Renewable energy crumb laced with poison

December 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

As leader of the Democrats, Senator Meg Lees negotiated the passage of the GST legislation with John Howard in 1999. She is standing for re-election in South Australia at the election for the ‘Progressive Alliance”.
This energy announcement and the diesel measures within bring us back to 1999 negotiations on the New Tax Package.

Then we were able to reduce the planned diesel bonus by $714 million and to include an environment package worth $376 million that covered fuel emission standards, gas conversions, renewable energies grants, green power, greenhouse gas emissions abatement, incentives for rail and gas vehicles.

At that time regional Australian relied heavily on diesel fired trucks for transport and for remote power generation. There were virtually no subsidies for any other fuels but diesel.

The aim of the negotiations with the government in 1999 was to encourage a shift to non fossil fuels to clean up diesel and petrol. The key aim of the abolition of the Diesel Fuel Rebate Scheme and its replacement with the Energy Credit scheme was to encourage use of other fuels – not just diesel.

Issues such as support for remote power generation were addressed through support for gas and/or solar and/or wind energy.

These reforms gave birth to lots of small renewable energy firms, particularly across regional Australia. They now provide the energy infrastructure for remote areas. It is an industry that has grown up since 1999 and has the potential for much more growth.

The 1999 changes to the Governments energy priorities were designed to take us into the 21st century. The new vision was for a smarter, and more innovative Australia through promoting clean renewable energy as an alternative to fossil fuels.

In today’s energy package the government claims that it is providing a balance between clean and dirty energies. Between the old and the new. That is plain rubbish. The scales are tipped significantly in favour of fossil fuel. The government has given the cake to the fossil fuel industry and the crumbs to the renewable energy industry. And even those crumbs are at risk.

Not only is the ‘clean’ package far from adequate, with an increase in the MRET missing, we find vastly increased support for diesel and petrol use.

The government proposes to extend an off-road excise rebate for diesel to those industries which were previously denied it, including forestry, manufacturing and construction. Primary producers will receive a benefit for their off road business use of petrol in their utility vehicles and 4 wheel motorcycles.

There is little point in providing support for research and development into renewable energies if these renewable options are priced out of use by the availability of cheap fossil fuels.

So while parts of the package that support the development of solar energy and support research into the storage of renewable energies are positive, the diesel part of the package undermines these measures.

The changes to the fuel excise system will have far reaching ramifications for Australia’s renewable energy industry if they are implemented – particularly the growing remote power generation industry – the traditional market for solar energy in Australia.

Making polluting fossil fuels excise free for stationary energy applications in regional Australia such as heating, electricity, generation and industrial applications reduces the cost of it by around 40 percent and works to make clean renewable energy systems uncompetitive.

Australia was generally recognised as a world leader in PV a number of years ago, largely driven by the extensive rollout of solar energy in remote area power supply – reliably meeting the power needs of our regional and remote communities. This has been Australia’s traditional market for solar energy.

Mr. Howard’s energy statement now undermines this industry sector, and this sector will face collapse if these measures are implemented. This puts at risk the livelihoods of around 300 renewable energy businesses and their families that are active in this market.

This not only results in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions but also reduces investment in regional and rural communities – the same communities who face the brunt of climate change.

The tragedy in this announcement is that Australia’s remote power generation sector has been a world leader with a number of businesses actively supplying renewable energy systems to developing countries. This is now jeopardised.

This is another example of the Howard government failing the renewable energy industry and small emerging businesses.

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The Solar Cooking Archive

December 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Food is easily and conveniently cooked with solar energy as the “fuel” in devices called solar cookers. Solar cookers are an ideal addition
to any kitchen wherever there are predictable hours of sun many days of the year. Solar cooking and baking are easy. Solar cookers are safe around children and provide a great way to learn about and use solar energy. Solar cookers are clean, convenient, non-polluting and easy on the environment. And, for millions of people living in arid, fuel-scarce regions of the world, solar cookers can literally save
lives.
Solar Cookers International (SCI) spreads solar cooking awareness and skills worldwide, particularly in areas with plentiful sunshine and diminishing sources of cooking fuel. SCI has enabled 30,000 families in Africa to cook with the sun’s energy, freeing women and children from the burdens of gathering wood and carrying it for miles. Tens of thousands of individuals and organizations — from all over the world —
have learned about solar cooking through SCI’s excellent publications and educational materials, and have benefited from SCI’s information exchange networks, research, technical support, and the SCI-sponsored Solar Cooking Archive, the internationally recognized Internet resource for solar cooking information.

