Solar Industry Anxious Over Defective Panels

LOS ANGELES — The solar panels covering a vast warehouse roof in the sun-soaked Inland Empire region east of Los Angeles were only two years into their expected 25-year life span when they began to fail. 

Coatings that protect the panels disintegrated while other defects caused two fires that took the system offline for two years, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenues.

It was not an isolated incident. Worldwide, testing labs, developers, financiers and insurers are reporting similar problems and say the $77 billion solar industry is facing a quality crisis just as solar panels are on the verge of widespread adoption. 

READ MORE:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/business/energy-environment/solar-powers-dark-side.html?hp&_r=1&

Climate slowdown means extreme rates of warming 'not as likely'

Scientists say the recent downturn in the rate of global warming will lead to lower temperature rises in the short-term.

Since 1998, there has been an unexplained "standstill" in the heating of the Earth's atmosphere.
Writing in Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this will reduce predicted warming in the coming decades.
But long-term, the expected temperature rises will not alter significantly.

The slowdown in the expected rate of global warming has been studied for several years now. Earlier this year, the UK Met Office lowered their five-year temperature forecast. 

But this new paper gives the clearest picture yet of how any slowdown is likely to affect temperatures in both the short-term and long-term.

READ MORE:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22567023

Proposed Fracking Rule Another Power Grab by Broken Bureaucracy

WASHINGTON D.C. — IER President Thomas Pyle released the following statement concerning the proposed federal regulations for hydraulic fracturing announced today by the Department of Interior:

“This regulation places an unnecessary additional burden on American energy producers, and ultimately on energy consumers who will pay for it in the form of higher energy prices. The rule is another power grab by the Obama Administration, which is forever seeking to fix a problem even former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has said does not exist. Despite sixty years of safe hydraulic fracturing in more than one million successful wells, the Interior Department will now add another layer of sluggish bureaucracy for everyone seeking to harness the tremendous economic and energy potential on taxpayer-owned federal lands.
Already, an unresponsive and often hostile federal government has made these lands all but undesirable for energy exploration amid the greatest boom in oil and gas production increases in U.S. history.

READ MORE:  http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2013/05/16/proposed-fracking-rule-another-power-grab-by-broken-bureaucracy/

Wind farms get pass on eagle deaths

CONVERSE COUNTY, Wyo. (AP) -- Wind farms in this corner of Wyoming have killed more than four dozen golden eagles since 2009, one of the deadliest places in the country of its kind.

But so far, the companies operating industrial-sized turbines here and elsewhere that are killing eagles and other protected birds have yet to be fined or prosecuted - even though every death is a criminal violation.

The Obama administration has charged oil companies for drowning birds in their waste pits, and power companies for electrocuting birds on power lines.

READ MORE:  http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WIND_ENERGY_EAGLE_DEATHS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-05-14-07-57-59

US shale oil supply shock shifts global power balance

A steeper-than-expected rise in US shale oil reserves is about to change the global balance of power between new and existing producers, a report says.

Over the next five years, the US will account for a third of new oil supplies, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The US will change from the world's leading importer of oil to a net exporter.

Demand for oil from Middle-East oil producers is set to slow as a result.

"North America has set off a supply shock that is sending ripples throughout the world," said IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven.

Canadian oil sands production is also contributing to the "supply shock", the IEA said.

READ MORE:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22524597

Tesla drives California environmental credits to the bank

Zero Emission Vehicle credits could give the automaker as much as $250 million this year, highlighting the state's effort to promote the electric car.

 When Tesla Motors reports its first-ever profit Wednesday, much of the money will come courtesy of the state of California. 

In its zeal to push electric cars into the market, the state has created a system in which Tesla can make as much as $35,000 extra on each sale of its luxury Model S electric sports sedans.  That's because the Palo Alto company qualifies for coveted state environmental credits that it can turn into cash.

READ MORE:  http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/05/business/la-fi-electric-cars-20130506

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The Department of Energy Spends $11 Million Per Job

Without much fanfare, the Department of Energy (DOE) recently updated the list of loan guarantee projects on its website. Unlike in 2008, when Barack Obama pledged to create 5 million jobs over 10 years by directing taxpayer funds toward renewable energy projects, there were no press conferences or stump speeches. But the data are nonetheless revealing: for the over $26 billion spent since 2009, DOE Section 1703 and 1705 loan guarantees have created only 2,298 permanent jobs for a cost of over $11.45 million per job.

