Print Page - The Big Picture in Renewable Energy Growth

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This is the continuation of the Renewable Revolution Forum (https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/index.php), with the same categories and boards arrangement. In order to provide topic thread continuity, this post will be duplicated in frequently viewed topic threads along with selected posts from that topic (https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/renewables/the-big-picture-of-renewable-energy-growth/msg535/#msg535) at the Renewable Revolution Forum (https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/index.php). I will gradually, as time permits, copy pertinent articles posted there, update them, and post them here for your convenience.

Although guests are encouraged to post and become members, this forum is mostly a library reference of important historical information and timeless articles that you are encouraged to pass on, with or without attribution.

In addition, relevant recent news will be posted almost daily, so be sure to 🧐 stop by often. (https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-250817121424.gif)

Agelbert NOTE: I posted the following nearly nine years ago. The energy source use percentage predictions I made have not come to pass due to hydrocarbon "industry" bought and paid for bi-partisan foot dragging for the last decade. (https://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-200714183337.bmp)

Renewable Energy has made great strides during that time, but the transition to clean energy is still dangerously slow. Though my prediction of a summer ice free arctic in 2017 was way off :-[, it is Catastrophic Climate Change CLear that we are out of time for fossil fuel profit over planet based foot dragging.

Let us hope that TPTB will do MUCH better towards the 2035 goal I charted back in 2013.

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December 14, 2013.

A fossil fueler called 🦖 MKing brought an interesting 2009 U.S. energy use graphic which uses "quads" for the energy units. When I told him the 2009 global energy demand was 18TW, I was not talking about QUADS but let's deal with the 2009 graphic.

2009

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About 39% of the 2009 US ENERGY USE (IN QUADS) total was electrical, further "justifying" MKing's "perspective".

So what's the problem with MKing's "irrefutable" logic pointing to Renewable Energy being a DROP IN THE ENERGY BUCKET? (I seem to have had this SAME conversation with Nicole Foss about a year and a half ago...)

1) The US is not the whole planet. In fact our energy "policy" DOES NOT EXIST on a national scale. That puts the fossil fuel corporations in De Facto control of energy ~~policy~~ piggery.

That FACT makes us DIFFERENT and technologically and scientifically BEHIND every other developed country in the WORLD (including fossil fuel loving Russia!) in regard to energy policy and piggery in the light of global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

The U.S. is NOT an example of the global energy trends (I'm CERTAIN MKing is aware of this). Using it as an example shows the deliberate intent to use an extreme of fossil fuel use as the planetary norm to undermine the facts about exponential Renewable Energy growth (when they aren't claiming that Renewable energy growth is LINEAR and therefore will take 500 years or so to replace fossil fuels!) and paint the fossil fuel driven economy as the be all, end all of a workable civilization.

It's quite clever. But it is false because it lacks perspective, not because the facts of the year 2009 for the U.S. are "false"; They are accurate.

However, 2007 to 2009 was the apex of fossil fuel piggery and projections for the U.S.! There was LESS before and LESS after in an increasing downward slope!

You would stare open mouthed if you could see the same pie chart above in 1940. Renewable Energy from hydropower reached 33% of our electrical grid penetration, a percentage we have yet to reach again (but a lot of good people are working on it!).

2) In 2009 the situation in Europe was the antithesis of the one in the U.S. as to Renewable Energy. MKing was obligated to show the rest of the planet but did not. If we are going to discuss planetary energy use, we need to include the whole ball of wax. 8)

Now let's see what happened AFTER 2009:

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Fossil Fueler wet dreams as projected to 2035 when the above graphic was enthusiastically prepared (and shown proudly at THE 🦖 OIL DRUM web site, NO DOUBT! 😈) to make sure us treehugging renewable energy freaks "understood the REAL world". ::)

Yes, unfortunately, PART of the above is coming to pass because of the Chinese energy explosion. But look what is happening in MKing's example (the U.S.) of fossil fuel energy love (see below).

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And with the massive pollution problem in China, you KNOW that China line is peaking and will begin its inexorable descent if China, and the rest of the biosphere too, is to survive this climate mess.

Yes, MKing, I'm aware of the fact that the graph has CO2 emissions, ::) not energy use. But when you are talking about fossil fuel use, CO2 emissions correlate exactly with burning fossil fuels. Don't try to pretend otherwise.

But your fossil fuel pals are LOATHE to project trends any way but the way they want them to go. THIS IS YOUR PERSPECTIVE PROBLEM.

You scoffed at cost not being germane in the North Sea Platforms because THE PEOPLE, NOT BIG OIL, were made to pay for it. Your "perspective" is that IF you can get away with gaming the costs so YOU don't pay them, you have a viable business model. BULLSHIT!

The mafia has been around for a long, long time because, even they learned, like you fossil fuelers never seem to, that rampant, calloused predation will backfire on you and destroy your business.

Since it hasn't happened to your "business model" YET, you think it won't. Yeah, it's ALL ABOUT DISTORTED AND ARROGANT flawed perspective. But ,hey, you use renewable energy so I guess you have something going for you. ;)

Dear readers, you saw that fossil fueler wet dream projection from 2007 to 2035 above, right?

Well, these fine fellows have made an adjustment to their prevaricating projections (see below).

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-260322200249-242309.png)
Note the attempt to make the energy total in general (and fossil fuel use descent in particular) look like a hiccup! BULLSHIT!

In order to give fossil fuelers a reality check and a bit of heartburn too, I have consulted with the top scientist at the Agelbert Renewable Revolution Institute. He is a very learned man! ;D I see him regularly whenever there is a mirror around.

Anyway, he used his top secret quantum computer to show what the U.S. energy consumption and breakdown of sources is projected to be from now to 2035.

Fossil Fuelers and Nuke Pukes will scoff publicly,
but they will (https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/2/3-231218145827.png) sweat bullets privately! (https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-210818163126-16771578.gif)

But this isn't about whether "it would be nice but we just can't swing it due to fossil FOOL corporation power and piggery"; This is a matter of national security and national survival. We DO THIS or we ARE HISTORY, PERIOD. Pass it on. The planet you save may be your own.

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March 28, 2022

Wind, solar and other renewables cover 54% of Germany’s power consumption in early 2022

Renewable power installations covered more than half of Germany’s power consumption in the first two months of 2022. Figures released by energy industry association BDEW and the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Wurttemberg (ZSW) showed that wind turbines, solar panels and other renewables contributed 54 percent of power consumption in January and February. These installations produced about 25 percent more electricity than in the same period one year before. “The increase is mainly due to favourable weather conditions for power production with wind and sunshine,” BDEW and ZSW said. With an output of 20.6 billion kilowatt hours (kWh), February 2022 also ended up being a new record month for wind power production in the country. In that month alone, renewables even covered 62 percent 🌞 of total electricity consumption.

However, the high renewables output “should not conceal the fact that the expansion of renewable power sources is happening much too slow”, said BDEW head Kerstin Andreae. She added that the war in Ukraine had highlighted the need for more energy autonomy, urging the government to make sure that licensing procedures are carried out faster and other hurdles for renewables expansion are removed.

Agelbert NOTE: The "Oil Drum" mentioned in this article was a web site that pitched happy talk about hydrocarbons and a steady stream of disinformation about Renewable Energy technologies. They closed down years ago. Nevertheless, the propaganda they pitched still continues unabated from the Fossil Fuel Industry paid liars and crooks. Learn about their 😈 mendacious modus operandi.

Originally published by me on July 17, 2012

Hope for a viable biosphere: Why fossil fuels were NEVER cheap or cost effective

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File:Seawifs global biosphere.jpg

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The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed (apart from solar and cosmic radiation) and self-regulating system.[1]

This is a “Big Picture” article about energy resources and use by humanity. In the article I question the most basic assumptions that have become “common wisdom” in our culture in regard to the celebrated “cost effectiveness” of fossil and nuclear energy products and the view that renewables are not a suitable replacement due to alleged “low” EROI (Energy Return on Energy Invested – sometimes shown as EROEI in the literature). I even question the assumptions used in the EROI methodolgy for quantifying exothermic chemical processes (how much energy is released when rapid oxidation, otherwise known as an explosion, occurs in a given energy product).

I will prove that the EROI methodology is, not simply flawed, but unscientifically skewed to narrowly define energy input and output boundaries so as to favor fossil and nuclear fuels and simultaneously delegitimize renewable energy product cost effectiveness. It is most telling that the EROI documents and discussions at The Oil Drum web site are the ones that first show up when you do an EROI google search for fossil fuels and/or renewables.

The claim of scientific objectivity in regard to fossil fuels at a web site called The Oil Drum can only be considered acceptable in a country like ours, where the oil and nuclear lobbies control much of the narrative and just about all of the governmental policies energywise.

Tell me, dear readers, would you consider taking advice on the efficacy of a vegan diet from the owners of a steak house? Do you think they would celebrate the fact that rice and beans provide a balanced protein intake that covers all essential amino acids? Do you think they would, after you provided evidence of the facts, offer chickpeas, which are equivalent in protein density to meat without the fat, as a replacement for the kiddy burgers?

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Chickpeas have 361 calories per 100g, and are a good source of protein containing about 20 percent in content, which is equivalent to meat.

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/306862-chickpea-diet/#ixzz20d229B5z

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Rice and beans are both nutritious yet inexpensive foods that, when combined, form a complete protein.

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/351077-the-protein-in-rice-beans/#ixzz20d8EofWj

Somehow, I think you will agree that the steak house owners are just a tiny bit biased in favor of meat and will attempt to undermine the vegan diet by the following reactions: 1) Ignore it. 2) Ridicule it. 3) Attack it with false propaganda. Provided enough people can be kept in the dark about the benefits to the body and the pocketbook of a vegan diet, the steak house owners and the entire chain of profit generating meat production facilities from raising cattle, hogs and chickens to every fast food burger joint in the country can continue to enjoy the status quo and their profits. I am not a vegetarian. I bring this example to you (remember the time Oprah had to back down on her claim that red meat was bad for you because of the cattle rancher outcry? – She was referring to scientifc studies but the beef industry prevailed anyway – truth be damned when profits are threatened is the predatory capitalist motto) simply because it shows how mendacity is used to defend a bias, regardless of the truth.

I will prove here that the same mechanism has corrupted, not only our government energy use, subsidy and research and development grant allocation policies, but the very mathematics used by scientists to define energetic exothermic processes.

The Procrustean Bed gaming of the boundaries for the EROI methodology is where we begin. I am not a mathematician but I can add, subtract, divide and multiply. Regardless of the calculus formulas or other advanced mathematics and statistical tools used by the scientists doing the EROI math, I will show that every energy cost they leave out favors the fossil fuel and nuclear energy industries in their flawed EROI comparison with renewables. At the end of the article, after having presented the case which, not simply justifies, but requires a switch to 100% renewables in order to guarantee a viable biosphere, I will point you to some excellent videos from Germany (you have to go to the German web site to see them – they are free but they sell the DVDs of the videos for those who wish to spread the word) where renewables providing power to industrial processes, as well as consumer energy demands, are paving the way to an energy future free of disruptions, price gouging from contrived fuel shortages and price shocks/hikes from wars (mostly contrived as well) and/or speculators. P

arts of this article may be a bit boring. Please try to remember that your thorough understanding and use for dissemination of the data here to others out there may enable you, after you verify it’s veracity, to effectively counter some status quo victim of brainwashing in the “follow the herd” school of “that’s how the world works and we just have to live with it” tradition. Your efforts to wade through this and digest it’s contents will, I firmly believe, help attain a sustainable future. An unsustainable world is a world that isn’t “working”. What I want is for it to work.

ENERGY RETURN ON ENERGY INVESTED (EROI or sometimes EROEI)

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Procrustean bed is an arbitrary standard to which exact conformity is forced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustes

Measuring the EROEI of a single physical process is unambiguous, but there is no agreed standard on which activities should be included in measuring the EROEI of an economic process. In addition, the form of energy of the input can be completely different from the output. For example, energy in the form of coal could be used in the production of ethanol. This might have an EROEI of less than one, but could still be desirable due to the benefits of liquid fuels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_returned_on_energy_invested

This is the general formula: EROEI = Usable Acquired Energy (output) DIVIDED BY Energy Expended (input) The formula appears pretty straightforward, does it not? If you get less energy out than you put in then you will get a number below “1” (i.e. 1/2 = 0.5 EROI not good, 10/1 = 10.0 EROI good). Since the units in this formula are energy units, let’s define those:

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Because energy is defined via work, the SI unit for energy is the same as the unit of work – the joule (J), named in honour of James Prescott Joule and his experiments on the mechanical equivalent of heat. In slightly more fundamental terms, 1 joule is equal to 1 newton-metre and, in terms of SI base units:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Units_of_energy

What’s a newton-metre? What are SI units? Don’t worry about it. Anybody that wants to do an in depth discussion in the comments of how scientists came up with the units from observing the heat effect of lots of energetic molecules in a measured volume of some gas, liquid or solid is free to do so. In the meantime, readers only need to remember that more Joules (J) = more energy.

So taken with the “fabulous fossil fuels” are some people out there that they have the audacity to start using “barrel of oil equivalent” and “ton of oil equivalent” to measure energy rather than sticking with Joules (J).

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In discussions of energy production and consumption, the units barrel of oil equivalent and ton of oil equivalent are often used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Units_of_energy

To the credentialed scientists in the EROI study published at The Oil Drum’s credit, they appear to have used Joules and MegaJoules(MJ) in their energy units. Use your own imagination as to how objective it would have looked to claim EROI in ethanol and other renewables is too low in terms of “barrel of oil equivalent” units. Okay, so we’ve decided to use “J” units as the input and output energy units in the EROI formula. How do we know how much energy is in a given measure of gasoline?

For you oldy goldies here, do you remember leaded gasoline? Gasoline was goosed (increased octane rating) by adding tetra-ethyl lead. Lead hurt the environment and caused serious health issues and developmental disorders for humans (and surely a lot of animals that were never considered in the studies) so unleaded gasoline became the norm with the lower octane rating. The reason I bring this up is because changes in octane rating change the activation energy needed to start the chemical reaction/explosion.

A low octane gasoline technically has more energy than a high octane gasoline does because a lower octane rating requires less energy (lower energy of activation) for the reaction to begin.

The energy density per mole in a high octane gasoline is assumed to be lower due to the higher energy of activation. This is a half truth. This half truth is used by the EROI experts to claim ethanol, which has a high octane rating, has a lower EROI than gasolene.

Simply changing the compression ratio in an engine to a high compression makes ethanol equivalent in MJ/L to gasoline. But, of course, the Hall study arbitrarily stopped at the octane rating “energy of activation” differences between gasoline and ethanol with zero discussion of high compression engines.

That was very convenient for gasoline EROI and very inconvenient for ethanol EROI. Furthermore the Hall study studied oil and “conventional” natural gas together in computing EROI:

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Oil and conventional natural gas are usually studied together because they often occur in the same fields, have overlapping production operations and data archiving.

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.. authors also estimated through linear extrapolation that the EROI for global oil and conventional natural gas could reach 1:1 as soon as about 2022 given alternative input measurement methods

Sustainability 2011, 3, 1796-1809; doi:10.3390/su3101796

www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability The authors of the above study made a reasoned assumption that the energy density per mole of global oil and conventional gas is, for all practical purposes, identical. Though one is a gas and the other a liquid, after processing inputs and putputs with similar infrastructure costs, that appears to be a logical approach.

The problem with this approach is that the petroleum industry energy density numbers which predictably apply quite well to hydrocarbons result in bad data (low EROI) when applied to a renewable like ethanol.

There was a study done at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory: “BIOMASS AS FEEDSTOCK FOR A BIOENERGY AND BIOPRODUCTS INDUSTRY: THE TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY OF A BILLION-TON ANNUAL SUPPLY”, Perlack, Wright, Turhollow, Graham, Stokes and Erbach – 2005. The conclusion of the Oak Ridge study was that the U.S. could meet at least 30% of its transportation fuel needs from biomass sources by 2030 “…with relatively modest changes in land use and agricultural and forestry practices.”. But the Oak Ridge Laboratory study, assumed, in error, that biofuels (speciﬁcally, ethanol) should be compared to petroleum fuels (speciﬁcally, gasoline) on a heat content basis (e.g. British Thermal Units) when estimating fuel efficiency.

The Heat Value of ethanol is 65% of that of gasoline. Almost all researchers on this subject assume that ethanol’s fuel efficiency is 65% of that of gasoline. Even the U.S. Dept. of Energy thinks this is a valid assumption. Perhaps this is because so many of the studies pertaining to biofuels feasibility are done by individuals with economics backgrounds.

The property of fuels known as the Octane rating indicates a fuels capacity for being combusted under pressure without pre-igniting. This is of great importance because fuels with higher octane ratings can be burned at higher combustion chamber pressures and produce more power which results in more work output (i.e. miles per gallon) than a fuel with a lower octane rating that cannot be consumed at higher combustion chamber pressures.

Ethanol has an octane rating of 115. Gasoline‘s is 93-95 for high test gasoline. This means that ethanol can be burned in a higher compression engine or an engine with combustion chamber pressures boosted using turbocharging or supercharging. The Department of Energy continues to base its estimates of fuel efﬁciency (and greenhouse gas emissions) for ethanol based on the Heat Value of ethanol relative to gasoline.

This is entirely in error as it does not recognize the importance of octane rating and the characteristics of the engine the fuel in question is used in. The fact is, ethanol’s higher octane rating than gasoline enables it to be consumed in a higher pressure combustion chamber and obtain comparable (or better) fuel efficiency than that obtained with gasoline. This also means that the estimates of how much of the fuel supply we can meet using ethanol are significantly low.

The estimate of the Oak Ridge study assumes ethanol can only achieve fuel efficiency relative to gasoline that is equivalent to ethanol’s “heat value” relative to gasoline’s or 65% of gasoline’s. But in actuality, ethanol used in an engine that takes full advantage of ethanol’s higher octane achieves comparable fuel efficiency to gasoline’s and thus the amount of the fuel supply that can be met with ethanol is not 30% but 46% (1/.65).

So, returning to the EROI numbers published by the SUNY ESF study at The Oil Drum, you can see that they are way too low (from 1.29–1.70 ) because they low balled the OUTPUT in Joules of ethanol. Output is the top number on the EROI equation.

I refuse to believe that these math wizards over there did not know that ethanol’s higher octane rating would result in equal or greater energy output than gasoline given a proper engine combustion chamber. This was a deliberate attempt to undermine the EROI of the corn ethanol renewable in the service of fossil fuels.

The EROI number for sugar cane ethanol (8.0) that Brazil has achieved would be even higher if the output energy was corrected to the level of gasoline in the EROI formula. Furthermore, corn is a really poor choice for biomass because it requires so much energy to prepare the ground, fertilize chemically and harvest. This biomass crop may not have been deliberately set up to fail as a bonafide competitor to gasoline, but it has certainly worked out that way.

The precise point where The Oil Drum continues to have it wrong on ethanol is this assumption which totaly ignores the FACT that gasoline ONLY has more useable energy than ethanol if you use it to boil water in a lab! In an internal combustion engine the effective MJ/L difference used to transform heat energy to mechanical energy is NEGLIGIBLE:

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“New Perspectives on the Energy Return on (Energy) Investment (EROI) of Corn Ethanol,” Adjusting for the lower energy content of ethanol (21.46 MJ/L etoh vs. 34.56 MJ/L gasoline = 0.62), we calculated that the net energy from ethanol is roughly 0.99 billion ‘‘gasoline-equivalent’’ liters.

http://www.countercurrents.org/murphy100810.htm

The actual figure, since ethanol’s high octane rating makes it equivalent to gasoline in an easy to obtain higher pressure combustion chamber in internal combustion engines, should be 34.56 MJ/L as a minimum. I say this because ethanol burns much cleaner than gasoline and reduced costs in simpler catalytic converters (or none at all) for cars would, in a sane world, increase EROI for ethanol from cleaner burning and increased mileage per liter.

Now add to this the other biomass crops out there like Lemna minor (Duckweed) that grow 8 times faster than corn with no tilling and cheap harvesting as well as many perennial grasses that can be converted to ethanol and you have an irrefutable argument for replacing gasoline with ethanol.

But there’s more. Scientific assumptions about energy release during rapid oxidation are surface or substrate dependent as well as temperature dependent.

We all know that when you strike a match, the chemicals on the match head increase to what is called kindling temperature. At the molecular level, what is occurring is that the Oxygen molecules floating around the match head combine with the match head chemicals as soon as they are all expanded (that’s what heat does to them) sufficently to combine.

Once the “energy of activation” is achieved, the chemical reaction proceeds at a previously, scientifically measured and predictable rate. Think of it as pushing a boulder off a cliff. You need some exertion (small amount of heat) to get the boulder to begin falling and accelerating at 32 feet per second squared until terminal velocity (air friction prevents further acceleration) is achieved (a lot of heat is produced until it reaches a self sustaining oxidation which then proceeds until all the reactants are oxidized).

The “cliff” can be a vertical drop (very explosive) or a gentle slope (slow oxidation with a gradual heat release). Rust is an example of slow oxidation.

What I ‘m trying to get across to you is that the fossil and nuclear fuel industry never want to talk about is that the reaction can be slowed down or speeded up by controllling the distance from each other and distribution of more molecules of the fuel and oxygen.

You can also introduce a catalyst which reduces the energy needed to “push” the “boulder” off the “cliff”. This means you need less heat to get the reaction going. In this case you end up with a higher energy output for a given amount of input. Surely you see how this can affect the EROI formula.

But once again zero attention is paid to any renewables using catalysts to increase the energy output by these EROI studies.

No, the standard everything must be measured from some thermodynamic straight jacket for a given simple exothermic rapid oxydation. This is ridiculous. But, it makes criticizing the current fossil fuel and nuclear paradigm difficult because the numbers are quite accurate for hydrocarbons and also nuclear fission heat release.

If a more scientifically broad view of thermodynamics in exothermic processes was embraced, the EROI formulation would have to be modified to favor the separate, but slower energy producing processes of e.g. biomass products from crops that are presently considered waste.

The added energy input from using all of the crop for, not just ethanol, but heat from “waste” would raise the EROI.

The mono mania with a long hydrocarbon chain like petroleum has pushed the “experts” into always attempting to discard multiprocess approaches to determining EROI for one crop. I don’t think it’s because they can’t count to two or three; I think it is because of fossil and nuclear fuel bias.

These people are not stupid; they are compromised by the EROI Procrustean Bed that arbitrarily has excluded inputs that lower fossil and nuclear fuel EROI and included outputs that raise it. I have mentioned only fossil fuels in regard to the gaming of the EROI but nuclear fuel is a far more blatent example.

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The SUNY ESF study summarized the EROI of nuclear power from previous studies [26]. The review concludes that the most reliable information is still from Hall et al.’s [7] summary of an EROI of about 5–8:1 (with a large part of the variability depending upon whether the electricity is corrected for quality), and that the newer studies appear either too optimistic or pessimistic with reported EROIs of up to almost 60:1, to as low as even less than 1:1.

