Tag Archives: power

A plan to get solar headed in the right direction — literally

by JovitaLarnach Posted on December 2, 2014

westward ho

A plan to get solar headed in the right direction — literally

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Up here in the northern hemisphere, south-facing solar panels produce the most total electricity. So we should build them to look that direction to make the biggest impact, right? Not so fast, my friend.

Clean energy buffs have been saying for a while that we should point our photovoltaics to the west, not the south, to maximize the value of the juice produced. Westward-facing solar panels capture late-day sunshine (think about it) when electricity demand is highest.

The wonks at utility-software maker OPower know this to be true, and they recently scoured their enormous stockpile of energy data to come up with some new math on the subject (the blog post is well worth reading, or at least looking at the pretty charts). Here’s just one nugget from the analysis of over 100,000 California solar systems:

Overall, 71% of residential systems in the Golden State primarily face the southern sky, while 20% primarily face the western sky. Only around 9% of systems face within 10 degrees of due west — an orientation that’s highly aligned with the needs of the grid, according to recent guidelines from the California Energy Commission.

The Cali solar landscape may begin to tilt toward the west soon, though. Those new guidelines from the CEC, released in September, include a program to give up to $500 to people who build panels that point to the Pacific.

Why is it important, you ask, to provide solar power in the early evening? Well, nine-to-fivers and students come home from work and school and — depending on location and season — turn on the AC or the heat, plug in their rechargeables, run some appliances, and illuminate screens. Meanwhile, the electric utility scrambles to meet this demand as power output from south-facing solar panels wanes. Often, this means firing up natural gas-burning power plants. Sorry climate.

So, if westward-oriented solar panels can offset some of the electricity system’s carbon emissions, why have we been positioning them to aim south? In short, the incentives suck. Most people with solar arrays get paid for the total power generated (or net meter it) at a flat rate. So solar owners and lessees choose to put up panels facing south to make the most money. Who could blame them?

OPower’s study mentions a few ways to fix the issue. First, and easiest, utilities can pay for solar power at varying rates, to reflect the price of power at a particular time of day. Second, solar trackers, which allow panels to follow the sun as it moves from east to west, are getting cheaper. And lastly, tech innovation means better options for storing lots of energy. Large-scale electricity storage makes timing irrelevant — just maximize solar power production and feed it back into the grid as needed!

Until these advances become affordable reality, do your utility a favor and set up your new solar system to look longingly to the west. Your panels want to watch the gorgeous sunset too, you know.

Source:
9% of solar homes are doing something utilities love. Will others follow?

, Outlier.

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A plan to get solar headed in the right direction — literally

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Safer, solar, solar panels, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A plan to get solar headed in the right direction — literally

Here’s a Video of the GOP’s Next Top Obama Investigator Losing a Leg-Wrestling Match to Stephen Colbert

by SunnyBugden Posted on December 1, 2014

Mother Jones

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Next year, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) will take over the chairmanship of the House oversight committee, replacing the current chair, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), as the GOP’s lead investigator. Chaffetz’s position comes with a lot of power—he will be able to subpoena Obama administration officials, and his committee has investigative jurisdiction over nearly every imaginable scandal, from security lapses by the Secret Service to the US Postal Service’s ongoing financial problems. Benghazi is also likely to remain a high priority for the committee under Chaffetz—despite a report released last month by the GOP-run House intelligence committee that debunked nearly every conspiracy theory about the attack.

To better familiarize our readers with the incoming chairman, here’s a video of Chaffetz losing a leg-wrestling match against comedian Stephen Colbert in 2009:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Colbert Report on Facebook

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Here’s a Video of the GOP’s Next Top Obama Investigator Losing a Leg-Wrestling Match to Stephen Colbert

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Walmart isn’t really green, just really big

by ArielO42brir Posted on October 24, 2014

Always low standards. Always.

Walmart isn’t really green, just really big

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24 Oct 2014 1:32 PM

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Please don’t mistake Walmart’s bigness for greenness. Thank you.

