Stuart at Early Warning has one of the better blog post titles I've seen in a while, commenting on John Michael Greer's recent pessimistic posts about solar power - Limits on the Thermodynamic Potential of Archdruids. I often read John Michael Greer, the Archdruid. He's a smart and thoughtful guy who worries about some of the same things I worry about, though he tends to have decided they are all hopeless, whereas I tend to see society as having a lot more options than he perceives. He has read very widely and often comes up with interesting historical analogies that hadn't occurred to me, so he's well worth the spot in my reader.
Where he tends to go horribly wrong, and why I think his overall take on the subject is too negative, is when he tries to talk about physics. In a recent series of three posts:
* Energy Follows It's Bliss
* An Exergy Crisis
* Barbarism and Good Brandy
He has been trying to argue that there are fundamental physical barriers to society surviving the transition away from fossil fuels, and getting horribly snarled up.
Now, I am not a working physicist, but I may well be the nearest thing that will admit to reading the Archdruid - I trained ... read more >>
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Coles Hill site has an estimated 119 million pounds of uranium worth over $5 billion at current prices  This blog post is an edited version of an article published in Fuel Cycle Week, V9:N366, March 3, 2010, by International Nuclear Associates, Washington, DC.
The long-awaited study on the environmental and economic impacts of the giant Coles Hills deposit, a proposed uranium mine site in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, will start this month. The National Research Council will undertake an 18-month, $1.4 million review of the question of whether uranium can be mined and milled safely at the site. [study website] What's riding on the outcome is the development of a mine with a NI 43-101 report detailing a measured and indicated resource of 119 million pounds of uranium. Also, according to company managers, Virginia Energy (CVE:VAE) plans construction of a mill capable of producing 3.5 million pounds a year. Large mill needed for the mine The output yield of the mine is expected to be 1-2 lbs of uranium per ton of ore. Assuming the mine operates 350 days/year, the mill would have to process 5,000 tons/day of ore to produce 10,000/lb/day of U308. This is a large mill by ... read more >>
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Last week's GoodCompany Ventures event at the TriBeCa, NY, offices of Green Spaces brought together some of the top minds in early stage and patient capital investing, including Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, Jacob Gray from Murex Investments, Roger Ehrenberg of IA Venture Strategies, and Jacqueline Novogratz of the Acumen Fund, along with yours truly as the "un-moderator." A great dialogue on our "un-panel" ranged from balancing long-term impact with maximizing returns to the need for solid metrics for social return. [Hoping to have a link to video of the panel here next week.] Four GoodCompanys from the inaugural class of 2009 presented, including Black Gold Biofuels, Couchange, CalendarFly, and PublicStuff. Roger Ehrenberg wrote a thoughtful post on his Information Arbitrage blog about the need for a new model for investing in "social" impacts and Jason Keramidas wrote a recap on the GoodCompany blog. Applications for the 2010 Incubator are being accepted here. (Disclosure: I am on the Advisory Board of GoodCompany Ventures.) read more >>
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I spent most of the day in Richmond yesterday attending the first Summit on Virginia's Energy Future. I'll write more about the main topic of the session next week, but a statistic from one of the panelists stuck in my mind for the entire drive home. In describing the risks that utilities take on when investing in new power plants, the President and Chief Nuclear Officer of Dominion Virginia Power, David Heacock, explained that over the sixty year life of such a facility, the cumulative difference between their high and low long-term natural gas price forecasts amounted to $7 billion, equivalent to the entire up-front cost of a nuclear power plant. He also suggested that the value of the difference between their high and low forecasts for the price likely to be imposed on CO2 emissions was in the same ballpark. Despite the recent financial crisis and accompanying loss of confidence in sophisticated risk-monetizing mechanisms that failed so spectacularly to account for low-probability events, some businesses have no choice but to assess risk in terms of its dollar impact. And as government fills in for a number of hopefully-temporary gaps in various markets, it must also grapple ... read more >>
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 This post was prompted by my reading Fred Turner's book " From Counterculture To Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network and the Rise of Digital Utopianism", which looks at the influence Bucky Fuller had on a range of people, in particular Stewart Brand, who helped create first the hippie counterculture and the back to the land movement of the sixties and seventies, then later the cyberculture that grew up around the San Francisco bay area. I won't try to review the book myself as I wouldn't do it justice - but I highly recommend it if you have any interest in this particular piece of history.  Stewart Brand Turner has some great excerpts from his book at "EDGE" magazine - STEWART BRAND MEETS THE CYBERNETIC COUNTERCULTURE. As they came of age, Stewart Brand and others of his generation faced two questions: How could they keep the world from being destroyed by nuclear weapons or by the large-scale, hierarchical governmental and industrial bureaucracies that had built and used them? And how could they assert and preserve their own holistic individuality in the face of such a world?