Sustainability 2011, 3, 1796-1809; doi:10.3390/su3101796 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability

Since nuclear fuel has a foot in the grave and another on a banana peel, I won’t spend much time on it except to say that the EROI is a blatent falsehood. That nuclear fuel EROI can be 1.0 or higher is pure fantasy. In order to run a nuclear reactor, you need to build and insure it. These costs can certainly be converted to energy inputs but are excluded from nuclear EROI. The energy required to store used nuclear fuel rod waste and other nuclear waste generated at the plant and keep it from overheating or contaminating the environment for centuries is not included in the EROI either.

Then there’s the energy to mine, concentrate and mill the uranium followed by manufacturing the fuel assemblies with multiple rods and the uranium pellets in them. Nope, not included.

The day to day operation of the nuclear plant is included, period. This is ridiculous.

Add to that the energy used in cleaning up nuclear pollution and you have an energy black hole combined with a horror story in negative health impact to the population.

Finally, there are many studies that have clearly proven that the uranium fuel cycle is not carbon neutral so any attempt to claim nuclear power plants are “green” and CO2 free energy sources is a pure fiction.

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A big 1,250 megawatt plant produces the equivalent of 250,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year during its life.

https://youtu.be/XWJwcuQK_Dg

http://pec.putney.net/issue_detail.php?ID=15

What about gas fracking energy costs? I ask you all reading this who just watched the above video, how do the EROI experts, like the one I had some trouble with when I complained (Nicole Foss 😈 alias Stoneleigh – this means you) that she left out aquifer poisoning in her EROI calculations, separate the science from the emotion? How can these people fall back on a formula that so narrowly defines energy inputs and outputs that they can blithely ignore the energy costs of cleaning up aquifers and dispensing health care to cancer victims?

WTF is wrong with these people? The article I complained about on unconventional fuels not being a game changer was an insult to the intelligence of any thinking human being that knows anything about gas fracking. Don’t let anyone tell you that gas fracking has an EROI of 1.0 or better. It’s another Procrustean Bed fabrication. Gas fracking is an obsenity.

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Alongside the growth in drilling, reports of fouled water, bad odors and health complaints also have increased. In the few places where basic environmental sampling has been done, the results confirm that water and air pollution are present in the same regions where residents say they are getting sick. Last spring, the EPA doubled its estimates of methane gas leaked from drilling equipment and said the amount of methane pollution that billows from fracking operations was 9,000 times higher than researchers had previously thought.

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In Colorado, the ATSDR sampled air for pollutants at 14 sites for a 2008 report, including on Susan Wallace-Babb’s property. Fifteen contaminants were detected at levels the federal government considers above normal. Among them were the carcinogens benzene, tetrachloroethene and 1,4-dichlorobenzene. The contamination fell below the thresholds for unacceptable cancer risk, but the agency called it cause for concern and suggested that as drilling continued, it could present a possible cancer risk in the future. Even at the time of the sampling, the agency reported, residents could be exposed to large doses of contaminants for brief “peak” periods.

http://www.propublica.org/article/science-lags-as-health-problems-emerge-near-gas-fields

How did we get this fracking nightmare besides the spineless lackeys that do happy EROI calculations for gas fracking? In the video above these frontmen for predatory capitalism were mentioned: Hill & Knowlton. They are famous for the Tabacco commercials in the 50s. Nothing has changed. Fracking and the Gas & Oil Industry

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In 2009, members of ANGA (America’s Natural Gas Alliance), a lobbying organization for the gas industry, spread $80 million in funds across several agencies that included Hill & Knowlton to try to influence decisions on the process of gas extraction known as hydraulic fracturing[15] Similar to the strategy used for the pro-cigarette campaigns run in the 50s and 60s, the tactic the company is using for the issue is to simply raise doubt in the public’s mind about the dangers of the fracking process.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_%26_KnowltonDo any of these EROI experts figure what the following does to EROI numbers for fossil fuels or is this more stuff that doesn’t fit in the Procrustean Bed?

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Duke Energy CEO Bill Johnson resigns after one day, gets $44 million in severance For his eight-hour tenure as top dog at Duke, Bill Johnson made a cool $44.4 million.

http://grist.org/news/duke-ceo-bill-johnson-resigns-after-one-day-gets-44-million-in-severance/

I haven’t mentioned the tar sands EROI but these “unconventional oil resources” are estimated by Professor Charles Hall to be abot 5.0 or less. Try a lot less, professor; less than 1.0 when all the energy costs in cleaning up the horrible mess they are creating in Canada come due. Oh yeah, you don’t include that in the formula, do you? What about those huge EROI numbers (up to 100.0!) that the EROI experts claim were the norm in fossil fuels when oil was easy to get out of the ground and you didn’t have to destroy so much land and lop off mountain tops to get to the coal? Yeah, the EROI experts lament all these added MJ/L of energy inputs needed these days and celebrate the good old days.

Those were the days before automobiles when Rockefeller would flush his waste (gasoline, among other refinery poisons) products from refining into the rivers at night. Those were the days well into the early 20th century when coal miners worked for slave wages and suffered from myriad lung diseases. Those were the days when miners got shot for wanting to work in decent conditions with decent pay.

Those were the days that the heat energy overload on the biosphere began and the CO2 pollution began in earnest. I firmly believe that the huge EROI numbers for early fossil fuel of nearly 100 are inaccurate because many energy input costs, energy extracted from the public in form of subsidies and handed to oil corporations, energy to build infrastructure and energy to care for an increasingly sickened population from fossil fuel pollution as well as energy to clean polluted lands was, right from the start, offloaded from the fossil fuel balance sheets and on to we-the-people.

Fossil fuels were never cost effective. The captains of industry stifled renewables in their infancy in the late 19th century. Writers, even back then, were discussing the possiblity of clean and renewable energy from electrolysis of water to use hydrogen as fuel. Sure, the technology needed to be refined and developed but the subsidy money went to oil. There was a real interest in electrification through renewables.

Cleveland had wind generators in the late 19th century. Scranton, the town incorporated as a city of 35,000 in 1866 that is now facing bankruptcy from financial shenanigans of predatory capitalism, became known as the electric city in 1880.

Electric trolleys were all the rage in many U.S. cities. Had these avenues been pursued, we would not be saddled with this polluted world. Now, despite the flawed EROI methodolgy which produces numbers above 1.0 for fossil and nuclear fuels, some people in the engineering field are waking up to the fact that the writing is on the EROI wall for them and renewables are the future.

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Our society faces the colossal challenge of rapidly developing alternative energy sources that generate sufficient surplus energy to replace fossil fuels. Otherwise, material standards of living will decline – beginning with those of poorer people – as ever more resources have to be devoted to generating useful energy rather than to producing other goods and services. EROI figures indicate that the future lies in renewables like wind and solar, not unconventional hydrocarbons.

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/energy-return-on-energy-invested-2012-06-15

So, to summarize all the above, the following “Energy Expended” inputs (the bottom part of the EROI formula*) have been arbitrarily left out by those EROI experts like Professor Charles Hall and the people from The Oil Scum ;D (sorry, I meant the Oil Drum – really) web site:
1) Energy required to bioremediate pollution impacts from energy resource extraction.

2) Energy required to ameliorate negative health effects due to dangerous working conditions.

3) Energy required to counter negative effects on national GDP from slave wages.

4) Energy expended in wars to defend fossil fuel resources in foreign countries.

5) Energy equivalent in government subsidies taken from the populace and given to fossil and nuclear fuel producers. * If you get less energy out (top of the formula) the than you use to get the finished product (bottom of the formula) then you will get a number below “1” (i.e. 1/2 = 0.5 EROI not good). Procrustean bed is an arbitrary standard to which exact conformity is forced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustes

The Procrustean bed “real world” of these experts is, and always was, a predatory capitalist, destructive and inhuman contrived “world” that they and all the lackeys that have benefited at the expense of the overwhelming majority of the human race and the biosphere cling desperately too by claiming it’s “the way the world works and we just have to live with it”.

No, (Ashvin, Stoneleigh and Ilargi: pay attention) that is not “the way the world works”; That is “how a predatory capitalist con works”.

Any mathematician worth his salt can, given a standard upstream and downstream time frame from energy extraction of e.g. ten years before and ten years after, quantify all the above Energy Expended Inputs in Mega Joules per Liter.

But because that would shrink the EROI numbers for all fossil and nuclear fuels to a fraction of 1, well below any justification there ever was for making use of these poisons, they won’t do it.

Furthermore, the improper use and interpretation of thermodynamics by arbitrarily assuming that things that go boom (rapid explosive oxidation) are the gold standard in defining energy per se, they have made important “energy of activation” and “reaction velocity” variables seem irrelevant.

The science of hydrocarbon chemistry and nuclear fission benefits from this flawed view that the more HEAT density in an exothermic process, the greater the potential EROI. That’s certainly true with hydrocarbons and nuclear fuels.

That is NOT true with renewables. The best example I can think of is the internal combustion engine. The purpose of this machine is to use the energy of the explosions in the combustion chambers to drive a piston and produce mechanical energy. An electric motor produces mechanical enegy without wasting over 80% of the energy input on useless heat.

The internal combustion engine, not only loses massive amounts of heat energy in the burning of fuel, but also must use part of the mechanical energy from the combustion to cool the engine. The EROI experts will certainly acknowledge that an internal combustion engine is only about 20% efficient but they flat refuse to see that the electric motor, because it doesn’t produce all that useless heat energy, can do the SAME AMOUNT OF WORK FOR LESS ENERGY.

They may counter that I’m playing thermodynamic games here and the electricity to power the electric motor is coming from a fossil fuel or nuclear power plant so I’m just passing the energy buck, so to speak.

Again, that shows the prejudice of these EROI experts to polluting fuel sources. In the subsequent paragraphs I will show how world electrification complete with electric motors being the motive force in industry and transportation, can achieve exactly the same amount of “useful work” (at a minimum) now produced by fossil fuels with less energy inputs because the resource is PV, geothermal, wind and wave.

You would NOT have all the useless heat energy now contributing to an overheated planet.

Along with all the CO2 and other greenhouse gases, we sure don’t need billions of engines spewing 80% useless heat energy into the biosphere.

Combustion has it’s place with the use of ethanol in furnaces to provide heat in winter where ALL the heat energy output is made use of.

Biomass ethanol used as fuel in high compression engines should be seen as a step in weening us away from gasoline but the whole approach to energy systems that is married to the “more heat is is better forever!” view is scientifically bankrupt because it refuses to address the damage to the biosphere that waste heat imposes.

As I said in a previous article, nature paces living energy systems with enzymes that lower the energy of activation and control the biochemical reactions to avoid overheating living tissue.

It’s high time the EROI experts accepted that the future lies in an energy extraction paradigm that does not go boom (explosive, rapid oxidation). We need, for our very survival, to use direct and indirect solar and geothermal energy in a manner so fine tuned that there is zero waste heat. We need to electrify ⚡ all mechanical energy systems and provide them with electricity from renewable and truly efficient, non explosive energy processes.

Let us now see what our global energy requirements are and how renewables can satisfy them. Remember that our new paradigm has a huge energy debt from all the pollution caused by fossil and nuclear fuels, the chemical industry pollution and many dirty industrial processes. Even as we begin to power the world cleanly, we will need to be expending a LOT of Mega Joules per Liter to bioremediate the mess the dirty fuel industries have left us with.

Note: The EROI reference below is stated as EROEI but it is the same thing. The “10:1” number convention is a way of stating an EROI of 10.0 with a reference value of “1” as signifying that 1.0 EROI equals equivalent inputs and outputs. All the EROI numbers I have mentioned previously have the “:1” implied after the number so I have simply left them out.

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Given the strong dependence of current technologically advanced economies on oil, Peak Oil may be a distress for entire economic sectors (Hamilton, 2009) if no alternative primary energy is made available during the next decades to take the place of fossil fuels (Hirsch et al., 2005). In a recent report, Heinberg (2009) defined four conditions that a future primary energy source substitute should satisfy: i. must be able to provide a substantial amount of energy— perhaps a quarter of all the energy currently used nationally or globally; ii. must have an Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROEI) of 10:1 or above (see Appendix A); iii. cannot have unacceptable environmental (including climate), social or geopolitical impacts; iv. must be renewable. Moreover, as discussed in this manuscript, an additional requirement must be also considered: v. Must not depend on the exploitation and use of scarce materials.

http://www.imedea.uib-csic.es/master/cambioglobal/Modulo_1_03/Ballabrera_Diciembre_2011/Articulos/Garcia-Olivares.2011.pdf

The above authors are being too conservative. As of this writing, renewables already are at 19% of the global energy pie and that information is probaly somewhat dated due to the several month lag on data collection. Because renewable use and their technical efficiency is constantly increasing through added infrastructure and research and development, while fossil and nuclear fuels are in a state where their EROI numbers, even by the gamed formula standards, are heading below 1.0, the renewable percentage of the energy pie will probably increase exponentially, rather than linearly. The fact that renewables, in the early studies nearly a decade ago, had a mere 1% of the global energy pie is strong evidence that the growth is exponential. For those pathetic, parochial clingers to the status quo ante who arrogantly dismiss renewables and their 10.0 PLUS EROIs with the claim that renewables are a mere drop in the world energy bucket, I suggest you get some metaphorical floatation gear because there is a renewable tsunami coming. Let us now return to the world energy requirements study and how renewables can fill the gap:

Snippet1:

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All combined, these authors assume that only 11.5 TW (the 68% of the total mean power) should be produced by the renewable mix to satisfy the 2030 demand of an electrified society. This is close to the 2010 production of 12.5 TW. Current electric generation is only 2 TW, so a six-fold increase is required.

Snippet 2:

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The potential primary power sources that remain after this first screening process are wind and concentrating solar thermal (CSP) devices. Besides, the engineering of both technologies is well known and understood and do not actually depend on rare earth elements (REE) and/or scarce materials.

Snippet 3:

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2.1. Wind, water and solar proven technologies Windmills of 3–5 MW are being currently built and installed; this is a proven technology in expansion.The EROEI of wind turbines has been estimated in the range 15:1–40:1 (Kubiszewski and Cleveland, 2007). The capacity factor (CF, i.e. the ratio of the power actually produced to the theoretical maximum) of commercial turbines has improved overtime, from 0.22 for units built before 1998, to 0.30 for units in 2000–2001, and 0.36 for those operating after 2004–2005 (US DOE, 2008, p.27). The EROEI of CSP stations is close to 20:1 (Vant-Hull, 1985). Parabolic trough stations are more extended and proven CSP technology.

Snippet 4:

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From now to 2030, plausible technology developments would permit colonising continental shelves up to 225 m depth with both founded and floating offshore windmills. In addition, two hybrid wind-wave systems could enhance the yield and power stability of offshore wind turbines: (i)attaching attenuator floaters at the base of windmills and (ii)deploying floating platforms with attenuators at the base and wind turbines above. An example of this technology is the Green Ocean Energy Ltd. prototype of 0.5MW (see: http://www.greenoceanenergy.com/index.php/wave-treader). Another example of attenuators is the Pelamis floaters, from Ocean Power Delivery Ltd. (Drewetal., 2009), which generate 0.75 MW with a 120 m long device. An example of the second approach is the Floating Power Plant prototype (see: http://www.floatingpowerplant.com/), designed to produce 10 MW, 56% from waves and 44% from three windmills.

Notice the use of hybrid energy systems to increase efficiency of energy collection. This is a giant paradigm shift from the mono mania that the fossil and nuclear fuel industries pursue with their “one size fits all” approach to the detriment of the environment (this inefficient approach to energy extraction also simplifies EROI math. ;D). Fossil and nuclear fuel advocates hate hybrid energy extraction techniques. I guess it confuses them or perhaps their predatory capitalist mindset is too consumed by monopolising one energy source in order to achieve price control and then squelch competitors. Whatever their flawed rationale, their modus operandi is unsustainable. Snippet 5;

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The three main advantages of hybrid installations are: increased energy return per square kilometre; reduction of maintenance costs of equipments and undersea transmission cables; and compensation of wind generation intermittency, as wind and waves are not necessarily correlated (with the exception of storms).

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-080422174124.png)

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Fig. 2. Annual average (July 1983–June 2005) of incident insolation on a horizontal surface in kWh/m2/day. Data downloaded from the NASA Surface Meteorology and Solar Energy site (SSE, http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/sse/, release 6.0). Grey and blue dots have twice the real areas occupied by the CSP stations to improve the readability of the figure (see text for details). White lines represent main distribution grid lines. The length scale corresponds to latitude 45°N. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

The above jpg shows where we will get much of our energy from renewables. As you all know, the sun, directly or indirectly, is our energy power source. We now have the technology, even in it’s infancy as to achievable levels of efficiency, that is proven, durable and being installed in the high renewable energy extraction potential points throughout the globe. This is no pipe dream; this is real, practical and happening, unfortunately, for financial reasons (cheap reliable energy free of price shocks) rather than our desperate global climate situation killing various lifeforms in our biosphere at an increasing rate. But even if it’s just being done for profit, my attitutde is, “Any Port In The Environmental Collapse Storm”. If the profit motive is needed to have a sane energy extraction standard, so be it. This is a table of the proposed Energy infrastructure: Snippet 6:

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I have, in a previous article, mentioned the roaring forties (area of the earth in the 40 degrees south latitudes with powerful winds and constantly turbulent seas). Take a look at the huge amount of wind power available sustainably there (there’s a lot in the North Atlantic too):

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-080422173132.png)

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Fig. 1. Annual average of wind speed at 50 m above the surface of the Earth in m/s. Data downloaded from the NASA Surface Meteorology and Solar Energy site (SSE, http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/sse/, release 5.0). Light blue, blue and dark blue correspond to regions where the wind speeds are in the ranges 6–8 m/s, 8–10 m/s and >10 m/s, respectively. The red line delineates the 200 m isobath, representing the continental shelf.(For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.) A. Garcı´a-Olivares etal./EnergyPolicy41(2012)561–574 563

Snippet 7:

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In addition to hybrid systems, other techniques are being proposed for power consistency: 2.4. Intermittency constraints The unwelcome power variability associated with renewable sources may be mitigated by: (i) geographical interconnection (Zhou, 2009); (ii) use of hydroelectric power to smooth out supply (Czisch and Giebel, 2006); (iii) using reversible Electrical Vehicle (EV) recharging as grid storage (Kempton and Tomic, 2005); (iv) using other electric storage systems, as for example, water pumping, air compression, batteries, hydrogen production and storage and (v) using smart demand-response management and weather prediction to better match inflexible loads to the power supply (Delucchi and Jacobson,2011).

http://www.imedea.uib-csic.es/master/cambioglobal/Modulo_1_03/Ballabrera_Diciembre_2011/Articulos/Garcia-Olivares.2011.pdf

The study referenced above is thorough. So thorough that it lists every metal used in the energy infrastructure today as well as their uses in wind turbines, PV and CSP to list a few. They even project when these metals will be exhausted at current extraction rates. They warn that the renewable solution requires a steady state economy and not the continuous growth paradigm of capitalism and energy extraction corporations. In other words, it’s time to stop being pigs. We live in a finite world and pretending otherwise for environmental degradation and predatory capitalist profits threatens human society and the biosphere. Yes, we can go full renewable and meet today’s total energy demands. Full electrification will reduce the unusable heat polluting the atmosphere from inefficient internal combustion engines that must go the way of the Dodo bird. The savings from newfound efficiencies with renewables will provide some limited room for growth in addition to a lower overall energy load for exactly the same mechanical energy previously used to run civilization because renewables don’t produce massive wastes in heat energy at all steps of the extraction and use process that fossil fuel and nuclear energy products do. Where I disagree with the authors is on their insistence that the renewable energy sources must be scalable. I believe that scalabilty of an energy source, unless it is a government utility (i.e. fully socialized and non-profit), will lead to unscrupulous short cuts and new externalized costs for the populace for the benefit of private power corporations. The promise of renewables must go hand in hand with decentralized power sources. The authors recognized PV panels could make a huge contribution but did not consider them cheap enough yet and voiced concerns with the future availability of the somewhat rare metals used to make them. This issue is being addressed and overcome so I believe the authors will be pleasantly surprised with the massive contribution PV will make to the total picture. The authors discarded alleged low EROI renewables for consideration because of their scalability bias. As I stated early in this article, biomass ethanol, if properly used, has an EROI of at least that of gasoline without the environmental baggage of gasoline. And other biomass products like Lemna minor (Duckweed), that grow eight times faster than corn without heavy industrial chemical fertilization or pesticides will certainly produce EROI numbers far above 10.0. Passive geothermal (also discarded by the authors because it isn’t scalable) and other renewable heat sources such as e.g. placing mirrors a short distance from the north side of house in winter to reflect sun onto the north facing wall to drastically lower heating costs will play a very important role in the picture of total sustainability. In addition, decentralized renewable energy infrastructure provides jobs, not in the feast or famine pattern of ethics free, dog eat dog, vicious predatory capitalist “business” model, but in a sustainable, predictable and humane way. While we are busy bioremediating all the damage Rockefeller and the nuclear nuts have saddled us with, we will be dealing with violent and unpredictable weather for a century or more. Decentralized renewable energy infrastructure has the added bonus that it provides resiliency to communities in the event of a disaster because “something” is always going to be working and neighbors with some working renewable energy infrastructure will be able to help those without access to energy. Embracing sustainability is embracing a caring society and rejecting the mindless and destructive wars and erosion of trust that is destroying our civilization from the evil wrought by corporations and the psychopaths that run them. We must reject these human predators who constantly pit everyone against their neighbor for profit. There are still so many goodhearted, thinking people out there that take the stewardship of this planet seriously. We can do so much to live in harmony with the biosphere if we could only constrain the insanely greedy psychopaths among us. Just look at the beauty and harmony with nature we are capable of:

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-080422172451.png)

Overpass for Animals, Highway A50 in the Netherlands

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-080422172551.png)

Banff,Alberta,Canada

http://grist.org/list/these-beautiful-bridges-are-just-for-animals/

Germany is the world leader in turning the dream of a world 100% powered by renewable energy sources into a reality. I invite you now to proceed to this German web site and watch the following free videos. These videos are not about proof of concept or pilot programs. These videos are about nuts and bolts applications going on today. To show you how fast things are changing, the largest wind turbine available that is referenced in the above study about a year old has already been increased by over 1MW in energy generating capacity. The switch to renewables is really happening and these videos prove it: There are five videos. They are all immensely enjoyable and filled with details of interest about several renewable energy technologies but if you are rushed for time, the last one on Wind Energy does a good job of putting them all together. Those new Wind turbines are BIG! When you click on the link below, scroll to the following sentence:

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Watch the film online! If you are interested in watching the Spanish or French version please change the language-option of this website.

Below that sentence you can click and watch each video, one at a time. I recommend you watch them in sequence from top to bottom as they are listed. You won’t be disappointed.

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Solar energy Hydropower Geothermal energy Bioenergy Wind energy

http://www.renewables-made-in-germany.com/en/publications/dvd-renewable-energy-technologies.html

I hope you have enjoyed this article. I am certain there are some people out there clinging to the status quo ante that will not be pleased. What will be the reaction from people with vested interests in the fossil and nuclear fuel bankrupt paradigm be? See the beginning of the article for the reaction of the Steak House restaurant owners to replacing the kiddy burgers with chickpeas. So prepare for the ignore, ridicule and attack sequence. The “Steak House” owners are not about to change their name to “Chickpea Heaven” or something like that.