On Tuesday, Slate proclaimed that “Walmart is killing the rest of corporate America in solar power adoption” because the company leads the nation in total “installed capacity” — in essence, it has installed more solar panels than anyone else. In reality, Wally World is a greenwashed clean-energy laggard owned by a family that funds anti-solar groups.

Slate’s data, which shows that Walmart has more than double the megawatts than second-place Kohl’s, comes from the Solar Energy Industry Association, a U.S. trade group. But in that same report, Walmart ranked 11th (out of an undisclosed list of megacorporations) in the proportion of facilities with solar power, at just 5 percent. (For comparison, a small business with one facility and one solar installation would score 100 on that test.)

In all, solar, wind, and biomass accounts for just 3 percent of Walmart’s total U.S. electricity use, according to data from the EPA’s Green Power Partnership. And less than one-fifth of the renewable energy the company purchases from offsite is third-party certified, meaning we just have to take Walmart’s word for it. More than 200 organizations in the EPA program meet 100 percent of their electricity use with green sources, including fellow retail giants Whole Foods, Staples, and Kohl’s.

“The idea that Walmart is a major driver behind the growth of solar is pretty ludicrous,” says Stacy Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “Last year, Walmart installed about 16 megawatts of solar power. Homeowners installed about 800 megawatts of solar power,” according to this report.

Then there’s the Walton family, Walmart’s majority owner, which is actively undermining renewables. A recent report from ILSR finds that family members have donated nearly $4.5 million to two dozen organizations — including the infamous lobbying outfit ALEC — that lead the charge against clean energy policy.

The family actually owns a company called Solar First, that builds big arrays for big utilities. But while that may seem like a good thing, it means that the Waltons want us all to remain captive utility customers, not produce our own power. The family has worked to block rooftop solar, even scoring a tiny victory in Arizona last year. It’s a typical family strategy: Walmart tried to pay workers in Mexico with store vouchers.

Solar First, which manufactures its panels mostly in Malaysia, is even working via through the World Trade Organization — the enforcer of globalized free-marketism — to repeal solar incentives in several U.S. states simply because those policies give preference to local producers. Thanks, Walton clan.

In short, the super-rich Waltons and their exorbitantly profitable superstore empire won’t spend an extra dime on green energy if it means foregoing all-out profit maximization. The company’s 2013 Global Responsibility Report apologizes for a decline in renewable energy use thusly: “Walmart U.S. was unable to renegotiate an expiring [renewable power] contract with competitive pricing.”

Money above social responsibility. It’s the Walmart way!

Source:
Walmart Is Killing the Rest of Corporate America in Solar Power Adoption

, Slate.

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Walmart isn’t really green, just really big

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, green energy, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, solar, solar panels, solar power, Uncategorized, wind energy, wind power | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Walmart isn’t really green, just really big

What World Leader Has Done the Most Damage to the Global Economy?

by JaimeLevering Posted on October 17, 2014

Mother Jones

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Who’s worse: Amity Shlaes or Angela Merkel? You have to give the nod to Merkel, of course. Unlike Shlaes, who is limited to cheering on horrifically bad ideas that would immiserate millions, Merkel has the power to actually implement horrifically bad ideas that immiserate millions. And she has. So Merkel it is.

Now, if instead the question were how Merkel compares to, say, John Boehner and Paul Ryan, then it would be a tougher choice. I think Merkel would still win, though. When it comes to bullheaded insistence on terrible economic policy, she’s hard to top.

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What World Leader Has Done the Most Damage to the Global Economy?

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Is Clean, Green Fusion Power In Our Near Future?

by MauriciDoherty Posted on October 15, 2014

Mother Jones

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Fusion is the energy source of the future—and it always will be. That used to be a Unix joke, but in various forms Unix has actually become pretty widespread these days. It runs the server that hosts the web page you’re reading; it’s the underlying guts of Apple’s Mac operating system; and Linux is—well, not really “popular” by any fair definition of the word, but no longer just a fringe OS either.

