The French government announced a huge investment package for renewable energy last week, totaling €1.35 billion ($1.73 billion). The money is to be invested over the next 4 years.
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France Launches €1.35 Billion Clean Energy Program
Posted in August 19th, 2010
by Zachary Shahan in Biofuels, biofuel, carbon capture and storage, clean energy, energy, energy industry, france, geothermal energy, marine energy, nuclear, nuclear energy, nuclear power, policy, renewable energy, smart grid, solar energy, transport, wave energy
The French government announced a huge investment package for renewable energy last week, totaling €1.35 billion ($173 billion). The money is to be invested over the next 4 years.
Nuclear Projects Looking for a Savior
Posted in August 1st, 2010
by Zachary Shahan in DOE, Texas, congress, department of energy, nuclear, nuclear energy, nuclear power, policy, politics
It was just a few hours ago when I wrote that I thought I’d be delving into the topic of nuclear energy a little more soon. Well, soon is now.
This post is about two nuclear reactors that are an urgent matter to some (in the nuclear industry and politics) and also, potentially, the source of a very big bill for U.S. taxpayers.
Historic Report: Solar Energy Costs Now Lower than Nuclear Energy
Posted in August 1st, 2010
by Zachary Shahan in business, clean energy, energy, nuclear, nuclear energy, nuclear power, renewable energy, solar, solar energy, solar power
For ages, people have been saying: “Solar is a great, clean, renewable energy source, but it is just too expensive. Other energy sources, like nuclear, may have some (or serious) environmental risks, but they are cheaper.”
Now, a new report out of Duke University says that solar energy and nuclear energy have passed a “historic crossover,” where decreasing solar energy costs and increasing nuclear energy costs have met, and then parted. Solar energy is now cheaper than nuclear energy and is getting increasingly cheaper every day.
Did the Nuclear Industry and Politicians Learn Anything from the BP Oil Spill?
Posted in June 24th, 2010
by Zachary Shahan in clean energy, congress, nuclear, nuclear energy, nuclear power, policy, politics
A major factor causing the BP oil spill to be the disaster that it is turning out to be is deregulation of the oil industry. You would think that if people, especially politicians, learned one thing from this disaster, it would be that we need strong government oversight of risky technologies.
It seems right now that some in the nuclear industry and Congress have missed that completely or just haven’t heard the news about the BP oil spill at all.
Long Island Solar Power Discount Brings Utility Bill Relief to Residents
Posted in June 24th, 2010
This week the solar group discount company 1BOG launched a Long Island Solar group discount campaign with one of the lowest prices for solar in the US.
Long Island, New York is the site of the infamous Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant, a $6 billion boondoggle that was shut down in 1989 without ever producing commercial electricity. Ratepayers were forced to pick up the tab and they’ve been paying some of the nation’s highest electricity rates ever since. Now solar power is on the verge of offering a way out, at least for some property owners.
One Block off the Grid (1BOG), which hosts CleanTechnica, is an organization that arranges group discounts for home solar power between property owners and solar energy installers. The organization has launched discount campaigns around the country (find solar in your city). Based on current electricity rates and typical electricity usage, it calculates that a typical solar installation on Long Island would pay for itself in about four years – one of the shortest payback times in the country.
Will Peak Uranium Hit Nuclear Plants?
Posted in December 21st, 2008
The safety of nuclear plants is often debated, but we rarely hear about another potential issue for nuclear energy: peak uranium. That’s the point in time when when the maximum global uranium production is reached and begins to enter a permanent decline. And while we’ve known for some time that high-quality uranium supplies have been declining for the past 50 years, nuclear operators are finally getting nervous.
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Will Nuclear Fusion Solve the Energy Crisis?
Posted in November 13th, 2008
by Ariel Schwartz in alternative energy, chain reaction, lawrence livermore, national ignition facility, nif, nuclear, nuclear energy, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion
I remember seeing the movie Chain Reaction back in 1996 and praying that nuclear fusion would become a reality in my lifetime. And according to researchers at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (LLNL) in California, it just might. At the facility’s National Ignition Facility (NIF), researchers are gearing up to test the potentially unlimited power source.
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T. Boone’s ‘Pickens Plan’: Spin the wind turbine
Posted in July 14th, 2008
by Joe Mohr in CBS, Katie Couric, Pickens Plan, T. Boone Pickens, alternative energy, business, nuclear energy, wind energy, wind farms
T. Boone Pickens helps bring wind energy to the center of the energy discussion and the center of the political aisle.
Misguided Probing
I don’t think it made the 3 minute clip CBS aired, but in the full 12 minute interview Katie Couric instantly goes after T. Boone Pickens about his financial aspirations of starting a wind farm. Now I’m no big T. Boone Pickens fan, but Katie, people start companies to make money (and tycoons usually start businesses to make billions). As much as you can fault the man for funding the swiftboat attack ads against John Kerry, or fault him for his influence on the Republican Party, you can’t fault the man for starting a business and wanting to make money.
I think Katie is trying to get T. Boone to say what everyone already knows (so why even waste time probing for a confession?) which is, T. Boone Pickens doesn’t care about the environment or the economic revival of rural economies as the well laid out spinning on his Pickens Plan website would like you to believe.
T. Boone Pickens cares about money–and he’s good at making it.
So why then, poke and prod a man who will put his tycoon-ish master mind to work on an energy source that will benefit the nation environmentally and economically?
Katie should’ve poked and prodded T. Boone for what was curiously left out of the Pickens Plan.
Unclear Nuclear Plans
The Pickens Plan website focuses on the development of wind energy (he is building the “world’s biggest wind farm” in Texas), and natural gas. At the very end it states:
The Pickens Plan is a bridge to the future — a blueprint to reduce foreign oil dependence by harnessing domestic energy alternatives, and buy us time to develop even greater new technologies.
It’s the “domestic energy alternatives” part that leaves me a bit suspect. I am going to bet that those “alternatives” may mean more nuclear reactors. Rod Adams does a good job of pointing out a possible link to Pickens’s wind aspirations and his potential overall plan for nuclear energy in his article on T. Boone. Adams links T. Boone’s plan with the plan of his Texas neighbor George Chapman who has announced plans to build two large nuclear reactors in Pickens’s hometown of Amarillo Texas. He also mentions that Pickens only brings up nuclear power at the very end of his Senate testimony on the future of American energy.
Center Stage
Wind energy is an environmental and economic issue, therefore it is an issue important to both sides of the political aisle. The fact that wind is an environmentalist’s dream energy source causes the issue to fall left of the aisle. The fact that an oil tycoon is investing in wind energy brings the issue back to center. This is important because issues at the center of the political aisle tend to have greater long term success as a result of the support from both sides. Oddly, issues funded by billionaires always seem to do well too…
We can only hope that Pickens will continue to financially assist wind farms until the central plains corridor (from Texas to Canada) reaches the 400,000 megawatt potential he projects. We can then go on to hope that wind, solar, geo-thermal, and tidal energy systems receive the funding and subsidies that the oil, coal, and nuclear industries enjoy. Maybe then clean energy can truly compete in the long term with its well-financed foes.
Related Posts
T. Boone Pickens Says Peak Oil Reached, Plans Largest Wind Farm
High Winds+Wind Farms=Falling Electricity Prices
The “Unlimited” Potential of American Wind Power: AWEA
image credit: Pickens Plan MySpace page
and Philipp Hertzog photo posted on Wikimedia Commons
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