But, if all these people so invested in the horror that is fossil and nuclear fuels would sit down and really think that what they are doing will eventually kill their descendants and much of the biosphere, then “The Oil Drum” web site would morf to “Sustainability From The Sun” web site. And maybe dear Professor Charles Hall and friends would stop their Procrustean Bed mathematics celebrating things that go boom and denigrating passive sustainable renewable energy processes that don’t.

A big thank you to the Doomstead Diner web site and those that work it and comment on it. like Reverse Engineer (alias Josey Wales! ;D) and Peter who designed an outstanding forum and thread architecture. Print this and plaster it everywhere you can.

The planet Earth is our home and we need to do everything we can to save it. Challenge the deniers to argue the points made here. Demand proof rather than some huffy dismissal about not understanding the laws of thermodynamics, capitalism or free enterprise. Ask them how many Mega Joules per Liter will we expend in dealing with THEIR “GIFT” TO US of 400 parts per million of CO2, increased cancer rates, excess heat from internal combustion engines that are only about 20% efficient, erosion of democracy through monopoly oil corporation price control and purchase of of our representatives and laws and useless wars that get our children killed for their GOD DAMNED profits (no, I am not swearing; I am certain the creator is not amused by humans trashing his garden or those who, like some poor deluded souls, claim that this is the way the world works and we just have to live with it).

And tell them to stuff it when they say we-the-people are responsible because we consumed their products. If they return all the profits and swag from subsidies made by big oil and nuclear, then we’ll consider that possibility but otherwise it was THEY who corralled us into consuming their crap so they could centralize riches and power and turn the USA into a plutocracy ruled by ruthless oligarchs.

Call them cowards for drinking the koolaid. Force them to face responsibility for ruining the future for their offspring with ther blindness and greed. When the Biased Bums at The Oil Scum claim you don’t know what you are talking about when you claim that ethanol (otherwise known as ethyl alcohol) is a superior fuel to gasoline because it gets better mileage in high compression engines and burns cleaner translating to a GREATER effective EROI than gasoline, push this into their face and ask them why they never got the memo:

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Ethyl alcohol in the early 20th century

The following excerpt is from a Paper to the American Society for Environmental History, Annual Conference March 26-30, 2003 By William Kovarik, Ph.D. “Studies of alcohol as an internal combustion engine fuel began in the U.S. with the Edison Electric Testing Laboratory and Columbia University in 1906. Elihu Thomson reported that despite a smaller heat or B.T.U. value, “a gallon of alcohol will develop substantially the same power in an internal combustion engine as a gallon of gasoline. This is owing to the superior efficiency of operation…” (New York Times Aug. 5, 1906) Other researchers confirmed the same phenomena around the same time. “USDA tests in 1906 also demonstrated the efficiency of alcohol in engines and described how gasoline engines could be modified for higher power with pure alcohol fuel or for equivalent fuel consumption, depending on the need. The U.S. Geological Service (USGS) and the U.S. Navy performed 2000 tests on alcohol and gasoline engines in 1907 and 1908 in Norfolk, Va. and St. Louis, Mo. They found that much higher engine compression ratios could be achieved with alcohol than with gasoline. When the compression ratios were adjusted for each fuel, fuel economy was virtually equal despite the greater B.T.U. value of gasoline. “In regard to general cleanliness, such as absence of smoke and disagreeable odors, alcohol has many advantages over gasoline or kerosene as a fuel,” the report said. “The exhaust from an alcohol engine is never clouded with a black or grayish smoke.” USGS continued the comparative tests and later noted that alcohol was “a more ideal fuel than gasoline” with better efficiency despite the high cost.”

http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/alcoholengines.aspx

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Ethanol Engine efficiency exceeds gasoline engines, giving greater miles per gallon (MPG) with ethanol fuel: High Efficiency and Low Emissions from a Port-Injected Engine with Alcohol Fuels— By Matthew Brusstar, Mark Stuhldreher, David Swain and William Pidgeon, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency size: 70 Kb – 7 pages

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/presentations/sae-2002-01-2743-v2.pdf

When they fall back on the EROI formula Procrustean Bed with the claim that EROI only deals with energy density in fuels and not efficiency coefficients in different engine types, calmly remind them (hopefully, two by fours will be unnecessary to knock some sense into their heads but you never know ;D) that gasoline is not customarily used for furnaces, room lighting, barbeque grills or to boil water; it’s used almost exclusively in the ICE (internal combustion engine).

For these fossil fuel lakeys, water carriers and quislings to refuse to measure gasoline’s EFFECTIVE USABLE ENERGY when it is actually used in an ICE to do work is the height of duplicity.

But this subterfuge by Rockefeller’s admirers is not new. As I have mentioned before, way back at the end of the 19th century, Rockefeller was flushing his gasoline waste product in the rivers by his refineries at night. He could not avoid producing gasoline in his refinery cracking towers (about 19 gallons of gasoline for every 42 gallon barrel of crude refined)*.

When the automobile came out in the early twentieth century, the early car fuel called benzene had to be eliminated because that hydrocarbon is a carcinogenic. As you read above in the 1906 Edison lab study, ethanol was considered competitive energywise with gasoline.

What did Rockefeller do? He lowered the price of gasoline (remember his cost was near zero because it had been a waste product of the refining process) so much that ethanol was priced out of the market**. It was a win-win for Rockefeller.

It was only a matter of time before his nasty habit of flushing gasoline into rivers at night was going to get him and his refinery employees facing the wrong end of a shotgun from some irate farmer who noticed his horses and cows getting sick or dying when drinking the river water downstream of an oil refinery.

So, Rockefeller managed to change the flush operation from the rivers to the atmosphere and make a bundle out of it too.

But this predatory capitalist wasn’t done killing ethanol yet. He gave millions to a temperance group that ultimately succeeded in Prohibition legislation banning the production and use of ethanol (ethyl alcohol), not just for drinking, but for ICE fuel as well (and you thought Prohibition was just the fundies not wanting you to get high on booze. Rockefeller USED the fundies to block ethanol competition).

The reality was that the “cheap” gasoline was far, far more expensive than ethanol due to the atmospheric poisons introduced. It got even worse when tetra-ethyl lead entered the mix in the 1920s. It wasn’t until about 1973 that the severe damage from leaded gasoline was recognized and even so, to this day, unleaded gasoline is not mandatory in off road vehicles.

Now that ethanol is out there and available once again as a competitor to gasoline, the fossil fuel enablers return with the familiar FALSE claims that ethanol is not competitive with gasoline and the poppycock that gasoline gets better mileage than ethanol.

Call out these overeducated, Procrustean Bed, creative thermodynamics “geniuses” carrying water for the fossil fuel industry on their lies and distortions. Accuse them of being well aware of the above and deliberately distorting the fuel facts when they are actually applied to their use in engines. Tell them their Procrustean Bed EROI Bullshit isn’t going to fly anymore.

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*On average, about 19.5 US gallons (16.2 imp gal; 74 L) of gasoline are available from a 42-US-gallon (35 imp gal; 160 L) barrel of crude oil (about 46% by volume), varying due to quality of crude and grade of gasoline. The remaining residue comes off as products ranging from tar to naptha.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline

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**The gasoline engine became the preferred engine for the automobile because gasoline was cheaper than alcohol, not because it was a better fuel. And, because alcohol was not available at any price from 1920 to 1933, a period during which the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol was banned nationally as mandated in the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The amendment was repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment on December 5, 1933. In time to produce alcohol fuels during World War II. By the time World War II ended, the gasoline engine had become “entrenched” because gasoline remained cheaper than Alcohol, and widely distributed – gas stations were everywhere.

http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/alcoholengines.aspx

Tell anybody with fried logic circuits that claims this is “the way the world works” that the REAL WORLD, not the predatory capitalist hell hole they so love, is the BIOSPHERE.

That world has a set of rules and, for most of our human existence on this planet, we followed them. For over a century and a half, a level of insanity not seen in human history has produced a greed fest so blind, so stupid and so incorrigible that it can only be labelled what it is: EVIL. Fossil and nuclear fuel advocates and their pseudo scientific Procrustean Bed EROI happy number formulations NEVER WORKED. The backers of these poisoned energy sources lied about absolutely everything related to their extraction and use from day one and they are lying through their teeth now to sabotage the truth about renewable energy sources.

Renewable energy sources are practical, sustainable and healthy for the planet and humans. Fossil and nuclear fuels have brought us pollution, wars and corrupted democracy.

Renewable energy sources WORK! Fossil and Nuclear Fuels NEVER DID. (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frenewablerevolution.createaforum.com%2Fgallery%2Frenewablerevolution%2F3-130418202709.png&hash=7503265ec59e4c28d735afb762bc39f4674bd838)

Posted in Energy, Home | Tagged EROI, Fossil Fuels, Fracking, NaturalGas, Oil, Renewables

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(https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-020818213436-15401143.jpeg) 👉 (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-260322200323-271793.png) 👉 (https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-251117174622.jpeg) (https://robservations.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/happy-cat1.jpg)

CleanTechnica

(https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/2/3-200921181340.png)

April 11, 2022

The Global Sprint Away From Fossil Fuels

SNIPPET:

Russia is the world’s largest exporter of oil, gas, and total fossil fuels. In 2020, Russia supplied nearly twice Saudi Arabia’s fossil fuel exports (which are just oil, while Russia adds gas and coal), or 15 percent of international energy trade. Now Russia is being cut out of markets, creating a classic supply-side shock. High fossil fuel prices make them lose out to renewables earlier and more broadly, while long-neglected energy security reinforces climate and public-health imperatives to galvanize political change. As Europe finds new solutions to reduce its fuel dependency, the Global South too can leapfrog to cheap, stable, and domestic renewable energy. Rising energy efficiency and quicker renewable growth will put the peak of world fossil fuel demand behind us. Policymakers should speed the shift to efficiency and renewables and resist the siren song of a return to the fossil fuels that had lost their rationale even before Putin’s War, and that are now losing any remnants even faster.

This external shock has pushed the future of fossil fuels into a new direction, illustrated by the conceptual chart below. Rather than coasting gently into a slow decline, fossil fuel demand now faces the prospect of prompt, rapid, and sustained decline, driven by three imperatives no longer at odds but now fully aligned: security, climate (and health), and economics. The energy trilemma has been solved by the synergistic pairing of efficiency with renewables.

(https://cleantechnica.com/files/2022/04/rmi-1.jpg)

The Structural Shift Before the Shock

... Renewable electricity costs fell by up to 90 percent, and even in 2020 beat fossil-fueled power in over 90 percent of the world, so renewables are expected to continue providing around 95 percent of the world’s new generating capacity. Countries with 90 percent of global GDP have already targeted net-zero carbon. Meanwhile, energy efficiency eases renewables’ substitution task by slowing, stalling, or reversing growth in energy use while delivered services continue to expand and improve; and electrification, especially of automobiles, keeps outrunning forecasts. (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422144605.png)

Full lengthy article, well worth the read: (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422133801.gif)
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/04/11/the-global-sprint-away-from-fossil-fuels/

(https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/gv_ZC2w6TXPB5j4Aqng6UjiXgQkZ1QBG1wnzCDDwaS6kfHBaxlSWLQiMvDf9hUjvqRIf9WFdU3qtpRE0tsBde-o7cxEBhk9ppEEJIGQq-_dQrASfNZJVl4DkbXYOt9cJ-rvAHb9EGgm6_FvALtT61Jpch7DnuNaS63ntQxAIXV8-k9NbMH0UVVJs0ZxbY97iZui_QD3fUFADg1Lx1AJG3IHWwVCnJUKJI6lzgjrrU4RZYNxMjbMkcAqQXEDrEn3hM3rB4f5ZrW8-SeH1LO0Kr8dxy6ytgMVltik=s0-d-e1-ft#https://newsletter.climatenexus.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Climate%20Nexus%20Clean%20Energy%20Newsletter%20Header-1.jpg?width=1200&upscale=true&name=Climate%20Nexus%20Clean%20Energy%20Newsletter%20Header-1.jpg)

April 13, 2022

Summary

›   Tribal nations are empowered (https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/renewable-energy-jobs-of-the-future?utm_campaign=Clean%20Energy%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=209956301&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8jkfDPr20IX8d6927ug3XS1e8rplyEsVSSyzYGHJiGZZEE_c22nTNZ0hn3Lk0QhuOaS1gLN88pYiZccC5SJAH8joW3Ow&utm_content=209956301&utm_source=hs_email) by clean energy projects.
›   Wind energy hits a major (https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/06/politics/wind-energy-milestone-us-climate/index.html?utm_campaign=Clean%20Energy%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=209956301&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9hTjaXkAIaR4Qs0d2K7Ba5Nuh2EIX_9syg6-y_OBUFqQZoFXwunYwsBpBhWKIPxZr04W7kUzgYA5h76aZGVvGktMyHZw&utm_content=209956301&utm_source=hs_email) U.S. milestone.
›   Stanford researchers have developed (https://www.npr.org/2022/04/07/1091320428/solar-panels-that-can-generate-electricity-at-night-have-been-developed-at-stanf?utm_campaign=Clean%20Energy%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=209956301&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8ngHTs8vp5YMAbWn1XAkqD4Nlj4wMVlBFNoxYvaa85gLf9tlQvue25mE0lFhDTCtO-D9-W4_FswopX2mPH2S9AcFPIgA&utm_content=209956301&utm_source=hs_email) solar panels that generate electricity at night.
›   The global EV fleet is approaching (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-08/plug-in-ev-fleet-will-soon-hit-a-20-million-milestone?utm_campaign=Clean%20Energy%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=209956301&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9CVti5KEP9yDrEs4uODmerbzp4S_tDSCydquISBQxMQZIjyzIIQH5rxd96fyAlujUNbHN2Ai8DDxbvvodfUtQvomuUtw&utm_content=209956301&utm_source=hs_email) 20 million cars, prompting new investments (https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/honda-says-spend-64-billion-rd-it-revs-up-electric-ambitions-2022-04-12/?utm_campaign=Clean%20Energy%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=209956301&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--IBAvzDCTKx0Qamy6ovPOsngT-j62x5-Ii4kXpKD2GsZt1fyvsXquD2iRLe-ZeBjpF0wgfDAY3hXYMMV7L055SwR88oA&utm_content=209956301&utm_source=hs_email) from automakers (https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/japans-nissan-plans-game-changing-electric-car-batteries-83953212?utm_campaign=Clean%20Energy%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=209956301&_hsenc=p2ANqtz---1zC7nDW92DYr5BJNIxg9qQVfQwUUT3-GZmZSz2C8MZF2GDavhm-Q4JgZUtiiV8D4gsf6hi1DC8ZQBIXq3nOmYb7oLQ&utm_content=209956301&utm_source=hs_email).
›   Despite price spikes, clean energy is still a bargain (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-13/surging-renewable-power-prices-in-europe-are-still-a-bargain?utm_campaign=Clean%20Energy%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=209956301&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--4J05ysjqSLSlZnygV2ZxPA1OIqqclyTojxYiLsLyLF0GRhadzVgw_5OjkCOMiaSTFAqPlv2A0Z2_2xGvn-cb9MT5-aA&utm_content=209956301&utm_source=hs_email) in Europe.
›   Delaware finds that offshore wind can power (https://www.delawarepublic.org/show/the-green/2022-04-08/offshore-wind-report-says-delaware-could-procure-power-at-less-than-half-current-cost?utm_campaign=Clean%20Energy%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=209956301&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8HUW8bMSD-CGezRGSIfvUS6sYNQ6Ku8e_Y3rK5t-NARnYuDiZ2cQUSvZQKmklNu71P9PfhKGC4GcI7PS5t1PIDW4pvkA&utm_content=209956301&utm_source=hs_email) the state at less than half the current cost.

Quote of the Week:

Quote

“Now [that we’re developing our own clean energy resources], nobody’s going to come in and take advantage of us,” said Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez. “We’re going to be majority shareholders, majority owners of our own projects being developed on the Navajo Nation, so that we can bring revenue into our coffers to help our people, get them electrified and also be in the driver’s seat.” (https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-120818185040-1659929.gif)

CleanTechnica

(https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/527210744178167809/z6CbCdS5.jpeg)

July 22, 2022 By RMI ✨

The Solution To ⚡ Grid Reliability? Go Bigger & Bolder On Renewables & Energy Storage (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frenewablerevolution.createaforum.com%2Fgallery%2Frenewablerevolution%2F3-060518153110.png&hash=39d587c31b7f7e66b30d7e59bb560e2ad0662eee)

SNIPPET:

Fossil Fuels Got Us into This Mess. They Aren’t Going to Get Us out of It

Extreme weather like heat waves, hurricanes, and “polar vortex” events are a major root cause of increased grid reliability concerns, and those events are being driven by climate change — in other words, they are fueled by the burning of coal, oil, and gas. Burning more fossil fuels is not the solution to this problem. Doing so would only perpetuate more extreme weather and events that threaten reliability.

The United States can effectively confront this challenge by aggressively building a resilient, carbon-free electricity system that includes massive deployment of solar, wind, transmission, electricity storage, and other flexible grid resources. Right now, we have a trillion dollars of renewables projects and batteries sitting in interconnection queues, waiting to get built. Unlocking even a small fraction of these projects would increase system reliability over the coming summers.

Another important solution is unlocking more local resources and “virtual power plants” made up of small-scale resources like home batteries, EVs, thermostats, and water heaters. These systems improve system reliability by using software to better integrate electricity assets we’ve already paid for with the grid. Federal energy regulators have already told grid operators that they need to create systems to allow these distributed resources to participate in the power market. The faster we do so, the more reliable the grid will become.

During Emergencies, It’s Better to Rely on Renewables, not Fossil Fuels

Full article: (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frenewablerevolution.createaforum.com%2Fgallery%2Frenewablerevolution%2F1%2F3-120818184310-1635923.gif&hash=5e2530db4748ed6c7163e1d478fdfa3cd1108668)
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/07/22/the-solution-to-grid-reliability-go-bigger-bolder-on-renewables-energy-storage/

Leeroy
What a mess Texas is. Paying old FF plants to stay open and running is literally the dumbest economic decision you can make.

AGelbert > Leeroy
👍 Well said. In addition, there is another elephant-in-the-room issue seldom mentioned (for obvious reasons) by the fossil fuel industry. That is, Oil Refineries in Texas are one of the ⚡ LARGEST ⚡ electrcity ⚡ HOGS on the grid. The huge ⚡ amount of electrical power refineries need to deoxygenate 🦖 crude oil before putting it in the cracking towers (where all the marketable products are formed) is quite conveniently left out (or unrealistically low balled to come up with a 😈 "positive" Return on Investment) of the oil ERoEI "math" the fossil fuelers have been bragging about for a century or so. They could not survive without all the visible (and invisble) subsidy SWAG our government gives them at our expense.

If there were no refineries in Texas, the state could go 100% (or greater, and sell the extra or store it for high demand periods) Renewable Energy powered in just a few years.

The fact is that Texan households 👍 are right there with Californians 👍 in going all out to harvest Renewable Energy with (mostly) solar panels 🌞 and store it for use at night (or sell it to the grid). 🤠

We need hydrocarbon based fuels like a dog needs ticks.

For those who disagree, I suggest you research the annual electrical power demand in Texas. Yes, during the summer heat season, the households and busnesses have a much higher demand than the refineries. HOWEVER, the annual Texas grid percentage demand by refineries is jaw dropping.

The 🦖 Hydrocarbon Products "Industry" has been taking we-the-people to the cleaners, along with taking the environment to Catastrophic Climate Change HELL, for over a century.

Texas Refineries should be renamed the Lone Star TICKS!

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frenewablerevolution.createaforum.com%2Fgallery%2Frenewablerevolution%2F3-230717132319.png&hash=1ede940fc3f651f4cd5da64c8a2443edecaae476)

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fgraysondemocrats.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F05%2Fend-oil.jpg&hash=a5cf685d87ceb0f3f17eab91155ebb790707cf10)(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frenewablerevolution.createaforum.com%2Fgallery%2Frenewablerevolution%2F3-170218174458.png&hash=6bb5ca428108e395c1760e25a8a07f7c434e448c)

CleanTechnica

July 22, 2022 By Zachary Shahan

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-220722153455-1607954.png)

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-220722153401-16021147.png)

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Associated Article: (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frenewablerevolution.createaforum.com%2Fgallery%2Frenewablerevolution%2F1%2F3-250718210628.gif&hash=a297e44320f13fa5f3eae64809a46139f5e2395a)
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/07/21/most-renewables-cheaper-than-cheapest-coal-in-g20/

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422142505.gif) Just to add to the 🎩🍌 status quo 💰🦖😈 corruption that always finds its way into absolutely any Bill sold to us as 😇 "environmental progress", this quote about the Inflation Reduction (lol) Act is worthy of note: 😟😠

August 15, 2023 Nexus Hot News

SNIPPET:
The IRA includes as much as $60 billion for environmental justice initiatives, but success of those programs could hinge on equitable application processes to ensure small, under-resourced, historically excluded groups and communities are not edged out for funding by better-resourced groups and entities 🎩😈(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frenewablerevolution.createaforum.com%2Fgallery%2Frenewablerevolution%2F3-130418193910.gif&hash=633dd399cd6006279afd7efb5ef953673b96bd78) (https://nexusmedianews.com/top_story/white-rich-communities-cut-to-front-of-line-for-climate-funds/). "There [is] a real risk of perpetuating the (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-110422205132-6451602.gif)(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frenewablerevolution.createaforum.com%2Fgallery%2Frenewablerevolution%2F3-040718162656-14241872.gif&hash=6c39a3206e2b2a3d652adee626b5eee8ab5b15bf) status quo” with “most of that funding going to people who already have the capacity to apply for those grants," the Greenlining Institute's Sneha Ayyagari told Canary Media. “We have such a widening racial wealth gap. […] It’s important to see how we can use this funding as a way to really deliver the economic, environmental and health benefits.”
Read more: (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164555-532108.png)
Hot News Latest Editions (https://climatenexus.org/hot-news/)

I reside, for the last quarter century, in Vermont, the state known as a bastion of liberal politics and "progressive" policies. I live in a Resident Owned Community of 250 manufactured homes with about 1/3 acre lot for each home.

(https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-241213183348.jpeg)

It's a nice place, but we could use some money to put up enough solar power panels on unoccupied land (there is plenty of that) within the park, along with a battery bank for PV energy storage and use at night, to make us ⚡ energy 🗽 independent. We would never need furnaces again! 🌞 No more kerosene ☠️ fumes in the winter! No more ridiculous maintenance costs for 💵 "servicing" hydrocarbon fueled polluting furnances (I went fully electric 15 years ago, but it is not cheap and most of the residents here still heat their homes with kerosene furnaces.).

