone of any real relevance to the survey would have named Nissan with its LEAF, GM with its Volt, Mitsubishi with its i-MiEV, BMW with its Mini-E — or any of dozens of other serious EV programs from established and new OEMs.
Think about this. If you were conducting an interview about attitudes towards professional baseball, and the respondent couldn’t name a single major league team, could you imagine any real value to the rest of the interview? My only take-away from this report is that the research effort itself missed the mark.
Here’s another post further confirming that Deloitte is taking a very strange perspective with respect to the EV adoption curve.
I want to call readers’ attention to 2GreenEnergy Associates Bill Paul’s report: The Top Twenty Takeover Candidates among Publicly Traded Alternative Energy Companies Headquartered in the U.S.
As I’ve mentioned, speaking with Bill Paul really is like drinking from a fire hose. I ask a question, shut up, and take notes patiently, as if I were a court stenographer. Bill wades through 75 different data streams every day of the week, and recently he’s been focusing on mergers and acquisitions – the subject of the report — looking for great volatility and the accompanying opportunity. He has a great deal of incredibly well researched material assembled here.
Where most stock brokers focused on the energy sector read about oil and gas, and a few know something about solar and wind, most of the money to be made in the coming few years in renewables will be derived from places in which very few people are looking. “New energy” is a constantly changing combination of dozens of intertwining technologies – and changes in infrastructure, e.g., smart grid, electric transportation, energy storage — as well as clean fuel sources.
Bill has really nailed this in his report. I hope you find it valuable. We weren’t able to give this one away, but there is a 100% money-back guarantee if for ANY reason you’re not completely satisfied.
We’re quite proud of our exclusive relationship with Bill. We are honored to have an exclusive arrangement whereby this incredible content is made available to a world so ravenously hungry for solid information — in a market that can be so terribly fickle and difficult to grasp.
Here’s a post I wrote on carbon capture and sequestration that I put on Renewable Energy World. I note that even the sites that cover the traditional energy markets — like Energy Central – are coming down hard on the utter absurdity of clean coal. Martin Rosenburg, the main voice there, writes very well and clearly, and his recent piece does a good job in laying out the issues surrounding clean coal in a few short paragraphs, with solid stats, nailing down the extreme volumes of gas, lengths of new pipelines, and extreme costs associated with the endeavor.
The other day, I wrote a short post on Renewable Energy World extolling the virtues of concentrated solar power, and predicting that CSP would someday (probably in my grandchildren’s lifetimes) dominate the landscape of world energy production. Almost immediately, someone asked me why I held that belief, and I realized that I should have provided a bit of my reasoning. In brief, here it is:
1) The ultimate winner in energy will be safe, scalable, reliable, and inexpensive. This kills most energy technologies more or less immediately. Fossil fuels aren’t scalable, nuclear is neither safe nor inexpensive, etc. And a great number of green energy technologies, e.g., run-of-river-hydro, don’t scale well.
2) With a few exceptions, the sun’s radiation is the ultimate source of all energy on Earth. Thus, the most obvious line of investigation for energy policy is determining the most direct way to convert the warmth of the sun into useful energy.
3) Most of the dozens of renewable technologies attempt to capitalize on this fact. The sun makes the wind blow, the rivers run, and builds the chemical bonds that are broken down when we convert complex organic molecules back into simpler ones (e.g., burning wood in our fireplaces, explode gasoline in our cars, or gasify waste in processing plants). But the most direct, efficient way to harness the sun’s energy is transferring those photons as directly as possible into electricity. This leaves us with solar photovoltaics and CSP.
4) It could be argued that PV is even more direct than CSP. And, if it weren’t for the problems in building large volumes of semiconductors for PV, I believe it would have won. But PV is ultimately doomed to significant manufacturing issues and materials shortages that, I believe, will limit scalability.
5) CSP, by contrast, uses low-cost and abundant materials, which can be deployed in areas that are relatively unimportant to plant and animal habitat (deserts). Of course, all energy-related technologies — even the dozens of breakthroughs in extracting coal, oil, and natural gas — are improving day by day. But CSP is still in its infancy. The gains in efficiency, the way in which solar thermal heat is stored to produce reliable baseload power, and the way in which that energy is effectively transmitted via high-voltage direct current to population centers — is improving every day.
I know there are people who disagree, but CSP is my pick for the late 21st Century. I only hope we still have a planet that supports life by that point.