So maybe fusion is about to break through too:

Lockheed Martin Corp said on Wednesday it had made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready in a decade.

Tom McGuire, who heads the project, said he and a small team had been working on fusion energy at Lockheed’s secretive Skunk Works for about four years, but were now going public to find potential partners in industry and government for their work.

….Initial work demonstrated the feasibility of building a 100-megawatt reactor measuring seven feet by 10 feet….Lockheed said it had shown it could complete a design, build and test it in as little as a year, which should produce an operational reactor in 10 years, McGuire said.

Over at Climate Progress, Jeff Spross is containing his enthusiasm:

At this point, keeping the world under 2°C of global warming will require global greenhouse gas emissions to peak in 2020 and fall rapidly after that….So by Lockheed Martin’s own timeline, their first operational CFR won’t come online until after the peak deadline. To play any meaningful role in decarbonization — either here in America or abroad — they’d have to go from one operational CFR to mass production on a gargantuan scale effectively overnight. More traditional forms of nuclear power face versions of the same problem.

A WW2-style government mobilization might be able to pull off such a feat in the United States. But if the political will was there for such a move, the practical question is why wait for nuclear? Wind and solar are mature technologies in the here and now — as is energy efficiency, which could supply up to 40 percent of the effort to stay below 2°C all by itself.

Jeez. I get where Spross is coming from, but come on. If Lockheed Martin can actually pull this off, it would mean huge amounts of baseload power using existing grid technology. It would mean cheap power from centralized sites. It would mean not having to replace every building in the world with high-efficiency designs. It would mean not having to install wind farms on millions of acres of land. It would mean not having to spend all our political efforts on forcing people to make do with less energy.

More generally, it would mean gobs of green power at no political cost. That’s huge.

The big question is whether Lockheed Martin can actually pull this off. Lots of people before them have thought they were on the right track, after all. But if they can, it’s a game changer. Given the obvious difficulties of selling a green agenda to the world—and the extreme unlikelihood of making that 2020 deadline with existing technologies—I’ll be rooting for Lockheed Martin to pull this off. Cynicism can be overdone.

Source – 

Is Clean, Green Fusion Power In Our Near Future?

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Republicans Already Planning Big Fight Over Nominee They Don’t Even Know Yet

by MaryannBXK Posted on September 26, 2014

Mother Jones

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Attorney General Eric Holder announced his resignation yesterday. The tea party show horses are already in full war cry mode:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) issued a political call to arms for conservatives, saying that outgoing senators should not vote on the nominee during the post-election lame-duck session. “Allowing Democratic senators, many of whom will likely have just been defeated at the polls, to confirm Holder’s successor would be an abuse of power that should not be countenanced,” Cruz said in a statement.

This is pretty plainly part of Cruz’s ongoing effort to be king of the tea party wing of the GOP, since it obviously makes no sense otherwise. Unless Cruz is suggesting that they should be banned completely, then of course business should be conducted during lame duck sessions. What else is Congress supposed to do during those few weeks?

In any case, since Congress has no intention of doing anything worthwhile for the next two years, this means they’ll have plenty of free time for dumb fights that allow them to one-up each other for the tea party vote. The rules of the contest are simple: the dumber and more outrageous your rhetorical firebombs aimed at President Obama, the better you do. It’s sort of like a video game for cretins. I’m sure it’s going to be a barrel of fun.

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Republicans Already Planning Big Fight Over Nominee They Don’t Even Know Yet

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Here’s the Defense of Unsalted Pasta Water That Darden Won’t Make Itself

by ClydeSaylors Posted on September 15, 2014

Mother Jones

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Over at Vox, a virtual water cooler for the world’s most pressing problems, Matt Yglesias tells us that Darden is fighting back against charges that it has mismanaged Olive Garden. But he’s unimpressed with their PowerPoint deck:

The entire Darden counter-presentation has nothing to say about salting the water. And to be clear, this is a 22 slide presentation. They had plenty of opportunity to explain themselves, apologize, or deny it. Instead, they’re just keeping quiet.