But, we are, mostly, poor white people with little to no influence. I am not considered "white", so I have even less influence than that. So, I am certain it will be a cold day in Hell before we get any of the IRA money. (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frenewablerevolution.createaforum.com%2Fgallery%2Frenewablerevolution%2F2%2F3-310119164317.gif&hash=870c66e6ad21133a740ba1583280577f05ccb4ac)

WHO is gonna get that money in liberal "progressive" Vermont? Green Mountain Power, the power company that services a large part of Vermont, will get the lion's share. White, rich communities will get the rest. And NO, the power cost rates will certainly NOT go down, but GMP and the other power corporations (still called "utilities" by the naive) will, no doubt, be given state government Utility Rates Board authorization to "raise rates due to infrastructure costs". 🤦‍♂️

Here's more in-our-faces US Government corruption (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frenewablerevolution.createaforum.com%2Fgallery%2Frenewablerevolution%2F1%2F3-210818163124-16681686.gif&hash=c9573d4cd35d7f32975722353e8362379843aabf) for you to ponder:

Does the climate bill throw environmental justiceunder the bus? (https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/environmental-justice-inflation-reduction-act/) (The Nation, Mark Hertsgaard op-ed)
(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frenewablerevolution.createaforum.com%2Fgallery%2Frenewablerevolution%2F1%2F3-260718150100.jpeg&hash=00f25fb4f05b52767255a460eb1efa3742d5c738)

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frenewablerevolution.createaforum.com%2Fgallery%2Frenewablerevolution%2F1%2F3-020818201645-1486464.jpeg&hash=bfa44b2ee2b1d6d1ea71a024b1bd6e9cf1328326)

The Inflation Reduction Act may save the fossil fuel industries

SNIPPET:
The bill includes amendments to the federal 45Q tax credit program for carbon capture use and sequestration (CCUS) and their implications for fossil fuel industries and the U.S. budget. By indiscriminately ramping up the 45Q program’s carbon credits by 70 percent across the board, the bill threatens to hand out tens of billions of dollars in windfall tax credits to oligarchs and provide decades of public subsidies to all fossil fuel industries. (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frenewablerevolution.createaforum.com%2Fgallery%2Frenewablerevolution%2F1%2F3-120818180835-16271224.gif&hash=c2a9bfbff23e2414975829eb4b3655af12eb02cc)
Full article:
(The Hill, Paul Blackburn op-ed) (https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/3598964-the-inflation-reduction-act-may-save-the-fossil-fuel-industries/)
(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fgraysondemocrats.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F05%2Fend-oil.jpg&hash=a5cf685d87ceb0f3f17eab91155ebb790707cf10)

Yes, this is 7 years old, but even more valid in 2022 than it was in 2015.

October 10, 2015

AGelbert comments written to Vermont State Government Officials in regard to The State of Vermont's Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP)

"The State of Vermont's Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP) addresses Vermont's energy future for electricity, building heating, industrial processing, transportation, and land use. The 2016 CEP sets specific goals and strategies for Vermont to obtain 90% of our total energy from renewable sources by 2050."

"First, the CEP is intended to inform readers of the many challenges and opportunities facing Vermonters in our mutual efforts to maintain a safe, reliable, affordable, environmentally sound, and sustainable energy supply across all sectors ..."
I suggest you add entrenched fossil fuel industry influence counterforce to the preface. When you use the word , "challenge", it sounds like it is just a matter of doing a cost benefit analysis. Renewable Energy includes that, of course. But to ignore the consistent, and successful, efforts made by the fossil fuel industry for the last 60 years or so to prevent Congress from funding solar and wind energy R & D and provide Renewable Energy subsidies on an equal footing with fossil fuels and nuclear power, instead of the pittance Renewable energy has received, clouds the issue. This is not merely a challenge; it is a war with predatory capitalist welfare queens degrading out democracy and our biosphere for short term gains.

Fossil fuels are environmentally and economically unsound. That is blatantly obvious. Any preface summarizing the challenges we face should state that a huge part of our challenge is to stop them from being subsidized.

A goal of 90% Renewable Energy by 2050 assumes that climate change will not dictate 100% long before that. If you read the Hansen et al 2015 paper just published, you will note that a plus 2 degrees Centigrade world, now baked in, is not amenable to comfortable political expediency.

When you are in a hole. you are supposed to stop digging.

On the issue of per capita energy use, let's talk. A CEO of a corporation that pollutes should have his carbon footprint, above and beyond that of his home and personal vehicle, include his share of the corporate carbon footprint. If you own a mall or a hospital or a moving company, you own that carbon footprint too. I am just a little tired of the "it's everybody's fault" approach to carbon taxes. More on that later.

It is also hypocritical for the state to encourage utilities to give businesses that use a lot of electricity a discount because they allegedly "benefit" the economy, while urging people like myself, that live in a 980 sq. ft. home, to lower my carbon footprint.

The climate will dictate the path forward, not the politicians. If you find that too "lockstep", then you are not cognizant of the existential threat humanity faces from global warming. You need to take your direction from climate scientists, not economists or lawyers.

-----------------------------------
"The four years since the completion of the 2011 CEP have seen significant progress in advancing the recommendations and goals established in that plan."

Sure. But that is because the goals were too limited. This is a circular argument used by lawyers and/or politicians, whether they are lawyers or not. They create a set of goals that are "realistic" within the confines of political expediency, while ignoring the urgency of addressing the pressing need to eliminate dirty energy in order to ameliorate the effects climate change.

Had Vermont given a 50% or more discount on sales tax for electric vehicles, some real progress on reducing transportation emissions would have been made. Even now, the state is mute about that.

Why aren't people who drive internal combustion powered cars rewarded for low annual mileage and why aren't people carbon taxed above 5,000 miles a year unless they drive an EV? Why doesn't Vermont connect state employees to Montpelier computers directly in their homes so they can telecommute? Why can't meetings be by telecommute? Why travel 30 or 60 miles round trip to a place where you work a computer and talk on a phone when you can do that from your home? Why isn't more of education done over the internet to save on school heating costs and bus fossil fuel use? This is just a small sample of the missed opportunities in the 2011 goals.

Where is the statewide zoning ordinance exception for people wanting to put passive geothermal systems in so they don't have to pay for permits and go through a lot of red tape? Ground sourced passive geothermal heat pumps are far more efficient with modern heat pump technology than the air sourced heat pumps. Where are the sales tax exemptions for home Renewable Energy infrastructure?

Where are the incentives for people to heat and cool smaller spaces? Where are the carbon taxes on homes larger than 500 square feet per occupant? And yes, people that heat and cool less than that should be paid for their frugality and contribution to a low carbon economy in rebates, not tax credits (the poor would not benefit from tax credits because they pay low taxes - a tax credit, like the $7,500 tax credit on EVs, helps mostly the well to do who pay at least that much in taxes - that's unfair). The needs of the poor, more impacted by climate change than the well to do, are unfairly ignored.

In short, there were several incentives for the everyday Vermonter that would have made a huge dent in our collective carbon footprint, but were left out.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is only one way to measure "Progress". And that is because there is only one real goal. That goal is taking our parts per million of carbon dioxide back to 290. I am not surprised that goal is not ever stated in these types of programs. Even the 350 PPM goal of Bill McKibben would be more realistic.

I realize that Vermont is just a state and the problem is global but the effects are local. So, while percentages of this, that and the other carbon footprint reductions are good metrics, our progress can only be realistically measured by how we preserve the biosphere for future generations. The only proxy Vermont has available for reducing the ppm of CO2 is renewable energy percentage. As long we are not at 100%, we are making things worse.
------------------------------------------
"The CEP strives to further the state’s economic, environmental, and human health goals, which are summarized in this chapter."

As I said in regard to Chapter 2, I realize that Vermont is just a state and the problem is global but the effects are local. So, while percentages of this, that and the other carbon footprint reductions are good metrics, our progress can only be realistically measured by how we preserve the biosphere for future generations. The only proxy Vermont has available for reducing the ppm of CO2 is renewable energy percentage. As long we are not at 100%, we are making things worse.

The conflict between the economy and the environment is artificial. It is imperative that, in discussing goals, the enormous pressure on our government exerted by polluting corporate interests is considered as in defining the action needed to achieve those goals.

Every advance in the percentage of Renewable Energy used by Vermonters equals less profits for the fossil fuel industry. Their deliberate corruption of our government energy policies for the purpose of continuing to privatize profits and socialize the costs is endangering the welfare of future generations. Their product is a liability, not an asset. It's high time that the State of Vermont admitted that.

If you do not, at the outset, state that fossil fuels are damaging our environment and, contrary to the propaganda, hurting the economy too, then you have not properly framed your guiding goals.

Of course you need to maintain revenue for the government. But not at an intolerable cost to the environment. And continuing to provide tax benefits for fossil fuels, be they gasoline, heating oil, kerosene or natural gas is counterproductive in two ways:

1. It perpetuates the myth that we can continue business as usual with fossil fuels as long as the state gets it's cut from the user.

2. It defends a dirty energy status quo condemning future Vermonters to the "externalized " costs the fossil fuel industry happily socializes on all of us.

The state of Vermont needs fossil fuels like a hole in the head. There are a plethora of revenue streams from renewable energy sources that can more than replace every regressive tax now in place for the user of fossil fuels.

I do not advocate increasing taxes on gasoline simply because the poor are the most impacted by regressive taxes. What I do advocate is incentives in the form of rebates for people that reduce their fossil fuel use. The lowered health care costs for the state resulting from a cleaner environment will not show up on a balance sheet right away. So there will be people claiming this is "voodoo" economics. But it's not. Within a couple of decades, the benefits will clearly justify the costs.

This what leadership is supposed to be about. Policies should look at the big picture, not engage in hand wringing over how much loss for state revenues incentives for cutting gasoline, heating oil and gas (no matter what Vermont Gas says) use would represent.

The goals should be to reverse GHG emissions, not just reduce them. They need to be stopped completely followed by action to sequester CO2 in order to lower our parts per million below 350ppm. This is not hyperbole. Read the Hansen et al 2015 climate change paper.

The biosphere is not going to accept politically motivated half measures designed to avoid stepping on entrenched polluting industry toes. The only real world that we must look to for a standard of behavior is the Biosphere.

The so called "real world" of politics is not now, or ever was, the "art of the possible"; it's the product of profit over people and planet. We need to act now because climate change is not going to adjust to political expediency.

Eliminating all fossil fuel use in Vermont should be part of guiding goals.
-----------------------------------------
Nice graphics. The elephants in the GHG room are transportation and distillates for heating and residential. State incentives for ground sourced geothermal heat pumps would take care of the heating distillate pollution.

In regard to transportation, as I mentioned before, there are a host of missed opportunities, by the State of Vermont, to rein in the use of these polluting fuels that the owners of gasoline stations and heating oil are quite happy about. Brazil has been using E100 for several years. There is no reason, beyond concern for fossil fuel industry profits, why Vermont could not have legislated gasoline out of existence with E100.

All present internal combustion engine vehicles can be modified to run on E100. In fact, because an internal combustion engine that runs on ethanol runs so much cooler (you can put your hand on the manifold or block and keep it there without being burned), engine wear is reduced and longevity is increased. Although that is beyond the scope of this discussion, an engine designed to run specifically on E100 would weigh 2/3 less because the metal alloys would not have to be engineered to handle the high waste heat from gasoline. That engine would be ruined by burning gasoline. That engine would have a higher compression ratio (like light aircraft engines). That engine would get better mileage. Those are the thermodynamic facts, regardless of what you may have heard to the contrary.

The fact that we do not have E100 engines or E100 sold routinely in the USA is not an accident or an oversight. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that the fossil fuel industry would not like the idea of car engines running exclusively on E100, never mind why Detroit hasn't made a lighter engine that runs exclusively on E100.

If you do not believe what I am saying, send somebody to Brazil and the government there will calmly set up an appointment with an engineer that understands the benefits of E100 over gasoline. 100% Ethanol (E100) is just one chemical. It burns evenly and has a higher octane rating than regular gasoline.

Do you know why there isn't chemical name for gasoline? It's because there are many different types of hydrocarbon chains in it. The fact that it does not carry its own oxygen, like ethanol, causes uneven burning and high waste heat. The claim, used to argue that gasoline has a higher energy return on energy invested (ERoEI) than ethanol, that the enthalpy of gasoline is higher than ethanol is a clever deception. Yes, the enthalpy of gasoline is higher. But enthalpy is an external combustion calculation determined by heating water. Thus, all the waste heat of gasoline is considered, incorrectly, as contributing to the energy needed to do the work of moving a vehicle. When an internal combustion process is calculated, the waste heat from gasoline actually detracts from its efficiency. Thus, ethanol is a superior fuel. This was known as far back as 1906 by the work of Thomas Edison and the U.S. Navy. The new ethanol efficencies from lighter, high compression engines is a recent development in Brazil.

And the claim that major ethanol use would take food out of people's mouths is another myth. Vermont does not need gasoline. But the owner of Maplefields gasoline stations does. And we all know that he, like others that profit from fossil fuels, will try to keep this liability on our biosphere from being outlawed.

So let's cut to the chase. We are headed for a very difficult and dangerous climate because the increased concentration of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels is overheating the oceans and the atmosphere. We need to stop burning them as a matter of personal responsibility to future generations. Theresa Morris wrote about it and I summarized her excellent essay.

Why Dianoia, Aristotle's term for "Thinking Things Through", is sine qua non to a Viable Biosphere

Here's a snippet:

One of the themes about human history that I have tried to communicate to readers over and over is that predatory capitalist corporations, while deliberately profiting from knowingly doing something that causes pollution damage to the populace, always plan ahead to socialize the costs of that damage when they can no longer deny some liability for it. Their conscience free lackey lawyers will always work the system to limit even proven 100% liability.

When 100% liability is blatantly obvious, as in the Exxon Valdes oil spill, they will shamelessly use legalese to limit the liability. ExxonMobil pulled a fast one on the plaintiffs by getting "punitive", rather than "compensatory" damages. See what the learned counselor said, "The purpose of punitive awards is to punish, not to destroy, according to the law". Ethics free Exxon and its ethics free lawyers know how the Court System "works". JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW [Vol. 18:151] The purpose of this comment is to describe the history of the Exxon Valdez litigation and analyze whether the courts and corresponding laws are equipped to effectively handle mass environmental litigation..

While the profits are rolling in, they will claim they are "just loyal public servants, selflessly providing a service that the public is demanding", while they laugh all the way to the bank. When the damage is exposed, they will claim we are "all equally to blame" (i.e. distorted Fragmentation of Agency).

This is clearly false because polluting corporations, in virtually all cases, aren't non-profit organizations. If they were not profiting, then, and only then, could they make the claim that "we all benefited equally so we all are equally responsible to pay equally for the cost."

Those who presently benefit economically from the burning of fossil fuels, despite the scientific certainty that this is ushering in a Permian level mass extinction, will probably be quick to grab on to a severely distorted and duplicitous version of the 'Fragmentation of Agency' meme, in regard to assigning the proportionate blame for the existential threat our species is visiting on future generations.

Privatizing the profits and socializing the costs is what they have done for over a century in the USA. They have always gotten away with it. That is why, despite having prior knowledge that their children would be negatively impacted by their decisions, they decided to dispense with ethical considerations.

They assumed that, with all the profits they would accumulate over the last 40 years (or as long as the populace can be blinded to the truth of the existential threat), they could protect their offspring when things got "difficult".

They know that millions to billions of people, in all probability, will die. But they think their wealth can enable them to survive and thrive.

As for the rest of us, who obtained a pittance in benefits in comparison to the giant profits the polluters raked (and still continue to rake) in, we can expect an army of corporate lawyers descending on our government(s) demanding that all humans, in equal portions, foot the bill for ameliorating climate change.

The lawyer speak will probably take the form of crocodile tears about the "injustice of punitive measures" or, some double talk legalese limiting "punitive damage claims" based on Environmental Law fun and games (see: "punitive" versus "compensatory" damage claims).

This grossly unjust application of the 'Fragmentation of Agency' is happening as we speak. The poorest humans are paying the most with their health for the damage done by the richest. The richest have avoided most, or all, of the deleterious effects of climate change.

When the governments of the world finally get serious about the funding needed to try to clean this mess up (present incremental measures are not sufficient), the rich plan to continue literally getting away with ecocide, and making sure they don't pay their share of the damages for it.

Why Dianoia, Aristotle's term for "Thinking Things Through", is sine qua non to a Viable Biosphere (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/catastrophic-climate-change/future-earth/msg27/#msg27)

-----------------------------------------
Land use for siting Renewable Energy is important.

I have often wondered why this is such a political football in Vermont. For example, the winds on mountain ridges near ski areas can be rather fierce. In fact, they are pretty constant. Yet those areas weren't the first to have wind turbines put on them.

I find it absolutely irrational for people to complain about aesthetics when fossil fuels are quite literally endangering the welfare of future generations. Where do some people get the idea that it's okay to drive a gas guzzler but it's not okay to see a wind turbine on a mountain top? They think wind turbines are too noisy but roads full of gas guzzlers aren't? Ask anyone that drives an EV what it's like to have to listen to internal combustion engines all around you in traffic.

And then there are those bothered by seeing a lot of solar panels. There is definitely a disconnect between the scientific consensus of the urgency to transition to 100% Renewable Energy and the lack of perception of that urgency among too many Vermonters.

There is no excuse for anyone in government to sugar coat the existential threat we face. The people of this state need to understand the stakes. This is not about whether something looks "Vermont" or not; this is about whether you care for future Vermonters or not.

But for those who don't want to see all those "ugly" solar panels ( I think they are cool, myself), I propose a land siting solution with more than enough acreage to really boost our solar harvesting.

There is a lot of land out of sight of 99% of the public that is made to order. The State does not need to ask anybody's permission and has access to all the right of ways with no issues except some coordination with electric utilities.

Swaths in the forests are cut across mountains all over Vermont for transmission lines. Why don't they put solar panels in those areas? The transmission lines are right next to them for hundreds of miles. The workers that keep the forest and undergrowth trimmed will have less work because the solar panels will block the sun. This is called common sense. let's see more of it.

You could go all out and roof in several miles of railroad track. That would keep snow off the tracks along with producing lots of solar energy while reducing land trimming costs in summer. Those tracks run nearby many neighborhoods that have transformers. State financing to help those neighborhoods buy a piece of that solar energy would go a long way to getting more people on board with the 100% Renewable Energy Transition. I think that would be a better way to go than sell the panel energy to the utility. The more the renewable energy is distributed the more democratic it is. The less it is distributed, the more the utility owning it will try to control the rates we pay. Centralizing energy is what has undermined democracy and favored predatory capitalist special interests. We want to go in the other direction.

In regard to private land and grounds in front of government buildings, why doesn't Vermont outlaw all local ordinances that require having a sterile, chemically polluted lawn that requires a lawn mower spewing totally unregulated emissions?

Is this a throw back from the European castle tradition of having a low cut "killing field" in front of the castle? It's time to get rid of that pretty lawn, Vermont. If you don't want to force somebody to do it, at least put a carbon tax on lawns and overrule all local ordinances that require them.

There are a lot of yards in Vermont that can join the fight to have a viable biosphere if the lawmakers would just recognize the importance that having pollution free yards in this battle. It's time to outlaw those signs on lawns that say, 'do not walk on lawn due to chemical treatment". We don't need that pollution and it isn't doing wonders for future generations either. Let the lawn care industry switch to organic yard gardening products.

-----------------------
Financing is one of the subjects that leaves far more out than it puts in. The Federal Reserve can influence every Vermonter that buys a home but somehow, those low interest rates never make it to Renewable Energy infrastructure.

We can have a cash for clunkers program but somehow, we can't have a EV for gas guzzlers program.

We can have pension funds investing in fossil fuel industry stocks but we can't have pension funds investing in gigawatt level State Funded Renewable Energy infrastructure.

The money the State of Vermont gifts the fossil fuel industry in subsidies alone, never mind the federal welfare queenery, would be ample for divestment from fossil fuels and nuclear power and investment in a 100% Renewable energy transition.

I am not convinced that the bankers understand that they need to hitch their financing star to the Renewable Energy Wagon. But I am convinced that that insurance actuaries are keenly aware of the costs of not transitioning within a decade, not 40 or fifty years, to 100% Renewable Energy.

The costs of a slow transition are far higher than a drastic transition. They are 5.5 times higher, per year, than a drastic and quick transition to 100% renewable energy. The reason for this is that the fossil fuel subsidies are a force multiplier on CO2 pollution. Every year we delay in financing the transition increases the costs of global warming exponentially.

This is what the insurance actuaries and the scientists are so alarmed about:

According to the recently published Hansen et al 2015 study which models of our future using the Eemian period (about 125,000 years ago), due to certain similarities with our period (excluding the fact that the PPM of CO2 was only about 290 back then), the oceans are going to get extremely stormy.

Besides the large increase in sea level, the wave action predicted makes every hull design of modern shipping inadequate. It will be very hard to sustain our level of civilization without the benefits of modern shipping.

Redesigning hulls will not work for the simple reason that the waves, now called "rogue" waves, of those oceans will be routine. 30 to 35 meter tall waves exert forces on a hull of about 100 tons per square meter. No modern hull design exceeds 20 tons per square meter.

This is a serious issue that should be addressed more by the scientific community. Actuaries of insurance companies are already addressing it: “every year, on average, more than two dozen large ships sink, or otherwise go missing, taking their crews along with them.”
http://www.actuarialeye.com/2014/03/30/how-many-ships-disappear-each-year/

I am grateful to Paul Beckwith of the University of Ottawa for alerting me to the threat from violent oceans that mankind faces.

Paul Beckwith is a part time professor at the University of Ottawa and a post graduate studying and researching abrupt climate change, with a focus on the arctic.

Part 4: An Ocean Full of 30 meter Tall Waves by Paul Beckwith

Published on Jul 23, 2015

"Near the end of the previous warm period (Late-Eemian) when the sea level was +5 to +9 meters higher than today, persistent long period long wavelength waves 30 meters high battered the Bahamas coastline. Will we see these massive storm generated waves soon? No ship could survive this..."

https://youtu.be/rq24d3-bIU4

Vermont will obviously not directly face problems from the end of cargo shipping as we know it due to violent oceans. But considering the impact on civilization that the end of routine cargo shipping will have on the U.S. economy in general and Vermont's economy in particular, it would behoove Vermont to do everything possible to be a leader in the transition to 100% Renewable within a decade.

It's time to tell the bankers and Vermont Lawmakers. Delay is more costly than drastic action.
----------------------------------------
I would recommend Ground Sourced Geothermal Heat pumps with 100% sales tax exemption and guaranteed 5% or less interest on financing. Forty five degrees is available all year round about 20 to 25 feet down (or less) anywhere in Vermont all year. You can heat and cool with that with very low electricity demand. With solar power, it's 100% Renewable Energy heating and cooling.

Charge a Carbon Tax on high income earners and businesses that stay on fossil fuel powered heat to subsidize heat pump installations for the low to middle income earners and schools.
-------------------------------------------
Require all gasoline stations to sell E100 with no sales tax for a ten year period.

The fact that gasoline taxes are a revenue stream is not a "dilemma", it's an incorrect, biosphere damaging choice. I suggest you correct it.
---------------------------------------
Expand the Charging station network in Vermont to level two chargers for at least 50% of the all vehicles over a ten year period. Reduce sales tax on EVs by 50 to 100% until 75% of all vehicles in Vermont are EVs or ten years, whichever comes first.

Convert all Federal Income Tax credits on EV purchases to rebates for Vermonters who pay less than the Federal Tax Credit on their Federal income taxes.
-----------------------------------------------
The problem here is one of perception. The fear that people will overload the grid by switching to all electric ignores the fact that Renewable energy is mostly distributed. This energy will be closer to the user. The efficiency of electric energy use is inversely proportional to the distance from the energy production.