SCI’s nonprofit, tax-deductible work is supported by generous individuals, private foundations, and sales of solar cookers and supplies. If you are a current member of Solar Cookers International, we thank you. If you are learning about solar cooking for the first time, please explore the possibilities and join us in teaching the world that with sunshine, cooking is free and easy.

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Solar energy Technology

December 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Solar energy is utterly incapable of powering the sort of heavy industry that our economy relies upon.  This is yet another one of those statements which is true and meaningless. Solar energy certainly isn’t capable of powering industry directly, and central generation of electricity by solar means is not all that practical. However, solar energy can power a lot of things on which centrally generated power is wasted, such as water heating and home heating and cooling.

I never said that solar energy is useless.  As you pointed out, it can be quite useful as a supplemental source of power for small-scale applications.  However, many people seem to think that solar energy can provide all the power needed for everything we do, and that if we just built enough solar collectors, we could abolish all other forms of energy generation.  That simply isn’t true.

Unfortunately, we seem to be overcome with this welfare state mentality, where we assume somebody else has got to do all the work and sell it to us by the gallon or kilowatt hour.It doesn’t have to be done that way, but it’s more efficient and safer. James Hogan puts it this way:

Decentralizing by putting solar panels on everybody’s roofs wouldn’t reduce the cost or the amount of materials used, either, but simply spread them out more thinly.  In fact, it would require more, for the same reason that McDonald’s uses less oil to cook two tons of french fries than eight thousand housewives who fry half a pound each.  The [power] storage problem wouldn’t go away, either, but would become each household’s own responsibility.  In a battery just big enough to start a car, gases can accumulate that one spark can cause to explode, sometimes with lethal consequences, as some unfortunates have discovered when using jumper leads carelessly.  Imagine the hazard that a basement full of batteries the size of grand pianos would present, which a genuinely all-solar home would need to get through a bad spell in, say, Minnesota in January.  Who would do the maintenance and keep the acid levels topped up?  And there would be the problem of keeping the panels free from snow and wet leaves–not in the summer months, but when the roofs are slippery and frozen.  Even today, the second biggest cause of accidental deaths in the country [U.S.], after automobiles, is falls. If we build all those houses with skating rinks on the roofs and bombs in the basements, we’d better build a lot more hospitals and emergency rooms, too, while we’re at it.

Solar energy is useful–no doubt about it.  But it’s not a magic solution to all our energy problems.

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AID News for May 17 2001

December 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I am a visitor from India to California. I am here for some more weeks. I am a retired government of India officer 68 years old. I live in
Trivandrum, Kerala. I have been using a solar cooker for over 12 years on a consistent basis. Since I have hardly seen the solar cooker being used by
any one else in my neighbourhood I have been making efforts to making its advantages made more widely known by means of articles in magazines and
newspapers. For a better effect I have now written a book.

Solar cooking was being encouraged by government of India some 15-20 years ago but not anymore now. More correctly they are paying lip service to this idea. Sadly even the energy gurus in India have forsaken it. It is perhaps considered infradig to be associated with a technology which is low tech.
The same mental mindset considers it fashionable to be associated with hi-tech technologies because they are the ones in use in western countries
even if they are costly and not relevant to the conditions prevailing in India.

I am specifically referring to photoelectricity or PV. PV got a big fillip in USA because of space exploration. The cost of PV has gone down considerably because of this. Even so it remains a costly technology. In western countries since every activity is driven by electricity it makes sense to look to PV for providing some of the electricity needs. Several multinational companies are in the PV business and looking for business in developing countries. They are pushing this costly technology and developing -country -governments are falling for it. A PV device which powers the equivalent of a 40 watt incandescent bulb costs about Rs.5000 (or US$ 100). A 40 watt bulb costs about Rs.10. It costs nothing to run it with grid electricity. But to run it independently it costs Rs.5000. This can make sense only in villages which have no hope of getting grid power.But this device is being sold all over India with govenrment subsidy to the extent of 60 %. It does not make sense.