Here at MoJo, an entirely different virtual water cooler for the world’s most pressing problems, I don’t know anything about cooking pasta. However, one of my readers claims he does. So here’s the defense that Darden has declined to offer on its own:

I acknowledge that salting the water is a common and recommended practice for both pasta and dried beans, but this practice has the effect of toughening the outer surface of both pasta and beans during the cooking process. If you wait to add salt until after the cooking is completed the texture of the boiled food will be more tender. This does not mean it can’t be “al dente,” which refers to the structure of the complete noodle (or bean), just that the skin or surface is not tough. Try it.

So there you have it. Feel free to discuss this critical issue in comments.

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Here’s the Defense of Unsalted Pasta Water That Darden Won’t Make Itself

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Conservatives Want to Wipe Out Coal Rules…Over a Typo

by JereFlockhart Posted on August 22, 2014

Mother Jones

This story originally appeared on Grist and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

If you can’t beat ’em, point out their typos.

That seems to be the lesson of the D.C. Circuit Court’s recent decision in Halbig v. Sebelius, which could render millions of Americans ineligible for health insurance subsidies on the basis of some sloppy syntax in the Affordable Care Act. After surviving more than 50 repeal votes in the House, a Supreme Court challenge to its constitutionality, and a famously rocky online rollout, health-care reform may end up hobbled by a mere drafting error. And the anti-regulatory crowd wasted no time in launching its next AutoCorrect attack: A new suit asks the D.C. Circuit to nix the president’s biggest climate-change initiative—EPA’s “Clean Power Plan”—due to a 25-year-old mistake in the text of the Clean Air Act.

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Conservatives Want to Wipe Out Coal Rules…Over a Typo

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Vibrant Health Green Vibrance Family Size Power – 60 Day Supply, 25.61-Ounce

by 07ld5ksl Posted on August 8, 2014

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3 New Summer Songs Picked By Critic Jon Young

by Zeniarwpzz Posted on August 4, 2014

Mother Jones

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1. “Is What It Is”

From She Keeps Bees’ Eight Houses

FUTURE GODS

Liner notes: Smokey and languid, Jessica Larrabee croons defiantly, “Be not completely consumed/Do not surrender,” on this hazy ballad, with kindred spirit Sharon Van Etten singing backup.

Behind the music: Larrabee fronted the Philadelphia band the English System before teaming with drummer Andy LaPlant to form the Brooklyn-based duo.

Check it out if you like: Moody chanteuses (Cat Power, Angel Olsen, PJ Harvey).

2. “Pressure”

From My Brightest Diamond’s This Is My Hand

ASTHMATIC KITTY

Liner notes: The fourth MBD album gets off to a rousing start with this joyful brew of marching-band rhythms, xylophone, brass, and Shara Worden’s big, operatic voice.

Behind the music: An alumna of Sufjan Stevens’ band, Worden’s résumé includes collaborations with David Byrne, Matthew Barney, the Blind Boys of Alabama, and the Decemberists.

Check it out if you like: Brainy art-poppers, meaning St. Vincent, tUnE-yArDs, or Joanna Newsom.

3. “To Turn You On”

From Robyn Hitchcock’s The Man Upstairs

YEP ROC

Yep Roc

Liner notes: Hitchcock gives Bryan Ferry’s morose love song a charming, irony-free makeover, setting his surprisingly tender vocal to a delicate chamber-folk arrangement.

Behind the music: The former Soft Boys leader teamed with producer Joe Boyd (Fairport Convention, Anna and Kate McGarrigle) for this vibrant mix of originals and covers (Doors, Psychedelic Furs).

Check it out if you like: Vital vets like Richard Thompson and Marshall Crenshaw.

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3 New Summer Songs Picked By Critic Jon Young

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