So, although computer load balancing issues will exist, only the fossil fuel industry crocodile tears are the ones making a case for keeping people off electric heat and EV charging because of "grid overload".

It's time to eliminate discounts to high electricity users in industry and start giving discounts to Vermonters in their homes for charging EVs at night or running appliances in low use periods. These policies, though not popular with big pocketed individuals, will smooth the grid power demand. If that isn't what "smart rates" are, it's what they should be.

Our problem is CO2, not ⚡ electrical demand.
-----------------------------------------
I think Scenario A for generation capacity should be our reality by 2025, not 2050.
---------------------------------------------
Nice summary
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Nice map. AGelbert UPDATE NOTE: Here is the 2022 CEP Plan (https://publicservice.vermont.gov/publications-resources/publications/energy_plan). There is some improvement, but it is still woefully short of what needs to be done. :(

Imagine how much more Renewable Energy we would have if a 100 miles or so of railroad tracks was roofed over with solar panels and a hundred miles or so of transmission line swaths cut through the mountains had solar panels on them.

I think you should know that average wind speeds in Vermont are predicted to increase with climate change. I doubt whether that has been modeled here. I suggest you consider that you will get quite a bit more energy from wind in your Scenario A with the same number of turbines.

I also suggest you take a look at the potential of Lemna Minor (Duckweed) as a biofuel and an animal food source. Duckweed can be pelletized. You can make ethanol from it too. It is the fastest growing flowering plant known to mankind. It grows in still water ponds with pig feces or tilapia fish droppings as fertilizer. No extra water is needed once the shallow ponds are filled and you can place them on non-arable land. Duckweed grows wild from the equator to Siberia. Duckweed is also a cleanser of heavy metals and an excellent carbon sequestering source of Renewable Energy.

Vermont has not taken advantage of Duckweed. It's considered mostly a nuisance here. It's not. It's far more efficient than corn as a feed stock for ethanol and animal feed too. And there is no nitrogen run off from duckweed ponds to deal with or the need for fossil fuel based chemical fertilizer or pesticides.

Duckweed, The Little Green Plant that Could.

http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/renewables/plant-based-products-for-transprtation-and-building-materials/msg1012/#msg1012
------------------------------------------
Petroleum is not a resource. Fossil fuels are not assets. Fossil fuels are liabilities. Fossil fuels are endangering the welfare of future generations. The CO2 damage is accelerating. The acidification of the oceans is increasing. The icecaps are melting. The IPCC has us headed for a plus 4 degree C world by century's end. Mankind has never even existed on the planet above an average global temperature of plus 3.3 degrees C above the pre-industrial baseline.

Petroleum is a resource to civilization like arsenic is a food for humans.

I suggest you rephrase your definition of what a "resource" is.

Elizabeth Kolbert discusses her book, The Sixth Extinction
FEB. 10, 2014 Chasing the Biggest Story on Earth

‘The Sixth Extinction’ Looks at Human Impact on the Environment

Reporter asks: Why do you say this could lead to an extinction event?

Elizabeth Kolbert: It’s not what I say. It’s what many respected scientists are writing. If you read the scientific literature, you see frequent allusions to a current mass extinction event.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/science/the-sixth-extinction-looks-at-human-impact-on-the-environment.html?_r=0

As of June of this year (2015), further evidence of the existential threat we face has been published. The conclusions are conservative but still clear. Incremental measures will not stop this existential threat to 75% of al of Earth's species.

"Avoiding a true sixth mass extinction will require rapid, greatly intensified efforts to conserve already threatened species, and to alleviate pressures on their populations – notably habitat loss, over-exploitation for economic gain and climate change," the study's authors write.

Stanford Report, June 19, 2015
Stanford researcher declares that the sixth mass extinction is here

Paul Ehrlich and others use highly conservative estimates to prove that species are disappearing faster than at any time since the dinosaurs' demise.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/june/mass-extinction-ehrlich-061915.html
-----------------------------------
There is absolutely no reason why the state cannot use ground source geothermal heat pump technology to heat and cool all the buildings. All they have to do is go down 25 feet or less.

There is no reason why the government cannot have more telecommuting employees who don't have to deal with the public face to face. That would save on transportation and public building heating and cooling costs.

There is no reason why more education cannot be performed via the internet to lower school bus use and school energy use.

There is no reason why the state cannot mandate that all government vehicles either be EVs or, if internal combustion powered, run on E100. If the government led, the people would follow.

Fire trucks, ambulances, police cars and trucks, snow plows, school busses, etc. can all be converted to run on E100. Some fossil fuel toes will be stepped on. So what? It's about time we got real about the damage fossil fuels do and stopped pretending our economy needs them.

---------------------------
The world of business has made many Empathy Deficit Disordered, unethical choices. We are all paying for their rejection of their responsibility to use dianoia, Aristotle's term for "Thinking Things Through", in their decision making process.

But they are relatively few in number. Their chicanery would cease from a huge public outcry if they did not have so many people aiding and abetting their unethical destructive exploitation of the biosphere for the short term gain, 'greed is good', modus operandi.

Those are the comfortable millions who have swallowed the corporate happy talk propaganda.

Those are the people that continue to delay progress on the implementation of the drastic government action we must demand, which is desperately needed to stem, or eliminate, the length and breadth of the existential threat we face from climate change damage.

The people who think that this climate change horror can be addressed by incremental measures are, as Aristotle said, deliberately becoming irrational. Theresa Morris said in her essay on our responsibility to conserve a viable biosphere for future generations:

"Thus choice is firmly in the realm of practical, ethical action. With his emphasis on dianoia , Aristotle offers one way to think about responsibility to the future;

it is the lack of "thinking things through," in preference for shortsightedness regarding means and ends, that results in acts of harm, both to the environment and to future people.

If we fail to think things through to the consequences of our actions we are not acting responsibly.

And ignorance is no justification for poor choices, for Aristotle points out that we can be ignorant and still responsible.

If we deliberately become irrational, as when we become drunk, or when we ought to know something and yet fail to, we are still held responsible, "on the grounds that it is up to people themselves not to be ignorant, since they are in control of how much care they take" (NE 1114a). "

We are in a world of trouble. This is not chicken little hysteria or hyperbole; this is the scientific consensus.

A. G. Gelbert
Colchester, Vermont

(https://ci4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/2_IN1MJGf4OkBesWZi77BP6Ylt6SRUMuCuRFL1jFtxyy4DlB1c6NRaAujgNNfEHFM2QayBJ0hPzksQrR3nr7kATqsmYlrsMXjsmJnS1l62I=s0-d-e1-ft#http://media.pennnet.com/designimages/REW-0262_Energy_375.jpg)

10.20.2022 By Jennifer Runyon

Texas PUC approves virtual ⚡ power plant pilot project. Here's how it will work

The DER Pilot Program lets Texans with home solar+battery solutions provide ⚡ energy to the Texas grid at times when it’s most needed.

Read More (https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/solar/residential-batteries-and-solar-to-support-texas-grid/?utm_source=rew_weekly_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2022-10-21) (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164615-5351419.gif)

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl10.glitter-graphics.net%2Fpub%2F2491%2F2491210ovie015m90.gif&hash=c2edc7e32994c57779427e0df75cabac786a12bf)

Oct 24 2022 By Fred Thys

Vermont Public Utility Commission allows GlobalFoundries to set up its own ⚡ electric utility

SNIPPETS:

GlobalFoundries is Green Mountain Power’s biggest customer. To offset the loss, GlobalFoundries plans to continue buying electricity from Green Mountain Power over a four-year transition period, and will also pay the electric utility a “transition” fee of $15.6 million.

While GlobalFoundries will continue to buy electricity exclusively from Green Mountain Power during that time, it will be free to generate its own power as well, according to Jeffrey Cram, senior manager and deputy director of facilities engineering at the company’s Essex Junction plant.

Under its agreement with the Conservation Law Foundation, GlobalFoundries committed to build a 5-megawatt solar facility (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-120422122343-6651295.gif) in Essex Junction and to comply with Vermont’s environmental laws — in particular, the state’s renewable energy standard, which requires utilities to obtain more and more of their electricity from renewable sources.

“This agreement makes sure that GlobalFoundries does its part to reduce climate pollution, advance energy efficiency, and transition to clean, renewable energy,” said Elena Mihaly, vice president of Conservation Law Foundation Vermont, in a statement. ... ...

GlobalFoundries pays significantly more for electricity in Vermont than it does in New York, where the company is based. In 2021, the Essex Junction plant paid 9.1 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity, compared with the 6.3 cents per KWh it paid at its Fishkill, New York, plant and 5 cents per KWh in Malta, New York.

Full article:
https://vtdigger.org/2022/10/24/public-utility-commission-allows-globalfoundries-to-set-up-its-own-electric-utility/

AGelbert NOTE: (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040622153115-13851380.png) Building a new PV source of Renewable Energy is good news but I get pretty tired of seeing how we-the-people who are residential customers of Green Mountain Power have to pay $0.1765 per KWH (PLUS an "Energy Efficiency Charge" of $0.01093 per KWH PLUS a DAILY "Customer Charge" of $0.515 PLUS a Monthly "Past Storm & Power Fixed Charge of $1.47 PLUS the Monthly "Emerald Ash Borer Charge" of $0.21 PLUS the Monthly "Electric Assistance Program Fee" of $1.00), when a Corporate power HOG like GlobalFoundaries, the BIGGEST ⚡ CUSTOMER OF Green Mountain Power, pays $0.091 cents per KWH. (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frenewablerevolution.createaforum.com%2Fgallery%2Frenewablerevolution%2F2%2F3-190419232147.png&hash=b9d818543137cfd7ac4b712c1c25fe3b94b6d174)

AND, THEY WANT TO PAY EVEN LESS! (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-080422121656.png) (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-080422121435.png)

We-the-residents, as if being charged $0.0855 per KWH MORE than GlobalFoundaries wasn't enough of a PRIVATE PROFITS (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-010922192452.gif) ~~SUBSIDY~~ SOCIALIZED COST, are ADDITIONALLY CHARGED $0.01093" per KWH for "inefficiency", while GlobalFoundaries gets a ^{$0.1765 + $0.01093 = $0.18743 - $0.091 =} $0.10193 per KWH DISCOUNT FOR "inefficency"! (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040622153109-13672051.gif) And New York gives them an even GREATER DISCOUNT! (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422145533-5671050.gif)

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-120422134758-702205.png)

As usual in the USA, and just about everywhere else on this planet cursed by rampant greed, we see the Catastrophic Climate Change ensuring INSANITY of WATERING DOWN Renewable Energy Standards for the sake of the Corporate Private Profits SACRED COW of CAPITALISM.

Seven Years ago I told Vermont Officials how WRONG it is to put the "economy" (i.e. the Capitalist Private Profits and Socialized Costs, Social Darwinism Corrupted 🎩😈 Version that exploits 90% of the REAL economy to enrich the 10% Wall Street Greedball Parasites) before the requirements for a viable biosphere.

SNIPPET:
On the issue of per capita energy use, let's talk. A CEO of a corporation that pollutes should have his carbon footprint, above and beyond that of his home and personal vehicle, include his share of the corporate carbon footprint. If you own a mall or a hospital or a moving company, you own that carbon footprint too. I am just a little tired of the "it's everybody's fault" approach to carbon taxes. More on that later.

It is also hypocritical for the state to encourage utilities to give businesses that use a lot of electricity a discount because they allegedly "benefit" the economy, while urging people like myself, that live in a 980 sq. ft. home, to lower my carbon footprint.

The climate will dictate the path forward, not the politicians. If you find that too "lockstep", then you are not cognizant of the existential threat humanity faces from global warming. You need to take your direction from climate scientists, not economists or lawyers.
Read more:
October 10, 2015 AGelbert comments written to Vermont State Government Officials in regard to The State of Vermont's Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP) (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/renewables/the-big-picture-in-renewable-energy-growth/msg505/#msg505)

_{Nobody listened.} (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-120422122316-6601865.bmp) (https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3/3-080222174458-3749234.gif)

https://youtu.be/A9pHuVX-ZxE

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-220922211810-2001879.png)

Make Nexus Hot News part of your morning: click here (https://climatenexus.org/hot-news/) to subscribe.

October 26, 2022

Renewables Savings Are Bigger In Texas (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422144605.png)

Since 2010, wind and solar energy have saved Texans an average of $925 million per month — almost $28 billion in total — according to a new report from IdeaSmiths. Those savings are on track to skyrocket to $11 billion this year alone as more renewables come online and 🦖 fossil fuel prices continue to rise.

In addition to providing stability when the state's gas system collapsed in during "Winter Storm Uri" in 2021, the report found the increased renewables use cut carbon, SO2 and NOx pollution — especially in low-income communities and communities of color overburdened by air pollution — to the tune of tens of billions of dollars in avoided healthcare and environmental costs.

Additionally, because fossil fuel plants consume massive amounts of water, over the past dozen years, renewables have saved 244 billion gallons of water in the drought-stricken region. (Dallas Morning News, ⚡ Utility Dive (https://www.utilitydive.com/news/texas-solar-and-wind-resources-saved-consumers-nearly-28-billion-over-12-y/634893/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=231279530&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_YPAc7yyRmhhrQ3ZrT4qahElehFOPkJrQObUnSYwvVZA7tbgKD7Z5RVHD4y5E3hB1hffR8dZ6hc6-3T-hCZ7GAqn3-zQ&utm_content=231279530&utm_source=hs_email))

Read more:
https://climatenexus.org/hot-news/

(https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/all/themes/cleanenergywire/logo.png)

NEWS 04 Jan 2023, 13:37 By Carolina Kyllmann

Germany intensifies energy transition cooperation with Norway and Portugal (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422133440.gif)

Tagesspiegel / Clean Energy Wire

Germany plans to intensify its international cooperation on the energy transition with Norway and Portugal, with government ministers visiting both countries this week. On his trip to Norway, economy minister Robert Habeck (Green Party) hopes to sign a joint declaration to enable significant hydrogen imports into Germany within the current decade, Tagesspiegel reports. This would involve the construction of a hydrogen pipeline from Norway, with the aim of importing green hydrogen 👍 in the medium term. The economy ministry hopes to have finalised the most important steps for the partnership, including the necessary infrastructure, by 2030. The results of a feasibility study on a hydrogen pipeline should be available by spring, according to Tagesspiegel. Additionally, both countries hope to agree on a strategic partnership around climate, renewable energies (particularly offshore wind), and green industry.

Cooperation with Portugal on climate and energy issues, as well as environmental protection, should also be strengthened, foreign minister Annalena Baerbock announced ahead of her visit to the country. Portugal (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-080422155559.png) has aligned the reality of increasingly dry and hot summers with its climate and energy policy, and recognised early on the key role that the world's oceans play for the climate and food security, the Green politician said. “We want to join forces even further,” she added, continuing “we want to learn from each other.” (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422145344-560693.png)

Germany was forced to rethink its energy transition strategy following Russia’s war in Ukraine and the ensuing energy crisis. Being heavily reliant on imported Russian fossil fuels, the German government sees the need to speed up (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-090822141236.gif) the development of renewable energy sources and diversify its 🦖 fossil fuel imports, both to ensure energy supply security and keep its climate targets within reach. (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422180949.png)
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germany-intensifies-energy-transition-cooperation-norway-and-portugal

CleanTechnica

January 15, 2023 By Jesper Berggreen (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164615-5351419.gif)

Another Year, Another Record In Denmark’s Renewable Energy Progress (https://cleantechnica.com/2023/01/14/another-year-another-record-in-denmarks-renewable-energy-progress/)

AGelbert COMMENT:
Denmark gets it. They have irrefutable Catastrophic Climate Change reasons to get it.

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-280922121515-2022190.jpeg)

(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0Sr4WE2vR07XZIt9iTXorUIs-Izv3sgKs7SPLV1GBcVCTK0HHVO77rkyNkFOxOEyOBXa9tA1I9LesWqaRWBk_KqR1bIY5_PuEG6dE1CTDmaC2APlj6z30n0kQfDImc99nAm0trCUOf1sEJwGMy-CzFYqtIoTwa19yh5_p6IspTaBLwGNnmFuFgdJq/s800/N16-29-D15-J4.gif)

(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIPzXYWk_bTiOvSjzoRHCbIcpBmLuCfqgBpg4g1mMcSTrUMOzcuA301PpfhAE1sDzA-UOgMz66qhrI0CpJMwCGF4VC73rI8_Q2pDlX4mlVFpzgw5X9qypMtfJh8l94oAwEcOzB2wqHlTgEf9YZPZpbBGIljOwD0LqJkFBsq_reJSov2XbDl1tBHK1a/s939/Jan-6-2023-Antartica.jpg)

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-110822203643.jpeg)(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-280322140406.jpeg)

Climate Change, Blue Water Cargo Shipping and Predicted Ocean Wave Activity: PART 1 of 3 (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/catastrophic-climate-change/future-earth/msg373/#msg373)

January 24, 2023 By: Climate Nexus

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164613-5332481.jpeg)

Distributed Renewables Are Cheaper, More Reliable for Puerto Rico, Study Finds (https://www.ecowatch.com/puerto-rico-renewable-energy.html)

https://youtu.be/pEqWCH_4srU

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-010223211240.png)

1.27.2023

Clean tech investment reaches par with fossil fuels, BNEF says

Renewable energy remained the largest sector in investment terms and hit a new record of $495 billion committed in 2022. (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164615-5351419.gif)
https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/solar/clean-tech-investment-reaches-par-with-fossil-fuels-bnef-says/

CleanTechnica

February 24, 2023

How Much Land Would It Require To Get Most Of Our Electricity From Wind & Solar? (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-080822134120-1716808.gif) (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-080822134118-1710799.gif)

SNIPPETS:

But the big news is NREL found that the total amount of land needed by 2035 to achieve our clean power goals with wind, solar, and long-distance transmission lines (19,700 sq. mi) would be:

equivalent to the land area currently occupied by railroads (18,500 sq. mi)

֍ less than half the area of active oil and gas leases (40,500 sq. mi)

֍ less than one-third of the area currently needed for ethanol production (59,500 sq. mi), and

֍ only slightly more than the historically disturbed land area for coal mining (13,100 sq. mi). ... ...

NREL found that the land area directly occupied by wind and solar infrastructure by 2035 would make up less than 1 percent of the land in 94 percent of the country and less than or equal to 7 percent of total land area in just three states. A key reason why a relatively small amount of land is needed is because only 2 percent of the total area within a wind farm is occupied by wind infrastructure, while the remaining 98 percent is available for agriculture, grazing, or other uses. Offshore wind turbines also have a relatively small footprint and are able to use much larger turbines than land-based projects. Rooftop solar deployment, meanwhile, doesn’t require any land. (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422145344-560693.png)

Full article: (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422133908.gif)
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/24/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-solar/

AGelbert COMMENT: This is an Excellent truth filled article! 👍

I've been reading about this for at least a decade, since Robert Kennedy mentioned how small the area is, relatively speaking, that we need to power the WORLD with 100% Renewable Energy.

The 🦖 Hydrocarbon Hellspawn have, of course, yammered endlessly with their the F.U.D 👉 SEE: renewable energy "intermittence", renewable energy "distance from users". renewable energy based fuels "low energy density", renewable energy "high costs", "we are all gonna die in the dark without hydrocarbon fuels", "Hydrocarbon based fuels help the poor", "Big Oil subsidies preserve national security", and many more 24/7 repeated 😈 LIES.

Have you heard the one about the 😇🦖 "high" Energy Return on Energy Invested of hydrocarbon based fuels? Did you know that, not only is that not true, but ALL hydrocarbon based fuels have a NEGATIVE Energy Return on Energy Invested! The game Big Oil played with ERoEI is based on MONEY (i.e. "subsides"), NOT JOULES OF ENERGY! It was a SCAM from the START! 😡

📢 We need hydrocarbon based fuels like a dog needs ticks!

Big Oil has suckered we-the-people for way too long. It is HIGH TIME they went the way of the Dodo Bird.

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-250422171152-1122647.png)

CleanTechnica

February 26, 2023 By 🦅 U.S. Department of Energy

NREL Study Shows Wind Energy Can Help Puerto Rico Achieve Its Clean Energy & ⚡ Grid Reliability Goals (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422145549-5701455.gif)

Five Key Findings on Wind Energy Costs in Puerto Rico Through 2035

SNIPPET:

(https://cleantechnica.com/files/2023/02/20230216-puertorico-windturbines-tony-martinez-tossas-nrel-rightfloat.jpg)

An NREL report shows that wind energy projects like Puerto Rico’s Santa Isabel wind farm, pictured above, can support Puerto Rico in building a resilient, reliable, and affordable renewable energy system. Photo by Tony Martinez Tossas, NREL

1. Wind Energy Can Team With Solar To Meet Puerto Rico’s Energy Needs

Wind energy can take over for Puerto Rico’s abundant solar energy resources after the sun goes down — which is when electricity demand peaks. Working together with solar, wind energy can help Puerto Rico meet its energy demands and reach its renewable energy goals.

“Wind energy can complement solar with evening and nighttime electricity production — especially offshore wind energy,” said NREL researcher Nate Blair, who co-authored the report. “Wind energy can also reduce the need for batteries and other energy storage systems.”

2. Wind & Solar Can Accommodate Puerto Rico’s Limited Space

Geographically speaking, Puerto Rico is small: The territory consists of the roughly 3,500 square-mile main island, along with 143 small islands, islets, and cays, most of which are uninhabited. This means residences, businesses, farms, wild spaces, and power facilities must compete for limited land.

Through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Puerto Rico Grid Resilience and Transitions to 100% Renewable Energy Study (PR100), a team of national laboratory researchers will use data from “Wind Energy Costs in Puerto Rico Through 2035,” along with data the team will collect from stakeholders, to incorporate land-use concerns into PR100’s modeling. While competing land uses could be an obstacle to meeting Puerto Rico’s ambitious renewable energy goals, having a mix of renewable energy technologies — like wind energy and solar — can help overcome this challenge.

“The limited amount of space in Puerto Rico poses challenges for how to use land and marine areas,” said NREL researcher Patrick Duffy, who led the study. “However, multiple renewable energy sources give Puerto Ricans options for meeting their clean energy goals while balancing their onshore and offshore priorities.”

3. Puerto Rico’s Wind Turbines Must (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-080822141006-1726249.png) Weather the Storm — Literally (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-251222192110.gif)

Full article: (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164615-5351419.gif)
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/25/nrel-study-shows-wind-energy-can-help-puerto-rico-achieve-its-clean-energy-grid-reliability-goals/

AGelbert COMMENT: Except for Hawaii, no land area under the US Flag has MORE Renewable Energy Resources (i.e. Mild, but nearly CONSTANT, wind due to the prevailing Easterlies AND 18 degree latitude 365 days a year MAJOR solar insolation) than Puerto Rico.

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-260223130219.jpeg)

Puerto Rico from Space

EVERY land vehicle and local ocean small craft should be an ⚡ EV. The most you can drive is about 100 miles in any direction. The ocean distances between islands is quite within the range of battery powered small craft. Also, working schooner type sailboats with battery powered electric motor assist, though few and far between at present, are far more cost effective, as well as being totally non-polluting, than the diesel pigs now in use.