On the other hand cooking makes a great demand on energy in developing countries. It constitutes as much as 70-90 % of the energy requirement in
developing communities. In western countries it is not cooking but other needs such as air-conditioning, household gadgets(washing,
drying clothes etc)etc which consume energy. In developing countries even the meagre cooking needs of energy are very burdensome for the poor. They have to trudge for miles in search for firewood and spend their lives in smoke filled kitchens. It is noteworthy that the energy “experts” have
not found a solution for this. The only solutions touted over the last 50 years are improved chula or stove and bio gas. Both these approaches are
flawed. An improved chula still depends on scarce and difficult to get firewood. Biogas from cow dung is not a cheap device. The hardware for the
biogas plant is costly. To charge the unit requires the dung from several heads of cattle and poor in India do not have cattle or at any rate so many
heads of cattle. Well to do farmers may be able to make a success of it but not the ordinary run of people in the villages. Life in the villages cries
out for a solution for the energy required to cook food. But the solution offered is energy for lighting. An artificial case is made out that
lighting liberates the villages from darkness. This is like offering cake to one asking for bread. Even this is excusable because the cake can be
eaten. But PV lighting cannot provide the energy required for cooking. Cooking needs several visiits to the kitchen in a day and consumes much
more energy than lighting. A wick lamp used to provide the light in the night in olden days but cooking cannot be done with a wick lamp.

In this situation it is my submission that the solar cooker can provide a modicum of relief. I say a modicum because it can work only on sunny days
which is the case 70 % of the year. The solar cooker is cheap. A durable cooker can be made for Rs.1500 ($30)or less. The solar cooker will last a
lifetime without maintenance. If you spread the cost of Rs.1500 over its lifetime which may be assumed to be 15 years it cost is next to nothing.
But even this may not be affordable to the poor because of the initial downpayment. So there is a case for giving it to them on a subsidy or
working out an appropriate financial package using microcredit. At least there is a better case for subsidising the solar cooker than for
subsidising a solar PV lamp costing Rs.5000.

The solar cooker needs no fuel. Sunshine provides the fuel. The solar cooker will take 2-3 hours to cook. But this not a problem in most houses.
If you have cook in an emergency or cook at odd hours when there is no sun the solar cooker will be of no avail. But barring these exceptional cases
it will give good service. The solar cooker is very convenient because it does not burn the food and therefore does not require close attendance. Yet
can cook several items in one go. You can not only boil food but also roast nuts, make bread or boil water or make dried vegetable and fruits. It is
very verstaile. The solar cooker requires no costly infrastructure. An individual can buy one and set it up instantly if he can find a sunlit premises in or around his house. And lastly it is, of course, pollution free.

For all these reasons I strongly advocate solar cooking as something which is cheap and affordable. I have been practising it for 12 years and I know
what I am saying. I am not simply theorising.

I said earlier that I have written a book on the subject. It is over 200  pages and is in English. It is published in Delhi and is titled MAKING THE
MOST OF SUNSHINE – A Handbook of Solar Eneergy for the Common Man. I have also written a 40 page booklet and got it translated in Malayalam. It is
published by the Kerala Literacy Mission . I would like to translate this book in other languages as well.

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Australian Solar Energy

December 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The maximum energy available from the sun, ie when light strikes the collector at 90degrees at midday on the summer solstice is not a lot, I forget the figure, but I recall 350W per square metre. As you go away from the equator this will reduce by the cosine of the latitude. The efficiency of comercial solar electric panels is about 20%, Solarex brand, probably the most widely available, have panels aout 0.72m^2 which have a peak output of
60W at a nominal 12V, at a cost of about $A550 government price, ie private users pay considerably more. These panels are very widely used in low power applications, ie remote radio communications sites, remote area telephones, small pumps etc.

To power a domestic installation using solar electricity is extremely expensive.

Heating water directly from solar energy is much more viable, but still not as widely used as one would at first expect, for the following reasons:
1 The initial cost is quite high and, when I was considering it a few years ago, had a pay back period, compared to off-peak electricity, of more than 8 years.
2. The average person changes houses within this time.
3. In many parts of the country scale build up in the tubes would mean that the collectors need repair or replacement at about this time.

Although direct exploitation of solar energy is generally too expensive, there is a lot of work being put into indirect exploitation in new home design, solar efficicent housing is the flavor of the month, and many designers and builders are paying more than lip service to the concept.

In summary, for the individual, exploitation of solar energy is considerably more expensive than readilly available alternatives.

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Solar energy houses California,USA

December 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Wind power already supplies 8 percent of Denmark’s electricity and 15 percent of the electricity for Schleswig-Holstein,the northernmost state of Germany. In Spain’s northern state of Navarra, it has gone from 0 to 23 percent in just three years. Worldwide, the wind power potential is several times that of hydropower, which now supplies just over one fifth of the world’s electricity. A new Japanese solar roofing material promises to revolutionize the electrical generating industry. In Germany, the 100,000 roofs program launched in December of 1998 by the new coalition government is leading to a joint investment by Shell Oil/Pilkington in a solar cell manufacturing facility that will be the world’s largest.