As the astronomical cost of the DOE’s loan guarantee program indicates, subsidizing renewable energy is not a good deal for taxpayers. But loan guarantees are just one of the ways the federal government bankrolls risky green energy projects. Energy-related tax preferences cost taxpayers about $13.5 billion in FY 2012, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. But solar and wind power, for which the majority of the tax preferences for renewable energy were directed, produced only 3.6 percent of the nation’s generation in 2012. In addition, the Treasury Department’s 1603 grant program, which offers cash payments to renewable energy companies, cost taxpayers $5.8 billion in 2012. Many states also subsidize green energy through tax preferences as well as requiring renewable electricity mandates that require a specified amount of electricity to be generated from qualified renewable sources like wind and solar.

READ MORE:  http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2013/05/08/does-11-million-jobs/

Scientist wants to know origin of Bay’s phosphorous

By BRUCE HOTCHKISS
Senior Editor

NEWARK, Del. — A University of Delaware research scientist argues that an efficient nutrient management plan for the Chesapeake Bay cannot be crafted until the origins of the invading nutrients, particularly phosphorous, are known.

Take phosphorous (P), says Dr. Deb Jaisi, an associate professor of environmental biogeochemistry at the university’s Department of Plant and Soil Sciences.

Did it come from runoff of manure or fertilizers? Or did it originate in wastewater, or geological processes such as soil or rock dissolution? Or how about driven into the Bay from the ocean?

Dr. Jaisi noted that the EPA recently finalized stringent rules on total maximum daily load in the Chesapeake Bay with rigorous accountability measures requiring 24 percent phosphorus cutoff by 2025, with at least 60 percent action completed by 2017.

“Under this plan, EPA estimates that 20 percent or about 600,000 acres of cropped land in the watershed, will have to be removed from production and be converted to grassland or forest,” Jaisi said.

READ MORE:  http://www.americanfarm.com/publications/the-delmarva-farmer

Tornado spike in 2011 attributed to climate change. So what to make of this year’s tornado drought?

As informed citizens, we need to be careful about conflating weather, climate change and natural disasters.
Weather (i.e. the extreme cold we’re having in Texas this spring) is weather. Climate is the measurement of long-term weather data over broad areas (i.e. global temperatures over a 50 year period). For most people, these are pretty easy distinctions to make.

But the issue becomes more complicated when it comes to natural disasters, such as hurricanes, floods, droughts and tornadoes.

About 18 months ago the much-maligned IPCC released a report that takes a pretty balanced view of climate and natural disasters, concluding that weather extremes are probably affected by climate change, but generally stops short of saying global warming is the main driver.

READ MORE:  http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2013/05/tornado-spike-in-2011-attributed-to-climate-change-so-what-to-make-of-this-years-tornado-drought/

Japan turns back to coal-fired power plants

The Japanese government is moving to speed up the environmental assessment process for new coal-fired power plants as its power sector struggles with a surging energy bill in the wake of the forced idling of much of the country's nuclear power plants following the Fukushima power plant meltdown in 2011.

At present, it can take up to four years for approvals for new plants to be processed.

According to Japanese media reports, the government intends to make 12 months the maximum period for assessing and approving new coal-fired power plants as its utilities seek to develop more power stations to stem surging energy supply bills.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/japan-turns-back-to-coalfired-power-plants-20130425-2ihb0.html#ixzz2S8q3EHSD

SATURDAY ESSAY: Eco madness and how our future is going up in smoke as we pay billions to switch from burning coal to wood chips at Britain's biggest power station

There could be no better symbol of the madness of Britain’s energy policy than what is happening at the giant Drax power station in Yorkshire, easily the largest in Britain.

Indeed, it is one of the biggest and most efficiently run coal-fired power stations in the world. Its almost 1,000ft-tall flue chimney is the highest in the country, and its 12 monster cooling towers (each taller than St Paul’s Cathedral) dominate the flat  countryside of eastern Yorkshire for miles around.

Every day, Drax burns 36,000 tons of coal, brought to its vast site by 140 coal trains every week — and it supplies seven per cent of all the electricity used in Britain. That’s enough to light up a good many of our major cities.

READ MORE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2290444/Madness-How-pay-billions-electricity-bills-Britains-biggest-power-station-switch-coal-wood-chips--wont-help-planet-jot.html#ixzz2S34S6NYU