The 🦖 Hydrocarbon 😈 Hellspawn have had a stranglehold on energy generation in Puerto Rico for FAR TOO LONG. Puerto Rco needs hydrocarbon based fuels like a dog needs ticks!

It is TIME for Puerto Rico to SNAP OUT OF 🦖👿IT! (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-110422205132-6472099.gif)

March 3, 2023

I would like to take this opportunity to clearly and calmly state, with complete certainty, that Republican Governor Phil Scott of Vermont just told a BOLD FACED LIE! The lie is a particularly 😈 cynical one because it makes a pretense of 😇 "concern" for the economic welfare of owners of manufactured homes in Vermont, when, in fact, he is attempting to thwart a proposed Law that would HELP REDUCE costs of manufactured home owners in Vermont. This is the typical Orwellian mindfork used by Republicans for the purpose of defending the 🦕 polluting hydrocarbon based heating fuels status quo from being replaced by electrical heating from renewable energy sources.

This quote from VTDigger: Clean heat standard moves forward on 19-10 Senate vote (https://vtdigger.org/2023/03/02/clean-heat-standard-moves-forward-on-19-10-senate-vote/) exposes Republican Governor Phil Scott's LIES:

Quote

He cited mobile homes, some of which don’t have the electrical capacity to rely on heat pumps.

“People in mobile homes often have above ground tanks and have to buy kerosene at $6 per gallon to prevent gelling in the winter,” he said. “And if they want to electrify, they’ll need to make thousands of dollars in upgrades, and this is money they simply don’t have.”

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040622202533-1394275.gif)
(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164616-5368.jpeg) AGelbert Statement: I have lived in a manufactured home my wife and I purchased new in Vermont since September of 2000. I have relied 100% on electricity for ALL my energy needs in the home since 2004, when I stopped using my kerosene fired furnace. Over the last 19 years I have saved MANY thousands of dollars not spent on furnace kerosene fuel, maintenance, tune-up and repair. The increase in electricity costs from using space heaters is much less than what the furnace costs were.

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frenewablerevolution.createaforum.com%2Fgallery%2Frenewablerevolution%2F3-161217204110.jpeg&hash=279a7cab2ff5eba53279a05f44da78e296031761)

I use small Vornado Electric Space Heaters. They are inexpensive. The DO NOT "overload" the electrical panel circuitry of my manufactured home. They have an excellent warranty. I have had Vornado replace some units in warranty that failed at no cost or hassles. They are easy to clean and FAR cheaper than MAINTAINING a kerosene fired furnace, never mind the HUGE cost of a new kerosene fired furnace AND the periodic Big Oil PRICE GOUGING for kerosene. This is without even considering the fact that electrical space heaters DO NOT pollute. Of course you don't want them too near something that may catch fire from heat, but you will never die of CO poisoning as long as you use electrical space heaters. Another HUGE plus is that, unlike when a furnace fails in the middle of a Vermont winter, when you are out of heat and out of luck for as much as 24 hours, and your water pipes can freeze, adding another huge cost, small portable space heaters ALWAYS provide enough heat as long as you have power. If one goes out, you have three others that will take up the slack. They never all fail at the same time. And, by the way, my kerosene furnace would fail if the power went out because it has to send a continuous spark to the electrodes in the burner.

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422133654.gif) Governor Phil Scott is a LIAR!

Sure, it would be nice to get a split-system heat pump for my manufatured home, but THAT isn't the PROBLEM. 🦕 Scott wants to make it look like the cost of a ⚡ heat pump "is the problem". The COST of EVERYTHING associated with heating your home with 🦕 hydrocarbon based fuels IS the PROBLEM! Heat pumps are just part of the answer. As things are RIGHT NOW for low income people like yours truly, all the State has to DO is make sure the ⚡ JUICE we get is from Renewable Energy Sources. There is a LOT of open space available for Solar AND wind in Vermont, even if this state is 74% forested. HUNDREDS of miles of right of way through forests where the power lines are now CAN be used to harvest Solar, and in higher places, wind. The State or the ⚡ Power company OWNS that land already! Then there is all that space in the middle of the major expressways. It is just plain STUPID to not use 20 or 30% of that SPACE to provide ALL the Renewable Energy Vermont needs, PERIOD! (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-090422150144.png)

We need hydrocarbon based 🦖 fuels for heating like a dog needs ticks! I will celebrate when Scott's veto of this 🎍 GOOD 🌞 Law is overturned (Progressives have enough votes to DO IT! 🗽).

Climate Power

Mar 7, 2023, 12:32 PM

(https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/Ro1nxQNr6AyVKS9_7BQ85_dq5RDu8bNPn3IeqJEvpmle59dGxK4X5WO507e5Z0vTPUDqlcUGGSOsyQh_sJosFeCWgz5pbEsXKO2xBD1BIoJ1wSiPMRipHnwRZxHATFtmCYMAuGCg3I6084OujWuzbwxJHHQQAkh-t8bfN-fSXTzz5k4Z6kegkGAoYExKB4g8BDKHIA=s0-d-e1-ft#https://prod.cdn.everyaction.com/images/van/EA/EA007/1/89471/images/MOGFX%20-%20Clean%20Energy%20Boom%20Headlines%20-%20HM02.gif)

(https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/W5Uppkr7e18SoFVyOd1mRPBv6xYeJiMHF66yxcWUxo7QyPyED9ZM66OFJIg7Zmt-ocAbmTjYbz_JqIy4ziLWeIB2sKctEBV_LvQxZSLt8hoT_zRTcuSI6BFj3usUD8e2RmdjkdY0LrX2o5NzKkSk-KwLFMCntWf_QGkpexeKmOAxt6J7kNQfqfz1DB0rpdbKD7cBpCywW15usbKtIdn1MVH42iMwe8la5Q=s0-d-e1-ft#https://prod.cdn.everyaction.com/images/van/EA/EA007/1/89471/images/GFX%20-%20Clean%20Energy%20Boom%20Headlines%20-%20HM02%20-%20Bottom%20%281%29.png)

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422133440.gif) (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164615-5351419.gif)

https://twitter.com/ClimatePower/status/1633138185206218752/

(https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/gv_ZC2w6TXPB5j4Aqng6UjiXgQkZ1QBG1wnzCDDwaS6kfHBaxlSWLQiMvDf9hUjvqRIf9WFdU3qtpRE0tsBde-o7cxEBhk9ppEEJIGQq-_dQrASfNZJVl4DkbXYOt9cJ-rvAHb9EGgm6_FvALtT61Jpch7DnuNaS63ntQxAIXV8-k9NbMH0UVVJs0ZxbY97iZui_QD3fUFADg1Lx1AJG3IHWwVCnJUKJI6lzgjrrU4RZYNxMjbMkcAqQXEDrEn3hM3rB4f5ZrW8-SeH1LO0Kr8dxy6ytgMVltik=s0-d-e1-ft#https://newsletter.climatenexus.org/hs-fs/hubfs/Climate%20Nexus%20Clean%20Energy%20Newsletter%20Header-1.jpg?width=1200&upscale=true&name=Climate%20Nexus%20Clean%20Energy%20Newsletter%20Header-1.jpg)

March 8, 2023

Chart: Wind, solar, and ⚡ batteries increasingly account for more new U.S. ⚡ power capacity ⚡ additions

(https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/5RDU3iO9E_tYaxYZz4oHa5aZBBpi89B4qitaufp_QwzvpDSO6pzqgfuF1hdrx99iOcMK82ile7o9hd2Bs-0ZdvHpd7-YW3hr6pFo4dbFGQFhFk_OWnkTr-hL9A5FJQyAwz8rcjwXuVDd3vLIiywP436mmR5rPC0cOJVEPthoLwe9WY7NS3s-mgvHUATylWRMtWY0GpK0we3eKjcN-AI2VhAfKCMw5uWZg33VxBqplwXXX8p2xcsuELxu_GMj9jc393-qiLDjYiVYYSJABJ76TiqdwQ12XAvxKpD3g-1jbstQKa2yIz3n8MozoesFbq2BE1x6IfLbXQv0NvpShMlhQShttreVvAyQ5_fDfll7JA=s0-d-e1-ft#https://6000718.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hub/6000718/hubfs/Screen%20Shot%202023-03-08%20at%202.55.28%20PM.png?t=1678305553684&composeType=play_button&overlayColor=%232f4254&overlayScale=0.3&name=Screen%20Shot%202023-03-08%20at%202.55.28%20PM.png)

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-120422122257-6561489.gif)

Learn more: (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164615-5351419.gif)
https://newsletter.climatenexus.org/renewable-energy-news

(https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/all/themes/cleanenergywire/logo.png)

March 15, 2023

2022 emissions reduction too little 😕 to put Germany on track for 2030 target 🤦‍♂️ (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-110422141413-626465.png)

A slight reduction of German greenhouse gas emissions last year is not enough to put the country on track to reaching its 2030 climate target. The country would have to triple the annual reduction from 2 percent in 2022 to 6 percent from 2023 onwards, the head of the environment agency (UBA) Dirk Messner said in Berlin. Preliminary data by the agency showed that more coal use during the energy crisis fuelled by Russia’s war against Ukraine led to rising emissions in the energy sector, while high prices pushed down emissions in industry. The transport sector remains the “problem child” of German climate action efforts, said Messner, and failed its annual target yet again. NGO NABU called on chancellor Olaf Scholz to put his foot down and force transport minister Volker Wissing to introduce effective measures.

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-150323134054.png)

Read more: (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-170422160823-7441296.jpeg)
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/2022-emissions-reduction-too-little-put-germany-track-2030-target

Yes, this is 8 years old, but even more valid in 2023 than it was in 2015.

October 10, 2015

AGelbert comments written to Vermont State Government Officials in regard to The State of Vermont's Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP)

"The State of Vermont's Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP) addresses Vermont's energy future for electricity, building heating, industrial processing, transportation, and land use. The 2016 CEP sets specific goals and strategies for Vermont to obtain 90% of our total energy from renewable sources by 2050."

"First, the CEP is intended to inform readers of the many challenges and opportunities facing Vermonters in our mutual efforts to maintain a safe, reliable, affordable, environmentally sound, and sustainable energy supply across all sectors ..."
I suggest you add entrenched fossil fuel industry influence counterforce to the preface. When you use the word , "challenge", it sounds like it is just a matter of doing a cost benefit analysis. Renewable Energy includes that, of course. But to ignore the consistent, and successful, efforts made by the fossil fuel industry for the last 60 years or so to prevent Congress from funding solar and wind energy R & D and provide Renewable Energy subsidies on an equal footing with fossil fuels and nuclear power, instead of the pittance Renewable energy has received, clouds the issue. This is not merely a challenge; it is a war with predatory capitalist welfare queens degrading out democracy and our biosphere for short term gains.

Fossil fuels are environmentally and economically unsound. That is blatantly obvious. Any preface summarizing the challenges we face should state that a huge part of our challenge is to stop them from being subsidized.

A goal of 90% Renewable Energy by 2050 assumes that climate change will not dictate 100% long before that. If you read the Hansen et al 2015 paper just published, you will note that a plus 2 degrees Centigrade world, now baked in, is not amenable to comfortable political expediency.

When you are in a hole. you are supposed to stop digging.

On the issue of per capita energy use, let's talk. A CEO of a corporation that pollutes should have his carbon footprint, above and beyond that of his home and personal vehicle, include his share of the corporate carbon footprint. If you own a mall or a hospital or a moving company, you own that carbon footprint too. I am just a little tired of the "it's everybody's fault" approach to carbon taxes. More on that later.

It is also hypocritical for the state to encourage utilities to give businesses that use a lot of electricity a discount because they allegedly "benefit" the economy, while urging people like myself, that live in a 980 sq. ft. home, to lower my carbon footprint.

The climate will dictate the path forward, not the politicians. If you find that too "lockstep", then you are not cognizant of the existential threat humanity faces from global warming. You need to take your direction from climate scientists, not economists or lawyers.

-----------------------------------
"The four years since the completion of the 2011 CEP have seen significant progress in advancing the recommendations and goals established in that plan."

Sure. But that is because the goals were too limited. This is a circular argument used by lawyers and/or politicians, whether they are lawyers or not. They create a set of goals that are "realistic" within the confines of political expediency, while ignoring the urgency of addressing the pressing need to eliminate dirty energy in order to ameliorate the effects climate change.

Had Vermont given a 50% or more discount on sales tax for electric vehicles, some real progress on reducing transportation emissions would have been made. Even now, the state is mute about that.

Why aren't people who drive internal combustion powered cars rewarded for low annual mileage and why aren't people carbon taxed above 5,000 miles a year unless they drive an EV? Why doesn't Vermont connect state employees to Montpelier computers directly in their homes so they can telecommute? Why can't meetings be by telecommute? Why travel 30 or 60 miles round trip to a place where you work a computer and talk on a phone when you can do that from your home? Why isn't more of education done over the internet to save on school heating costs and bus fossil fuel use? This is just a small sample of the missed opportunities in the 2011 goals.

Where is the statewide zoning ordinance exception for people wanting to put passive geothermal systems in so they don't have to pay for permits and go through a lot of red tape? Ground sourced passive geothermal heat pumps are far more efficient with modern heat pump technology than the air sourced heat pumps. Where are the sales tax exemptions for home Renewable Energy infrastructure?

Where are the incentives for people to heat and cool smaller spaces? Where are the carbon taxes on homes larger than 500 square feet per occupant? And yes, people that heat and cool less than that should be paid for their frugality and contribution to a low carbon economy in rebates, not tax credits (the poor would not benefit from tax credits because they pay low taxes - a tax credit, like the $7,500 tax credit on EVs, helps mostly the well to do who pay at least that much in taxes - that's unfair). The needs of the poor, more impacted by climate change than the well to do, are unfairly ignored.

In short, there were several incentives for the everyday Vermonter that would have made a huge dent in our collective carbon footprint, but were left out.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is only one way to measure "Progress". And that is because there is only one real goal. That goal is taking our parts per million of carbon dioxide back to 290. I am not surprised that goal is not ever stated in these types of programs. Even the 350 PPM goal of Bill McKibben would be more realistic.

I realize that Vermont is just a state and the problem is global but the effects are local. So, while percentages of this, that and the other carbon footprint reductions are good metrics, our progress can only be realistically measured by how we preserve the biosphere for future generations. The only proxy Vermont has available for reducing the ppm of CO2 is renewable energy percentage. As long we are not at 100%, we are making things worse.
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"The CEP strives to further the state’s economic, environmental, and human health goals, which are summarized in this chapter."

As I said in regard to Chapter 2, I realize that Vermont is just a state and the problem is global but the effects are local. So, while percentages of this, that and the other carbon footprint reductions are good metrics, our progress can only be realistically measured by how we preserve the biosphere for future generations. The only proxy Vermont has available for reducing the ppm of CO2 is renewable energy percentage. As long we are not at 100%, we are making things worse.

The conflict between the economy and the environment is artificial. It is imperative that, in discussing goals, the enormous pressure on our government exerted by polluting corporate interests is considered as in defining the action needed to achieve those goals.

Every advance in the percentage of Renewable Energy used by Vermonters equals less profits for the fossil fuel industry. Their deliberate corruption of our government energy policies for the purpose of continuing to privatize profits and socialize the costs is endangering the welfare of future generations. Their product is a liability, not an asset. It's high time that the State of Vermont admitted that.

If you do not, at the outset, state that fossil fuels are damaging our environment and, contrary to the propaganda, hurting the economy too, then you have not properly framed your guiding goals.

Of course you need to maintain revenue for the government. But not at an intolerable cost to the environment. And continuing to provide tax benefits for fossil fuels, be they gasoline, heating oil, kerosene or natural gas is counterproductive in two ways:

1. It perpetuates the myth that we can continue business as usual with fossil fuels as long as the state gets it's cut from the user.

2. It defends a dirty energy status quo condemning future Vermonters to the "externalized " costs the fossil fuel industry happily socializes on all of us.

The state of Vermont needs fossil fuels like a hole in the head. There are a plethora of revenue streams from renewable energy sources that can more than replace every regressive tax now in place for the user of fossil fuels.

I do not advocate increasing taxes on gasoline simply because the poor are the most impacted by regressive taxes. What I do advocate is incentives in the form of rebates for people that reduce their fossil fuel use. The lowered health care costs for the state resulting from a cleaner environment will not show up on a balance sheet right away. So there will be people claiming this is "voodoo" economics. But it's not. Within a couple of decades, the benefits will clearly justify the costs.

This what leadership is supposed to be about. Policies should look at the big picture, not engage in hand wringing over how much loss for state revenues incentives for cutting gasoline, heating oil and gas (no matter what Vermont Gas says) use would represent.

The goals should be to reverse GHG emissions, not just reduce them. They need to be stopped completely followed by action to sequester CO2 in order to lower our parts per million below 350ppm. This is not hyperbole. Read the Hansen et al 2015 climate change paper.

The biosphere is not going to accept politically motivated half measures designed to avoid stepping on entrenched polluting industry toes. The only real world that we must look to for a standard of behavior is the Biosphere.

The so called "real world" of politics is not now, or ever was, the "art of the possible"; it's the product of profit over people and planet. We need to act now because climate change is not going to adjust to political expediency.

Eliminating all fossil fuel use in Vermont should be part of guiding goals.
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Nice graphics. The elephants in the GHG room are transportation and distillates for heating and residential. State incentives for ground sourced geothermal heat pumps would take care of the heating distillate pollution.

In regard to transportation, as I mentioned before, there are a host of missed opportunities, by the State of Vermont, to rein in the use of these polluting fuels that the owners of gasoline stations and heating oil are quite happy about. Brazil has been using E100 for several years. There is no reason, beyond concern for fossil fuel industry profits, why Vermont could not have legislated gasoline out of existence with E100.

All present internal combustion engine vehicles can be modified to run on E100. In fact, because an internal combustion engine that runs on ethanol runs so much cooler (you can put your hand on the manifold or block and keep it there without being burned), engine wear is reduced and longevity is increased. Although that is beyond the scope of this discussion, an engine designed to run specifically on E100 would weigh 2/3 less because the metal alloys would not have to be engineered to handle the high waste heat from gasoline. That engine would be ruined by burning gasoline. That engine would have a higher compression ratio (like light aircraft engines). That engine would get better mileage. Those are the thermodynamic facts, regardless of what you may have heard to the contrary.

The fact that we do not have E100 engines or E100 sold routinely in the USA is not an accident or an oversight. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that the fossil fuel industry would not like the idea of car engines running exclusively on E100, never mind why Detroit hasn't made a lighter engine that runs exclusively on E100.

If you do not believe what I am saying, send somebody to Brazil and the government there will calmly set up an appointment with an engineer that understands the benefits of E100 over gasoline. 100% Ethanol (E100) is just one chemical. It burns evenly and has a higher octane rating than regular gasoline.

Do you know why there isn't chemical name for gasoline? It's because there are many different types of hydrocarbon chains in it. The fact that it does not carry its own oxygen, like ethanol, causes uneven burning and high waste heat. The claim, used to argue that gasoline has a higher energy return on energy invested (ERoEI) than ethanol, that the enthalpy of gasoline is higher than ethanol is a clever deception. Yes, the enthalpy of gasoline is higher. But enthalpy is an external combustion calculation determined by heating water. Thus, all the waste heat of gasoline is considered, incorrectly, as contributing to the energy needed to do the work of moving a vehicle. When an internal combustion process is calculated, the waste heat from gasoline actually detracts from its efficiency. Thus, ethanol is a superior fuel. This was known as far back as 1906 by the work of Thomas Edison and the U.S. Navy. The new ethanol efficencies from lighter, high compression engines is a recent development in Brazil.

And the claim that major ethanol use would take food out of people's mouths is another myth. Vermont does not need gasoline. But the owner of Maplefields gasoline stations does. And we all know that he, like others that profit from fossil fuels, will try to keep this liability on our biosphere from being outlawed.

So let's cut to the chase. We are headed for a very difficult and dangerous climate because the increased concentration of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels is overheating the oceans and the atmosphere. We need to stop burning them as a matter of personal responsibility to future generations. Theresa Morris wrote about it and I summarized her excellent essay.

Why Dianoia, Aristotle's term for "Thinking Things Through", is sine qua non to a Viable Biosphere

Here's a snippet:

One of the themes about human history that I have tried to communicate to readers over and over is that predatory capitalist corporations, while deliberately profiting from knowingly doing something that causes pollution damage to the populace, always plan ahead to socialize the costs of that damage when they can no longer deny some liability for it. Their conscience free lackey lawyers will always work the system to limit even proven 100% liability.

When 100% liability is blatantly obvious, as in the Exxon Valdes oil spill, they will shamelessly use legalese to limit the liability. ExxonMobil pulled a fast one on the plaintiffs by getting "punitive", rather than "compensatory" damages. See what the learned counselor said, "The purpose of punitive awards is to punish, not to destroy, according to the law". Ethics free Exxon and its ethics free lawyers know how the Court System "works". JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW [Vol. 18:151] The purpose of this comment is to describe the history of the Exxon Valdez litigation and analyze whether the courts and corresponding laws are equipped to effectively handle mass environmental litigation..

While the profits are rolling in, they will claim they are "just loyal public servants, selflessly providing a service that the public is demanding", while they laugh all the way to the bank. When the damage is exposed, they will claim we are "all equally to blame" (i.e. distorted Fragmentation of Agency).

This is clearly false because polluting corporations, in virtually all cases, aren't non-profit organizations. If they were not profiting, then, and only then, could they make the claim that "we all benefited equally so we all are equally responsible to pay equally for the cost."

Those who presently benefit economically from the burning of fossil fuels, despite the scientific certainty that this is ushering in a Permian level mass extinction, will probably be quick to grab on to a severely distorted and duplicitous version of the 'Fragmentation of Agency' meme, in regard to assigning the proportionate blame for the existential threat our species is visiting on future generations.

Privatizing the profits and socializing the costs is what they have done for over a century in the USA. They have always gotten away with it. That is why, despite having prior knowledge that their children would be negatively impacted by their decisions, they decided to dispense with ethical considerations.

They assumed that, with all the profits they would accumulate over the last 40 years (or as long as the populace can be blinded to the truth of the existential threat), they could protect their offspring when things got "difficult".

They know that millions to billions of people, in all probability, will die. But they think their wealth can enable them to survive and thrive.

As for the rest of us, who obtained a pittance in benefits in comparison to the giant profits the polluters raked (and still continue to rake) in, we can expect an army of corporate lawyers descending on our government(s) demanding that all humans, in equal portions, foot the bill for ameliorating climate change.

The lawyer speak will probably take the form of crocodile tears about the "injustice of punitive measures" or, some double talk legalese limiting "punitive damage claims" based on Environmental Law fun and games (see: "punitive" versus "compensatory" damage claims).

This grossly unjust application of the 'Fragmentation of Agency' is happening as we speak. The poorest humans are paying the most with their health for the damage done by the richest. The richest have avoided most, or all, of the deleterious effects of climate change.

When the governments of the world finally get serious about the funding needed to try to clean this mess up (present incremental measures are not sufficient), the rich plan to continue literally getting away with ecocide, and making sure they don't pay their share of the damages for it.