The more enterprising corporate CEOs are beginning to see this economic restructuring as the greatest investment opportunity in history. In a speech on February 9, Mike R. Bowlin, Chairman and CEO of ARCO, a major oil company, described the beginning of “the last days of the age of oil”and the emergence of the new hydrogen-based energy economy. He sees ARCO’s large holdings of natural gas playing a key role in the transition from a carbon-based energy economy to one based on hydrogen. Within the last two years, British Petroleum has committed $1 billion to the development of wind and solar energy and Royal Dutch Shell has announced a $500 million investment in renewable energy sources (Some of the big Oils are finally moving)

Governments, too, are changing. Denmark has banned the construction of coal-fired power plants.Costa Rica plans to get all its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. In mid-August 1998, after several weeks of near-record flooding in the Yangtze River basin,
Premier Zhu Rongji ordered a halt to tree cutting in the upper basin, arguing that trees standing are worth three times as much as those cut.

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San Diego’s 2nd Annual Solar Energy Week Generates Record Attendance for Solar Events

December 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The 2nd Annual Solar Energy Week, hosted by the nonprofit San Diego Regional Energy Office (SDREO), came to a close this weekend, setting record attendance with more than 4,000 attendees, almost doubling the number of participants of the inaugural Solar Energy
Week in 2005. Following this summer’s heat wave and the recent announcement of the California Solar Initiative, local interest in solar power continues to grow at an impressive rate. Solar Energy Week featured four great events to help San Diegans learn about how they can implement solar power in their homes, make cleaner energy choices and help alleviate the effects of global warming.

“San Diego is the ideal place for people to take advantage of the energy the sun provides, and the record turnout we had for Solar Energy Week’s activities proves that people in this region are truly interested in making a change with solar power,” said Irene M. Stillings, SDREO Executive Director. “As locals continue to learn about solar power and the
rebate opportunities that exist, I think they will really embrace this opportunity to reduce their energy bills and help the environment by making changes in the way they power their homes.”

On Sunday, September 24, Family Solar Energy Day kicked off Solar Energy Week, with more than 400 people in attendance — double that of last year’s event. Activities included solar powered car races, educational presentations and a sun drawing contest, in addition to solar oven baking, a solar heating display, plus free food and drinks. San Diego County
Supervisor Pam Slater-Price and Commissioner John Geesman from the California Energy Commission also made brief presentations to an enthusiastic crowd.

The Commercial Solar Tour, a guided bus tour of three major San Diego companies showcasing various state-of-the-art solar installations, sold out three weeks prior to the tour, which took place on Tuesday, September 26. San Diego State University’s Physics Building, QUALCOMM Inc.’s Building Q, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 569 Headquarters and Union Hall were featured on the Tour, demonstrating
how local companies and organizations are helping the environment and setting a positive example by utilizing solar power.

The Solar Energy Conference, held at the University of San Diego on Wednesday, September 27, brought in more than 500 attendees, making it the largest such event ever held in Southern California and almost doubled the number of people from last year’s conference. The conference proved to be a valuable event for all attendees, featuring an impressive range of local and national solar and government experts discussing a variety of topics from the basics of how solar energy works to high-level discussions on renewable energy credits and solar legislation. Twenty vendors also showed off the latest technologies both indoors and outdoors under the sun.

The grand finale of Solar Energy Week was the 7th Annual Solar Homes Tour, which took place on Saturday, September 30. More than 30 homes participated in the tour, offering San Diego County residents a rare glimpse into homes with solar electric installations and solar pool and water heating systems. SDREO estimates that more than 2,500 people
attended this year’s tour to learn how solar can save them money on their home energy bills, improve the environment, mitigate climate change and reduce fossil fuel dependence.

QUALCOMM, Inc., SDG&E, the County of San Diego and Supervisor Slater-Price all pledged substantial support for Solar Energy Week, helping make it such a success. Major sponsorship also came from BP Solar, Kyocera Solar and Independent Energy Solutions. Additional sponsors included Sanyo, Unisolar, Powerlight, Renewable Technologies Inc., and the San Diego Electrical Training Center (IBEW).

The San Diego Regional Energy Office (SDREO) is an independent, nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation that helps residents, businesses and public agencies save energy, reduce grid demand and generate their own power through a variety of rebate, technical assistance and education programs. SDREO also provides the community with objective information, research, analysis and long-term planning on energy issues and technologies.