Why Dianoia, Aristotle's term for "Thinking Things Through", is sine qua non to a Viable Biosphere (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/catastrophic-climate-change/future-earth/msg27/#msg27)

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Land use for siting Renewable Energy is important.

I have often wondered why this is such a political football in Vermont. For example, the winds on mountain ridges near ski areas can be rather fierce. In fact, they are pretty constant. Yet those areas weren't the first to have wind turbines put on them.

I find it absolutely irrational for people to complain about aesthetics when fossil fuels are quite literally endangering the welfare of future generations. Where do some people get the idea that it's okay to drive a gas guzzler but it's not okay to see a wind turbine on a mountain top? They think wind turbines are too noisy but roads full of gas guzzlers aren't? Ask anyone that drives an EV what it's like to have to listen to internal combustion engines all around you in traffic.

And then there are those bothered by seeing a lot of solar panels. There is definitely a disconnect between the scientific consensus of the urgency to transition to 100% Renewable Energy and the lack of perception of that urgency among too many Vermonters.

There is no excuse for anyone in government to sugar coat the existential threat we face. The people of this state need to understand the stakes. This is not about whether something looks "Vermont" or not; this is about whether you care for future Vermonters or not.

But for those who don't want to see all those "ugly" solar panels ( I think they are cool, myself), I propose a land siting solution with more than enough acreage to really boost our solar harvesting.

There is a lot of land out of sight of 99% of the public that is made to order. The State does not need to ask anybody's permission and has access to all the right of ways with no issues except some coordination with electric utilities.

Swaths in the forests are cut across mountains all over Vermont for transmission lines. Why don't they put solar panels in those areas? The transmission lines are right next to them for hundreds of miles. The workers that keep the forest and undergrowth trimmed will have less work because the solar panels will block the sun. This is called common sense. let's see more of it.

You could go all out and roof in several miles of railroad track. That would keep snow off the tracks along with producing lots of solar energy while reducing land trimming costs in summer. Those tracks run nearby many neighborhoods that have transformers. State financing to help those neighborhoods buy a piece of that solar energy would go a long way to getting more people on board with the 100% Renewable Energy Transition. I think that would be a better way to go than sell the panel energy to the utility. The more the renewable energy is distributed the more democratic it is. The less it is distributed, the more the utility owning it will try to control the rates we pay. Centralizing energy is what has undermined democracy and favored predatory capitalist special interests. We want to go in the other direction.

In regard to private land and grounds in front of government buildings, why doesn't Vermont outlaw all local ordinances that require having a sterile, chemically polluted lawn that requires a lawn mower spewing totally unregulated emissions?

Is this a throw back from the European castle tradition of having a low cut "killing field" in front of the castle? It's time to get rid of that pretty lawn, Vermont. If you don't want to force somebody to do it, at least put a carbon tax on lawns and overrule all local ordinances that require them.

There are a lot of yards in Vermont that can join the fight to have a viable biosphere if the lawmakers would just recognize the importance of having pollution free yards in this battle. It's time to outlaw those signs on lawns that say, 'do not walk on lawn due to chemical treatment". We don't need that pollution and it isn't doing wonders for future generations either. Let the lawn care industry switch to organic yard gardening products.

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Financing is one of the subjects that leaves far more out than it puts in. The Federal Reserve can influence every Vermonter that buys a home but somehow, those low interest rates never make it to Renewable Energy infrastructure.

We can have a cash for clunkers program but somehow, we can't have a EV for gas guzzlers program.

We can have pension funds investing in fossil fuel industry stocks but we can't have pension funds investing in gigawatt level State Funded Renewable Energy infrastructure.

The money the State of Vermont gifts the fossil fuel industry in subsidies alone, never mind the federal welfare queenery, would be ample for divestment from fossil fuels and nuclear power and investment in a 100% Renewable energy transition.

I am not convinced that the bankers understand that they need to hitch their financing star to the Renewable Energy Wagon. But I am convinced that that insurance actuaries are keenly aware of the costs of not transitioning within a decade, not 40 or fifty years, to 100% Renewable Energy.

The costs of a slow transition are far higher than a drastic transition. They are 5.5 times higher, per year, than a drastic and quick transition to 100% renewable energy. The reason for this is that the fossil fuel subsidies are a force multiplier on CO2 pollution. Every year we delay in financing the transition increases the costs of global warming exponentially.

This is what the insurance actuaries and the scientists are so alarmed about:

According to the recently published Hansen et al 2015 study which models of our future using the Eemian period (about 125,000 years ago), due to certain similarities with our period (excluding the fact that the PPM of CO2 was only about 290 back then), the oceans are going to get extremely stormy.

Besides the large increase in sea level, the wave action predicted makes every hull design of modern shipping inadequate. It will be very hard to sustain our level of civilization without the benefits of modern shipping.

Redesigning hulls will not work for the simple reason that the waves, now called "rogue" waves, of those oceans will be routine. 30 to 35 meter tall waves exert forces on a hull of about 100 tons per square meter. No modern hull design exceeds 20 tons per square meter.

This is a serious issue that should be addressed more by the scientific community. Actuaries of insurance companies are already addressing it: “every year, on average, more than two dozen large ships sink, or otherwise go missing, taking their crews along with them.”
http://www.actuarialeye.com/2014/03/30/how-many-ships-disappear-each-year/

I am grateful to Paul Beckwith of the University of Ottawa for alerting me to the threat from violent oceans that mankind faces.

Paul Beckwith is a part time professor at the University of Ottawa and a post graduate studying and researching abrupt climate change, with a focus on the arctic.

Part 4: An Ocean Full of 30 meter Tall Waves by Paul Beckwith

Published on Jul 23, 2015

"Near the end of the previous warm period (Late-Eemian) when the sea level was +5 to +9 meters higher than today, persistent long period long wavelength waves 30 meters high battered the Bahamas coastline. Will we see these massive storm generated waves soon? No ship could survive this..."

https://youtu.be/rq24d3-bIU4

Vermont will obviously not directly face problems from the end of cargo shipping as we know it due to violent oceans. But considering the impact on civilization that the end of routine cargo shipping will have on the U.S. economy in general and Vermont's economy in particular, it would behoove Vermont to do everything possible to be a leader in the transition to 100% Renewable within a decade.

It's time to tell the bankers and Vermont Lawmakers. Delay is more costly than drastic action.
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I would recommend Ground Sourced Geothermal Heat pumps with 100% sales tax exemption and guaranteed 5% or less interest on financing. Forty five degrees is available all year round about 20 to 25 feet down (or less) anywhere in Vermont all year. You can heat and cool with that with very low electricity demand. With solar power, it's 100% Renewable Energy heating and cooling.

Charge a Carbon Tax on high income earners and businesses that stay on fossil fuel powered heat to subsidize heat pump installations for the low to middle income earners and schools.
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Require all gasoline stations to sell E100 with no sales tax for a ten year period.

The fact that gasoline taxes are a revenue stream is not a "dilemma", it's an incorrect, biosphere damaging choice. I suggest you correct it.
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Expand the Charging station network in Vermont to level two chargers for at least 50% of the all vehicles over a ten year period. Reduce sales tax on EVs by 50 to 100% until 75% of all vehicles in Vermont are EVs or ten years, whichever comes first.

Convert all Federal Income Tax credits on EV purchases to rebates for Vermonters who pay less than the Federal Tax Credit on their Federal income taxes.
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The problem here is one of perception. The fear that people will overload the grid by switching to all electric ignores the fact that Renewable energy is mostly distributed. This energy will be closer to the user. The efficiency of electric energy use is inversely proportional to the distance from the energy production.

So, although computer load balancing issues will exist, only the fossil fuel industry crocodile tears are the ones making a case for keeping people off electric heat and EV charging because of "grid overload".

It's time to eliminate discounts to high electricity users in industry and start giving discounts to Vermonters in their homes for charging EVs at night or running appliances in low use periods. These policies, though not popular with big pocketed individuals, will smooth the grid power demand. If that isn't what "smart rates" are, it's what they should be.

Our problem is CO2, not ⚡ electrical demand.
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I think Scenario A for generation capacity should be our reality by 2025, not 2050.
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Nice summary
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Nice map. AGelbert UPDATE NOTE: Here is the 2022 CEP Plan (https://publicservice.vermont.gov/publications-resources/publications/energy_plan). There is some improvement, but it is still woefully short of what needs to be done. :(

Imagine how much more Renewable Energy we would have if a 100 miles or so of railroad tracks was roofed over with solar panels and a hundred miles or so of transmission line swaths cut through the mountains had solar panels on them.

I think you should know that average wind speeds in Vermont are predicted to increase with climate change. I doubt whether that has been modeled here. I suggest you consider that you will get quite a bit more energy from wind in your Scenario A with the same number of turbines.

I also suggest you take a look at the potential of Lemna Minor (Duckweed) as a biofuel and an animal food source. Duckweed can be pelletized. You can make ethanol from it too. It is the fastest growing flowering plant known to mankind. It grows in still water ponds with pig feces or tilapia fish droppings as fertilizer. No extra water is needed once the shallow ponds are filled and you can place them on non-arable land. Duckweed grows wild from the equator to Siberia. Duckweed is also a cleanser of heavy metals and an excellent carbon sequestering source of Renewable Energy.

Vermont has not taken advantage of Duckweed. It's considered mostly a nuisance here. It's not. It's far more efficient than corn as a feed stock for ethanol and animal feed too. And there is no nitrogen run off from duckweed ponds to deal with or the need for fossil fuel based chemical fertilizer or pesticides.

Duckweed, The Little Green Plant that Could.

http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/renewables/plant-based-products-for-transprtation-and-building-materials/msg1012/#msg1012
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Petroleum is not a resource. Fossil fuels are not assets. Fossil fuels are liabilities. Fossil fuels are endangering the welfare of future generations. The CO2 damage is accelerating. The acidification of the oceans is increasing. The icecaps are melting. The IPCC has us headed for a plus 4 degree C world by century's end. Mankind has never even existed on the planet above an average global temperature of plus 3.3 degrees C above the pre-industrial baseline.

Petroleum is a resource to civilization like arsenic is a food for humans.

I suggest you rephrase your definition of what a "resource" is.

Elizabeth Kolbert discusses her book, The Sixth Extinction
FEB. 10, 2014 Chasing the Biggest Story on Earth

‘The Sixth Extinction’ Looks at Human Impact on the Environment

Reporter asks: Why do you say this could lead to an extinction event?

Elizabeth Kolbert: It’s not what I say. It’s what many respected scientists are writing. If you read the scientific literature, you see frequent allusions to a current mass extinction event.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/science/the-sixth-extinction-looks-at-human-impact-on-the-environment.html?_r=0

As of June of this year (2015), further evidence of the existential threat we face has been published. The conclusions are conservative but still clear. Incremental measures will not stop this existential threat to 75% of al of Earth's species.

"Avoiding a true sixth mass extinction will require rapid, greatly intensified efforts to conserve already threatened species, and to alleviate pressures on their populations – notably habitat loss, over-exploitation for economic gain and climate change," the study's authors write.

Stanford Report, June 19, 2015
Stanford researcher declares that the sixth mass extinction is here

Paul Ehrlich and others use highly conservative estimates to prove that species are disappearing faster than at any time since the dinosaurs' demise.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/june/mass-extinction-ehrlich-061915.html
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There is absolutely no reason why the state cannot use ground source geothermal heat pump technology to heat and cool all the buildings. All they have to do is go down 25 feet or less.

There is no reason why the government cannot have more telecommuting employees who don't have to deal with the public face to face. That would save on transportation and public building heating and cooling costs.

There is no reason why more education cannot be performed via the internet to lower school bus use and school energy use.

There is no reason why the state cannot mandate that all government vehicles either be EVs or, if internal combustion powered, run on E100. If the government led, the people would follow.

Fire trucks, ambulances, police cars and trucks, snow plows, school busses, etc. can all be converted to run on E100. Some fossil fuel toes will be stepped on. So what? It's about time we got real about the damage fossil fuels do and stopped pretending our economy needs them.

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The world of business has made many Empathy Deficit Disordered, unethical choices. We are all paying for their rejection of their responsibility to use dianoia, Aristotle's term for "Thinking Things Through", in their decision making process.

But they are relatively few in number. Their chicanery would cease from a huge public outcry if they did not have so many people aiding and abetting their unethical destructive exploitation of the biosphere for the short term gain, 'greed is good', modus operandi.

Those are the comfortable millions who have swallowed the corporate happy talk propaganda.

Those are the people that continue to delay progress on the implementation of the drastic government action we must demand, which is desperately needed to stem, or eliminate, the length and breadth of the existential threat we face from climate change damage.

The people who think that this climate change horror can be addressed by incremental measures are, as Aristotle said, deliberately becoming irrational. Theresa Morris said in her essay on our responsibility to conserve a viable biosphere for future generations:

"Thus choice is firmly in the realm of practical, ethical action. With his emphasis on dianoia , Aristotle offers one way to think about responsibility to the future;

it is the lack of "thinking things through," in preference for shortsightedness regarding means and ends, that results in acts of harm, both to the environment and to future people.

If we fail to think things through to the consequences of our actions we are not acting responsibly.

And ignorance is no justification for poor choices, for Aristotle points out that we can be ignorant and still responsible.

If we deliberately become irrational, as when we become drunk, or when we ought to know something and yet fail to, we are still held responsible, "on the grounds that it is up to people themselves not to be ignorant, since they are in control of how much care they take" (NE 1114a). "

We are in a world of trouble. This is not chicken little hysteria or hyperbole; this is the scientific consensus.

A. G. Gelbert
Colchester, Vermont

The Crucial Years

MAY 8, 2023 BILL MCKIBBEN

Weather Permitting

A few thoughts about 'reform.'

SNIPPET:

There’s an analogous process underway in the field of housing right now—rents and home prices have become absurdly high because we’ve largely stopped building new housing (in this case, zoning has often been a way for racists to make sure that no one builds in their neighborhoods.) But in California—ground zero for the housing crisis—the legislature has reformed the process to make permitting ‘by right’ standard practice in at least some zones. And it’s spreading—if you read my last book, I’m happy to report that my hometown of Lexington Mass, 52 years after it blocked plans for affordable housing, finally last month rezoned the town to allow many more multi-family units.

But energy permitting is an even more touchy business, because—well, because the goal is not more permits. The goal is less carbon and more equity, and so a sound permitting scheme would take those things into account. I wrote a piece for Mother Jones not long ago aimed at people like me (older, white, and good at tying things up in knots) trying to suggest when we might, as individuals, hold off on opposing new projects. The Senate (also older, white, and good at tying things up) is doubtless eager for my advice as well, and that would be: be careful. Trying to gut federal laws like the National Environmental Policy Act could lead to more backlash and actually consume time. If there ends up being some kind of legislation, three things I’d push for if I were a Senator (which, thank heaven, I’m not)

Looking forward: a climate test. When he was trying to make up his mind over the perhaps the most contentious energy permit yet, for the KXL pipeline, Barack Obama said “our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.” Given that the climate crisis is the greatest threat our species has yet faced, that seems like the most no-brainer position anyone could ever take. But of course the fossil fuel industry and its Congressional harem would like to use permitting reform to build more stuff that would produce carbon. This is literally absurd. As Abigail Dillen, president of EarthJustice, says: "The only science-based climate screen is no new fossil fuels projects. The world’s climate scientists are crystal clear about that, and we can do it." If there’s going to be permitting reform, it should take physics into account.

Looking backward: a fairness test. You don’t actually have to be a history professor to know who’s been damaged by our energy system in the past: Indigenous people, whose land has been too often wrecked, and vulnerable communities who have gotten to live next to the refineries and highways. So Indigenous communities and environmental justice communities deserve an extra layer of protection from big projects—how that should be structured is not for me to decide, but I note that the Inflation Reduction Act targets dollars at those communities, which in one respect is good but may also raise the pressure to do developments in those place. One small example: sign up for this seminar on lithium mining, from experts like Leslie Quintanilla and Mariela Loera—and take what they say seriously. A great way to educate yourself on these issues is to check out the key takeaways from the forum convened in March by the Roosevelt Institute—at least take the few minutes to watch the opening remarks from the always-savvy Rhiana Gunn-Wright. If there’s going to be permitting reform, it should take history into account.

This one’s more of a long shot—but I’d try to insure it would be easier to get a permit if the ownership of the, say, wind farm was going to be public. Some excellent news on this front: thanks to great organizing from, among others, the Democratic Socialists of America, as Kate Aronoff described last week, New York State has adopted the Build Public Renewables Act, which may see the New York Power Authority “build clean energy in a way that wouldn’t be dictated by the whims of profit-seeking shareholders.” This seems increasingly important given the reporting today from Brett Christophers on the way that asset management firms are most likely to end up gobbling most of the money from the Inflation Reduction Act. Since asset managers are “focused on optimizing returns on the assets they control by maximizing the income they generate while minimizing both operating and capital costs,” that would be…bad. If there’s going to be permitting reform, try to use it to weaken corporate control of energy, not extend it.

Politics is politics; you don’t always get what you want, and environmentalists don’t have anything like absolute power here, nor are they all working to the same ends. It’s entirely crazy-making, for instance, to see the clean energy industry line up with the fossil fuel folks. But it’s a good reminder that windpower companies want to make money from wind, not solve the climate crisis. Which—fair enough, but keep your eyes open. Jamie Henn from Fossil Free Media puts it like this: “The battle ahead is to ensure that in an attempt to speed up clean energy and transmission lines, we don't lock-in a generation more of polluting infrastructure that poisons vulnerable communities and puts our climate goals out of reach." ... ...

+Great animated video from the Sierra Club succinctly explains 😈🎩 Wall Street’s role in the climate crisis

https://youtu.be/ytRJPzcyrNM

Read more: (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164555-532108.png)
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/weather-permitting

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-090422150144.png) AGelbert COMMENT:
Here is my suggestion for everyone who reads this, their friends, their family and anyone who REALLY, HONESTLY wants to DO unto others as they would have them DO onto you: Stop using your water heater. I live in Vermont. I have resided here for 26 years. As anybody with a passing knowledge of geography and climate knows, it gets kinda cold here for most of the year, every year. The "stay warm" greeting often used by the locals in Vermont is experience based. In August of 2017 the electric water heater in my manufactured home failed. I did not replace it. I have lived without a water heater for six years. Yes, I do heat some water manually (four gallons is all you need if you use the cold water for getting wet and some of the rinsing), but I am certain I have saved quite a bit in nega-watts. In the summer you just need to fill four (or as many water gallon jars you think you will need) with tap water and leave them out on the deck for a while. Even in the dead of winter, just filling the gallon plasic bottles and leaving them on top of the washing machine for several hours will get you a temperature you can handle, so you don't have to heat the water on the stove (if, of course, you aren't a "modern" overly pampered ninny). If I can do it at nearly 80 years of age, you can do it. I don't want an attaboy or a pat on the back. I want YOU TO STOP USING YOUR WATER HEATER! I want to make USING LESS a thing. It is NOT about water heaters; it is about LESS IS BETTER, get it? The rich hate that healthy, reality based, frugal, principled, caring attitude. That's all the more reason to DO IT! As Bill says, the issue before us is using LESS energy, not more.

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040622202545-13961729.png) In the name of Jesus Christ, STOP USING A WATER HEATER! God won't Damn you for using a water heater, but He will Damn you for selfish behavior that hurts other people and all kinds of animals. And even if you don't think God is going to judge you, it is irrational for we poor and middle class to wait for the "modern" greedballs ruining our country (from BOTH mainstream political bought an paid for "parties") to take appropriate action. We will see Hell on Earth sooner than later if we leave it up to our "leaders". And yeah, those who insist on a carbon footprint ABOVE what is reasonable ("REASONABLE" = heating and cooling NO MORE than 500 square feet per occupant!) should be heavily taxed for it, unless they are below a certain income threshhold.

It is ALSO time to RETIRE the ridiculously wasteful, zoning nazi forced on Americans, LAWN requirement, though I'm not going to hold my breath expecting that this irrational love affair with the "killing fields" lawn around the "castle", handed down from history, will become the laughing stock that it deserves to be. Grow FOOD, not inedible, poisonous chemicals laden, grass! You and all the critters that frequent your yard will be healthier and live longer.

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-170422161546.jpeg)

The above "home and landscape" design stopped being rational about three centuries ago.

Bill, I'm not an important environmentalist like you, but I have done my best to warn people of all that is going wrong with the environment, and given my two cents worth (often) on what we are supposed to do about that. That said, my concern is mainly for the spiritual condition of people, as I view the "modern" modus vivendi of too many out there as the path to perdition after this life, in addition to being representative of the pernicious worldview that is directly responsible for motivating unprincipled behavior. This wanton behavior is causing the severe degradation of the biosphere that we all depend on in this life. Back in 2015 I gave Vermont State Government Officials my advice on Vermont's Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP). They did exactly nothing with it. So it goes.

This is 8 years old, but even more valid in 2023 than it was in 2015:
AGelbert comments written to Vermont State Government Officials in regard to The State of Vermont's Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP)
SNIPPET:
In regard to private land and grounds in front of government buildings, why doesn't Vermont outlaw all local ordinances that require having a sterile, chemically polluted lawn that requires a lawn mower spewing totally unregulated emissions?

Is this a throw back from the European castle tradition of having a low cut "killing field" in front of the castle? It's time to get rid of that pretty lawn, Vermont. If you don't want to force somebody to do it, at least put a carbon tax on lawns and overrule all local ordinances that require them.

There are a lot of yards in Vermont that can join the fight to have a viable biosphere if the lawmakers would just recognize the importance of having pollution free yards in this battle. It's time to outlaw those signs on lawns that say, 'do not walk on lawn due to chemical treatment". We don't need that pollution and it isn't doing wonders for future generations either. Let the lawn care industry switch to organic yard gardening products.

Read more of my quixotic comment and get in someone's face about using too much energy: (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164555-532108.png)
https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/renewables/the-big-picture-in-renewable-energy-growth/msg1029/#msg1029

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May 11, 2023

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(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422180949.png)

We did it.

Just moments ago, the Vermont House voted 107-42 to override Governor Scott's veto and pass the Affordable Heat Act (S.5) into law, bringing us one step closer to meeting our emissions requirements under the Global Warming Solutions Act and ensuring no Vermonter gets left behind in the transition to cleaner, cheaper heating options.

This is a victory years in the making, and I want to start off by thanking you, our VPIRG members. Our advocates are only as strong as the community behind them, and all the calls, messages, and conversations you had in support of this legislation made the difference between a successful veto override and defeat again.

Our legislators who devoted precious time to debate and improve this bill throughout the year deserve our thanks as well. This legislation was contentious, as is any bill that goes toe to toe with the fossil fuel industry, with the fuel dealers' lobbyists pulling out all the stops and spending tens of thousands of dollars to spread fear and misinformation about S.5. We've set up a page to send a thank you note to all your legislators who voted to pass this bill - please take a moment to thank them, because they deserve it.

This is not the end of the story for the Affordable Heat Act. The Public Utilities Commission now needs to fully design the program, and lay out the costs and benefits. Then the legislature will need to give it final approval one last time in 2025, before it goes into effect in 2026. Those that oppose climate action will surely do all (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040622202719-14071062.gif)🦖 they can to stop, slow, or skew this process, so our leaders will need input from Vermonters like you to see this through.