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Bush tapped solar energy funds to print energy plan

December 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

While environmentalists have slammed the White House national energy plan for not doing enough to promote renewable energy, the Bush administration found those government research programs useful in paying the bill for printing copies of the
170-page plan.

The administration took money from the Energy Department’s solar and renewable energy and energy conservation budgets to pay for the cost of printing its national energy plan.

Documents released under court order by the Energy Department this week revealed that $135,615 was spent from the DOE’s solar, renewables, and energy conservation budget to produce 10,000 copies of the White House energy plan released last May.

Another $1,317.39 was spent for producing 16 “briefing boards” used by administration officials to illustrate and explain the White House energy plan.

The newly released documents also show that $176.40 was taken from the energy conservation program to pay for an Alaska trip by Andrew Lundquist, the White House energy task force’s staff director, to promote the energy plan. The administration’s energy policy called for drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a proposal
strongly opposed by environmentalists.

At the same time the White House tapped the renewable budget for funds to print the energy plan, the administration was urging Congress to cut the renewable and energy efficiency research budgets by more than 50 percent.

Vice President Dick Cheney, who headed the White House energy task force, criticized environmentalists for relying too much on renewable and conservation to solve the nation’s energy problems. “Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy,” Cheney said two weeks before the energy plan was released last May.

The administration did try to spread around the cost of producing the energy plan.

It dipped into the DOE’s fossil energy program, which covers primarily oil research, to pay $100.92 for a hotel room near the Government Printing Office where the policy publication was being produced. The documents did not name the official or if the hotel offered a government rate.

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Solar Energy Systems

December 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The Web has evolved into a global electronic publishing medium and increasingly, a medium for conducting electronic commerce in areas such as solar energy systems. E-commerce means that you can buy solar energy systems products online.

One of the major downsides of the Internet is that ignorant people may pose as experts in the solar energy systems fields . If someone states they are a solar energy systems authority then that statement is certainly open to dispute. Organizations who specialize in the production and marketing of solar energy systems are more likely to know what they are doing then a quasi solar energy systems expert.

We have devoted a lot of time and energy to locating the most reliable solar energy systems suppliers from a large list of solar energy systems websites. If you click on the links and banners of this page then you’ll enter the most appropriate area for solar energy systems purchases.

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Daily Bulletin

December 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Supposedly the purpose of all these events is to promote solar  energy as a viable alternative to conventional energy sources. That’s certainly an admirable goal, but the whole point seems to have been lost to the participants long ago.

As an exercise for engineering students, designing and building such a vehicle can be a valuable experience, but solar energy is only a small part of the project, and it seems silly to me to think that these events, in any way but the most superficial, actually promote the practical use of solar energy.

If that were the real goal, the projects would spend nearly all their time working on the energy part of the task.  But instead nearly all the time is spent on making the projects look like solar energy is practical.  i.e. they have to completely design and build the entire vehicle from the ground up, totally ignoring a hundred years of engineering that have already gone into modern passenger vehicles.  Almost all the effort goes not into the
solar aspect of the vehicle, but into designing something that will go faster and farther than other similarly designed vehicles. i.e. extreme streamlining, removing as much weight as possible, providing as little passenger and cargo space as possible, etc. It becomes a contest to see who can design the most energy-efficient vehicle, with solar power itself becoming the constant factor rather than the variable that they really should be trying to improve.

If solar energy were the real goal, they would start with a standard passenger vehicle (a mini, or a truck, or anything between) and put 90% of the work into making that work with solar energy as the primary power supply.  That would be a true demonstration of its practicality, and would put the experimentation back into solar energy research rather than into aerodynamics, etc.

But instead, they spend most of the time reinventing the wheel, and in the process throwing out such things as passenger and cargo capacity, not to mention the safety and road-worthiness with which modern commercial vehicles are packed, and with which
these toys are obviously not.  I wonder why they are even allowed to drive on public roads (except as a parade float).

In terms of energy efficiency, these vehicles are accompanied by several support vehicles, all conventionally fueled.  The result is an expensive, slow, and unsafe vehicle that transports one person with no luggage, and burns ten times as much gasoline as would a
small inexpensive car.

In terms of promoting the practical use of solar energy, this project has just proven what a joke it always was. It’s just unfortunate that it had to happen in the way it did,
and we can only hope that it hasn’t hurt its alleged goal too much.

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