But for now, let's celebrate (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-110422180553-643238.gif) this victory, and thank the legislators who ultimately made it possible.

Onward together,

Ben Edgerly Walsh
Climate and Energy Program Director, VPIRG

CleanTechnica

May 18, 2023 By Steve Hanley

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl10.glitter-graphics.net%2Fpub%2F2491%2F2491210ovie015m90.gif&hash=c2edc7e32994c57779427e0df75cabac786a12bf)

Vermont Legislature Pushes For End To Polluting Heating Equipment

Vermont wants to lower emissions from heat sources, but has gone about it wrong. There’s a much easier way. (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040622153109-13652067.png)

SNIPPETS:

The law includes provisions to “minimize adverse impacts” to low income households and those with the highest energy burdens, but precisely how those goals are to be met remains somewhat murky.

“For Vermonters who are concerned that they would have limited choices [under the law], my comment to that is, you have limited choices now,” state senator Becca White, one of the top proponents of the new law, told the press last week. “And the only way that we’ll move beyond you being locked into fossil fuels until it’s too expensive to heat your home or cool your home is if we design a system out of it,” she added. ... ...

The upshot of this legislation seems to be the creation of a new state bureaucracy that will administer an insanely complex set of rules that consumers can’t understand without hiring an attorney and an accountant. We suspect Vermont would have been better off following the example of Maine, which is educating its residents about the latest heat pumps that perform well in the 🥶 coldest weather and lower heating bills dramatically 🤠.

Full article: (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164555-532108.png)
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/05/18/vermont-legislature-pushes-for-end-to-polluting-heating-equipment/

AGelbert COMMENT: Thank you Steve for this article. As a resident of Vermont for the last 27 years (I'm not considered a "Vermonter" by locals; you need about 3 to six generations to qualify, depending on how "progressive" the Vermonter you talk to is.), I would like to add a bit of relevant information to your excellent piece on the Affordable Heat Act.

1. Vermont Republican Governor Phil Scott (that, to his credit, DID NOT 👍 vote for 👿 Trump either time) talks a lot about "supporting renewable energy", but definitely does not walk that talk, to put it mildly. He Vetoed the Affordable Heat Act last year. The override of his Veto this time around does not get us anything of substance yet, because the actual implementation is years out and open to all sorts of bureaucratic delays. Scott is far more concerned with the profits of heating oil dealers in Vermont than with a transition to renewable energy. He, of course, says it is about "keeping heating costs from becoming "unaffordable" for poor and middle class Vermonters", but that is just Republican rhetoric. The fact is that heating oil dealers here jack up prices as soon as the temperatures drop during the fall and leave them as high as "the market will bear" until late Spring. It is the poor that are MOST impacted by these annual gouging 🦖😈 fun and games because they (I'm one of them) live hand to mouth and cannot fill their tanks in summer when prices are low, as a rich fellow I knew with a 1,000 gallon heating oil tank routinely did. Scott's silence on THAT tells an objective person that his definition of "poor and middle class" is rather different from reality. I went full electric heating in 2004. I have saved thousands of dollars. Yeah, the inefficiency of electric heating means I used MORE energy than if I had burned kerosene for heat in my 960 sq. ft. manufactured home. The government AND the Electric Power Utilities have had RENEWABLE ENERGY BASED ways to fix THAT for several decades (over half a century, AT LEAST!) now and have NOT, so we-the-poor will do what we 🤠 can to make ends meet in Scott's 🦖🎩 hydrocarbon hellspawn heaven. That said, my small home, and the fact that I have NOT used a water heater since mine failed in 2017, means my carbon footprint is 🌞 smaller than 99% of my fellow American energy spendthrifts. Finally, we drive less than 1,500 miles a YEAR.

2. May 11, 2023

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-190523142514.png)

Ben Edgerly Walsh 👉 Climate and Energy Program Director, 🌞 VPIRG:

Quote

"This is not the end of the story for the Affordable Heat Act. The Public Utilities Commission now needs to fully design the program, and lay out the costs and benefits. Then the legislature will need to give it final approval one last time in 2025, before it goes into effect in 2026. Those that oppose climate action will surely do all 🦖 they can to stop, slow, or skew this process, so our leaders will need input from Vermonters like you to see this through."

3. Heating 🦖 oil and "natural" 🦕 gas providers in Vermont can EASILY transition to Renewable Energy; they just do not want to give up their 💰😈 profit over people and planet "business model". Governer Phil Scott is not part of the solution; he is part of the 🦖🐘💵🎩 PROBLEM.

4. As I wrote in a comment to Vermonter 🌞 Bill Mckibben, a champion of the renewable energy transition, he is absolutely right that the MAIN issue before us is how to use LESS energy, no matter how much cleaner and cheaper we make energy per Kw. Nega-watts PLUS a 100% Renewable Energy Transition is what all of us should work for. The government of Vermont has consistently been dragging their feet on a transition to renewable energy AND reducing the cost of energy for poor and middle class Vermonters, while claiming the opposite. This wanton behavior is causing the severe degradation of the biosphere that we all depend on in this life. Back in 2015 I gave Vermont State Government Officials my advice on Vermont's Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP). They did exactly nothing with it. So it goes. 🤦‍♂️

🌞 AGelbert comments written to Vermont State Government Officials in regard to The State of Vermont's Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP) (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/renewables/the-big-picture-in-renewable-energy-growth/msg1029/#msg1029)

Read more:
🧐 MAY 8, 2023 BILL MCKIBBEN Weather Permitting A few thoughts about 'reform.' (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/renewables/the-big-picture-in-renewable-energy-growth/msg1033/#msg1033)

Learn more:
📢 The 🦖 hydrocarbon fuels industry has been 😈 lying about "natural" gas for nearly a hundred years! (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/fossil-fuel-folly/fossil-fuel-propaganda-modus-operandi/msg791/#msg791)

🚨 Economist Steve Keen: "We need a World War Two mentality to deal with the real breakdown of nature." (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/catastrophic-climate-change/future-earth/msg862/#msg862)

👉 CO2 is plant food so MORE CO2 from Burning Hydrocarbon Fuels is 😒 "GOOD"? 🙄 (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/fossil-fuel-folly/fossil-fuel-propaganda-modus-operandi/msg863/#msg863)

ANOTHER (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-090422150144.png) AGelbert COMMENT: Steve Hanley, I read this yesterday and, though a VERY long shot in our present "more is better" environmentally destructive paradigm, is the ONLY OBJECTIVE WAY to
1. Make CLEAN energy affordable to EVERYONE and
2. Accelerate the transition to a 100% Renewable Energy Based Civilization.

MAY 19, 2023 BY JOHN FEFFER 👍

How to Rapidly Reduce Fossil Fuel Use (or Why ✨ Rationing Works Better Than 💵🦕🦖😈🐍🎩 Markets)

SNIPPETS:
Using rationing to reduce fossil fuel use—especially in the Global North—has already come close to political reality. The UK government commissioned a feasibility study of such a rationing system, Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs), which reported positive findings in 2008, and a significant number of MPs supported the implementation of a TEQs system in 2011. The idea also attracted interest from the European Commission in 2018, because it offered the means to actually implement and achieve the carbon capping targets set by the politicians. ... ...
According to its targets, the UK is supposed to cut its carbon emissions by 68 per cent by 2030 (relative to 1990 levels) in order to reach net zero by 2050. But the government has admitted that even in the best of circumstances—should all projected cuts be made and the latest carbon-capture technology actually work—the UK will still only hit 92 percent of its 2030 goal. In other words, their strategy based on carbon pricing continues to fail.

“There’s been such a focus, and rightly so, on agreeing to globally appropriate carbon budgets that are sufficiently steep to address the problem of climate change, but also not so demanding that that they destroy economies and lives,” Chamberlin explains. “But there’s been so little focus on the parallel question of how we actually reduce Global North emissions by 90 percent in 20 years, or whatever we consider to be radical emissions reductions.”

The plan the UK almost adopted more than a decade ago—Tradable Energy Quotas or TEQs—would have taken a very different approach. “TEQs emerged from a different paradigm to the whole carbon pricing approach,” Chamberlin explains. “There’s this impossible tension built into carbon pricing. We need to make carbon sufficiently expensive that it gets driven out of the economy. But at the same time, we need to keep energy affordable.”

According to the International Energy Agency, however, about 80 percent of global energy still comes from fossil fuels, a level that has remained consistent for decades. “So, if our energy is so highly carbonized, it becomes—unsurprisingly—impossibly difficult to raise the carbon price without raising the energy price,” Chamberlin points out. The carbon pricing approach has not been able to square this circle.

“What TEQs would do is turn that on its head,” he continues. “By removing any need to raise carbon prices, it would unify everybody in common purpose around genuinely shared and actually compatible goals—minimizing the destabilization of our climate while striving to keep energy services available and affordable. And it would make the economy exist within a carbon budget, rather than the other way around.”

TEQs Explained

The TEQs system, established by economist and cultural historian David Fleming in 1996, is a national-level system for capping and then reducing the fossil fuel-based energy consumption of all energy users—individual, institutional, and corporate. ... ...
He continues, “Your entitlement will be an equal proportion of the national carbon budget. If you use less than that, if you are a below-average energy user, then you’ll have some spare left from your entitlement which you receive each week, and you can sell that spare back to the issuer. So, those who are energy-thrifty get a financial benefit from using less. Those who want to use more than their entitlement can buy those spare units, but of course they’re then effectively paying the more energy-thrifty people for the benefit of doing so.”

Full article:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/05/19/how-to-rapidly-reduce-fossil-fuel-use-or-why-rationing-works-better-than-markets/

Yeah, I know. It will be a cold day in Hell before TEQ is adopted and implemented by TPTB 🦕🦖 💵🎩🐘🐍😈🐷 Greedballs 'R' US ruining our future. 😞

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-200523165743.png)

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-190523161348.png)

(https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/all/themes/cleanenergywire/logo.png)

Wednesday, 24 May 2023

Q&A – Germany debates phaseout of 🦖 fossil fuel ☠️ heating systems

After years of neglect, Germany is making concrete plans to reduce the emissions produced through heating the country’s buildings — which are directly responsible for around 15 percent of the country’s entire CO2 output. However, a draft law for a phase-out of fossil fuel-powered boilers has triggered a fierce debate about the decarbonisation of this sector, with critics arguing that the investment costs for climate-friendly solutions like heat pumps will overburden homeowners or tenants. Given fierce resistance from within the government coalition and the opposition, the proposals are set to be amended in the upcoming parliamentary process. (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422180949.png) This Q&A explains the background of the debate, what the draft law specifically states, what it will mean in practice, and why it is so (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040622202540-1395150.gif) controversial. (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164555-532108.png)
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/qa-germany-debates-phaseout-fossil-fuel-heating-systems

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdl10.glitter-graphics.net%2Fpub%2F2491%2F2491210ovie015m90.gif&hash=c2edc7e32994c57779427e0df75cabac786a12bf)

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-120422130903-68837.png)

This commentary is by Peter Sterling 👍🌞, executive director of Renewable Energy Vermont.

June 9, 2023

Peter Sterling: Vermont takes first step toward a fossil-fuel-free energy future

One of the proven ways to tackle the climate change crisis is to “electrify everything.” From the cars we drive to how we heat our homes, we are moving away from polluting fossil fuels to electricity. (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040622153109-13652067.png)

Therefore, it is even more crucial that this electricity comes from cleaner, stably priced renewable sources. After all, it makes little climate sense to buy an electric car and power it with electricity generated by burning 🦖 dirty oil or 🦕 natural gas, as is often the case now 😟 in Vermont.

Fortunately, House Speaker Jill Krowinski recognized this. Despite a legislative session dominated for months by the (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040622210450-1415528.gif) fossil fuel industry’s campaign opposing progress on climate solutions, she championed passage of legislation to update Vermont’s Renewable Energy Standard, setting us on a path toward a cleaner, 100% renewable energy future. (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422180949.png)

This bill brings together a broad working group of stakeholders and legislators to figure out how to get Vermont to a 100% renewable energy future and how these changes might impact our electric grid’s reliability and resiliency, the impact on electric rates, and importantly how any decisions might impact, both positively and negatively, those in low- and moderate-income households.

A broad coalition of organizations committed to reducing global warming through a 100% renewable energy future — VPIRG, 350Vermont, Rights & Democracy, the Vermont chapter of the Sierra Club, Vermont Natural Resources Council, Renewable Energy Vermont, Vermont Conservation Voters and the Conservation Law Foundation — supported the bill, H.320.

There are many reasons why Vermont needs to update its law governing renewable energy.

The current law is outdated. Written in 2015, it calls for just 75% of Vermont’s power to come from renewables by 2032, with just 10% of that generated from new sources, the lowest new renewable energy requirement in New England.

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422133654.gif) It’s way past time to bring Vermont in line with the rest of our region’s commitment to renewable generation, the only way to truly decrease the amount of carbon pollution emitted by New England’s electric generation.

And the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Biden last year, has given Vermont a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring in upward of half a billion dollars in federal money to help Vermonters make the transition off 🦖 fossil ☠️ fuels and to 🌞 renewables — an amount of money that was unthinkable back in 2015. We cannot afford to leave this federal money unspent.

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-110822211615-18511577.gif)

Due to the interconnected nature of New England’s ⚡ electric grid, every time we in Vermont bring new wind or solar power on line, at some point it will displace dirtier electricity generated elsewhere in New England by burning fossil fuels such as natural gas and oil.

Vermont has no baseload 🦕 natural gas plants. Instead, we rely on 81 such plants located in largely lower-income communities in Massachusetts and Connecticut. In addition, when we need more power during energy “peaks” from heat waves or cold snaps, we rely on dozens of the most costly and dirty fossil fuel “peaker plants” spread throughout New England.

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-100623175718.png)

It’s way past time for Vermont to end its environmentally unjust reliance on these 🦕 power plants in marginalized communities for so much of our energy needs.

Bringing more new renewables online here in Vermont and throughout New England will help curtail the need for these and future heavily polluting facilities and begin the process of alleviating the environmental and health burdens 🦖😈 placed on (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422182057.gif) these communities. (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422145344-560693.png)
https://vtdigger.org/2023/06/09/peter-sterling-vermont-takes-first-step-toward-a-fossil-fuel-free-energy-future/

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-010922153942.jpeg)

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-090422150144.png) AGelbert NOTE: I read this May 19, 2023 article and, though a VERY long shot in our present "more is better" environmentally destructive paradigm, is the ONLY OBJECTIVE WAY to
1. Make CLEAN energy affordable for EVERYONE and
2. Accelerate the transition to a 100% Renewable Energy Based Civilization.

MAY 19, 2023 BY JOHN FEFFER 👍

How to Rapidly Reduce Fossil Fuel Use (or Why ✨ Rationing Works Better Than 💵🦕🦖😈🐍🎩 Markets)

SNIPPETS:
Using rationing to reduce fossil fuel use—especially in the Global North—has already come close to political reality. The UK government commissioned a feasibility study of such a rationing system, Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs), which reported positive findings in 2008, and a significant number of MPs supported the implementation of a TEQs system in 2011. The idea also attracted interest from the European Commission in 2018, because it offered the means to actually implement and achieve the carbon capping targets set by the politicians. ... ...
According to its targets, the UK is supposed to cut its carbon emissions by 68 per cent by 2030 (relative to 1990 levels) in order to reach net zero by 2050. But the government has admitted that even in the best of circumstances—should all projected cuts be made and the latest carbon-capture technology actually work—the UK will still only hit 92 percent of its 2030 goal. In other words, their strategy based on carbon pricing continues to fail.

“There’s been such a focus, and rightly so, on agreeing to globally appropriate carbon budgets that are sufficiently steep to address the problem of climate change, but also not so demanding that that they destroy economies and lives,” Chamberlin explains. “But there’s been so little focus on the parallel question of how we actually reduce Global North emissions by 90 percent in 20 years, or whatever we consider to be radical emissions reductions.”

The plan the UK almost adopted more than a decade ago—Tradable Energy Quotas or TEQs—would have taken a very different approach. “TEQs emerged from a different paradigm to the whole carbon pricing approach,” Chamberlin explains. “There’s this impossible tension built into carbon pricing. We need to make carbon sufficiently expensive that it gets driven out of the economy. But at the same time, we need to keep energy affordable.”

According to the International Energy Agency, however, about 80 percent of global energy still comes from fossil fuels, a level that has remained consistent for decades. “So, if our energy is so highly carbonized, it becomes—unsurprisingly—impossibly difficult to raise the carbon price without raising the energy price,” Chamberlin points out. The carbon pricing approach has not been able to square this circle.

“What TEQs would do is turn that on its head,” he continues. “By removing any need to raise carbon prices, it would unify everybody in common purpose around genuinely shared and actually compatible goals—minimizing the destabilization of our climate while striving to keep energy services available and affordable. And it would make the economy exist within a carbon budget, rather than the other way around.”

TEQs Explained

The TEQs system, established by economist and cultural historian David Fleming in 1996, is a national-level system for capping and then reducing the fossil fuel-based energy consumption of all energy users—individual, institutional, and corporate. ... ...
He continues, “Your entitlement will be an equal proportion of the national carbon budget. If you use less than that, if you are a below-average energy user, then you’ll have some spare left from your entitlement which you receive each week, and you can sell that spare back to the issuer. So, those who are energy-thrifty get a financial benefit from using less. Those who want to use more than their entitlement can buy those spare units, but of course they’re then effectively paying the more energy-thrifty people for the benefit of doing so.”

Full article:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/05/19/how-to-rapidly-reduce-fossil-fuel-use-or-why-rationing-works-better-than-markets/

Yeah, I know. It will be a cold day in Hell before TEQ is adopted and implemented by TPTB 🦕🦖 💵🎩🐘🐍😈🐷 Greedballs 'R' US ruining our future. 😞

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-200523165743.png)

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-190523161348.png)

CleanTechnica

May 26, 2023 By Tina Casey

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-140822180417-18822127.jpeg)

Solar Power (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-120422122343-666305.png) Trumps 🦖🐘👿 Texas Lawmakers (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-080822141006-17272392.gif) As Heat Wave Hits

Wind and solar power got the brushoff from Texas legislators last month, but they might change their tune after a crushing heat wave hit the state.

SNIPPET:

…But 🦖🐘👿 Texas Lawmakers Do Not Heart Renewables

Of course, nothing is equal in states where Republican-dominated legislatures have been deploying their lawmaking powers to quash renewable energy investment. That includes Texas, which became a frontrunner in the race against wind and solar power back in 2021, when legislators passed a law to thwart ESG investing.

That was just for starters. A new series of bills came up for votes during the Texas state legislative session this spring, aimed at providing more support for fossil energy while putting up new barriers against renewable energy.

The first half of the plan succeeded with the establishment of the new Texas Energy Fund, which earmarks $10 billion for new dispatchable generation and improvements to existing power plants. Under the current scenario, that means all the money goes to gas power plants, and only gas power plants, except for a small set-aside meant for emergency generators. Energy storage facilities are not covered by the fund.

Renewable Energy Survives To Fight Another Day (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422144605.png)

Full article (and lots of great comments!): (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164615-5351419.gif)
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/06/26/solar-power-trumps-texas-lawmakers-as-heat-wave-hits/

AGelbert COMMENT: The people of Texas overwhelmingly want Clean Renewable Energy for themselves, their children and their future. The 🦖 hydrocarbon 😈 hellspawn bought and paid for 🐵 politicians do not care about anything but getting regular 💵 bribes from their pollution spewing owners.

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-140822180413-18811555.png)(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-250422171631-1171736.jpeg)

The fact is that the polluters have profited themselves into a corner they cannot get out of. Unlike hydrocarbon based fuels, Renewable Energy is VERY democratic in that it is widely distributed, rather than centralized. All the 🦖😈 corruption 🐘 based hurdles placed to stop the massive adoption of individual house and building Solar and battery storage 🎋Renewable Energy, plus utility provided 💨 Wind Power, will not work. The message Texans are CLEARLY sending the polluters is this:
Hydrocarbon based fuels are going the way of the Dodo Bird.
📢 LIVE WITH IT. 😁

When the history of this ✨ MASSIVE transition to a Renewable Energy BASED Civilizarion is written, I think that the role of ⚡ EVs, though they do absolutely nothing to generate Renewable Energy themselves, will be shown to be KEY in the DOOM of the hydrocarbon fuels "business model" (see graphic below for the explanation). 🌞

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-280622182043.jpeg)

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-250422171638-11732003.jpeg)

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422145533-5682069.png)

CleanTechnica

July 7, 2023 by U.S. Department of Energy The mission of the U.S. Energy Department is to ensure America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions. (https://cleantechnica.com/author/usdoe/)

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-100323192446-23162278.png)Investing In America (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-090822140006.gif) Tour — Highlights From New York & Vermont

Secretary Haaland Highlights Clean Energy, Collaborative Conservation During Investing in America Tour Stops in New York and Vermont

SNIPPET:

In Burlington, Vermont today, Secretary Haaland, Senator Peter Welch, Representative Becca Balint and local leaders discussed historic investments that are helping drive collaborative conservation initiatives in Vermont and across the nation. During the visit, Secretary Haaland highlighted $25 million in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to implement a significant landscape conservation approach for a climate resilient Northern Forest.

Full puff piece: (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040422164647-5372345.gif)
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/07/07/investing-in-america-tour-highlights-from-new-york-vermont/

AGelbert COMMENT: I celebrate this effort on behalf of the 🌲🌳 forests. Forests are in big trouble and they need all the 💰🌞 help they can get. However, this effort cannot be placed in any category but that of "Better, just barely, than nothing". 😕

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-110422141413-626465.png) It seems that the 😈 Republicans are not the only ones who champion 🦍 Kafkaesque survival olympics.

Federal funds allocated to enable poor (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422182057.gif) people (who own, and reside in, their manufactured home in the USA) to install Solar panels and ⚡ Battery storage:

👉 $0.00

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-040622202545-13961729.png) Solar panels and ⚡ Battery storage of photovoltaic harvested renewable energy are Sine qua non to enable poor Americans to transition to CLEAN energy and away from using 🦕 hydrocarbon based polluting fuels for heat AND 🦖 transportation.

I guess ensuring the security and prosperity of poor manufactured home owners in America is not part of the Energy Department's definition of "ensuring 🎩 America’s security and prosperity". 😞 (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-010123182425.jpeg)

Quote

"Capitalist ideology claims that the world is perfectly ordered and everybody is in their place (i.e. everybody gets what they deserve). This self legitmating aspect of Capitalism is Socially Catastrophic. This is the Victorian view of the world." Rob Urie - Author " Zen Economics

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422133654.gif) It REALLY IS the Social Darwinism! (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/who-can-you-trust/corruption-in-government/msg1119/#msg1119)

ANOTHER AGelbert COMMENT: (https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-080822134121-17171971.gif) The poor should be the TOP prority, not the over 100 million people in the poor and lower middle classes IGNORED by Government who need AFFORDABLE ACCESS TO RENEWABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES NOW for the sake of ALL people of good will AND preserving and promoting a viable biosphere!

(https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-060723174802.png)

S.T.

Energy => Renewables => Topic started by: AGelbert on March 26, 2022, 06:09:06 pm