As he sought to answer those questions, Brand turned first to the study ... read more >>
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 High speed trains at St. Pancras Station in England (Photo: Jon Curnow via flickr) Government sees the future of transportation in high speed rail network As the United States is in the early stages of adding new high speed rail corridors to its one currently in operation, the British government yesterday uncovered its plan for a $45 billion high speed rail corridor that would connect the cities of London and Birmingham, ultimately linking to the northern cities of Manchester and Leeds. Project developers say the 250 mph could cut time to travel the distance between London and Birmingham from 84 minutes down to 49 minutes. “The time has come for Britain to plan seriously for high-speed rail between our major cities,” said Transportation Secretary Lord Adonis. “The high-speed line from London to the Channel tunnel has been a clear success, and many European and Asian countries now have extensive and successful high-speed networks. I believe high-speed rail has a big part to play in Britain’s future.” The first phase of the network buildout will cost up to $25 billion for 128 miles of track from London to the west Midlands, with the projected cost of the full 330-mile ... read more >>
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Siemens will build a new 60Hz gas turbine production plant at its existing facility in Charlotte, North Carolina. The initial investment will be approximately $135m. All Siemens gas turbines for 60Hz markets such as North and South America, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, the Philippines and Japan will be produced in Charlotte. With the start of production in Charlotte slated for the fall of 2011, gas turbine manufacturing, as well as service and other production-related activities, will be concentrated in one location in the US. Siemens said that it will create a global production hub for manufacturing, servicing and other support functions related to the supply of its gas and steam turbines and generators to 60Hz markets. Peter Loscher, president and CEO of Siemens, said: "This decision underscores our commitment to the US. Over the next five years, we expect employment at the Charlotte site to grow to nearly 1,800 people, with more than 1,000 of those positions new to Charlotte. “Furthermore, just in the past three years, Siemens has opened – and subsequently expanded – a wind turbine blade manufacturing plant in Fort Madison, Iowa, now with over 400 ... read more >>
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A new shade of green is gradually sweeping across China’s export manufacturing industry, one that took a while to take root. Companies are riding the environment-friendly wave.
Pressure from the national government and tightening regulations in overseas markets are compelling a growing number of suppliers to modify their business strategies and incorporate ecologically safe processes. The transition is neither extreme nor desperate, but the impact could be widespread as many midsize and small companies are also taking “green” initiatives. Due to the sheer number of these suppliers, they account for a large portion of the pollution and wasteful practices in the country. Irrespective of size, companies are introducing long-term strategies anchored on recycling, waste reduction and sustainable energy adoption. Recycling is the most common practice among factories, one that is carried out internally or through third parties. This, however, goes beyond reusing offcuts and scrap materials. Highly polluting industries such as leather tanning have always been required to invest in wastewater cleaning systems, but very few actually do. Now, many are investing large sums in ... read more >>
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 Four democratic senators have introduced an initiative urging the Obama administration to suspend a U.S. Treasury grant program formed under the Recovery Act. The program enables renewable energy producers to receive grants in lieu of Investment Tax Credit payments, essentially providing valuable financing up-front rather than over a number of tax years. That program has spawned a revival in investments for clean energy projects in the wake of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and is widely lauded by RE industry members.
However, senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Bob Casey (D-Penn.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) are concerned that components for these projects are coming from foreign companies. In other words, they believe funds intended to boost the U.S. economy should be doing just that, not bolstering economies overseas. I absolutely agree with the notion that U.S. dollars should not be spent overseas, but the problem goes deeper than a Recovery Act grant program and ends with one gaping hole in American clean energy policy: a national renewable electricity standard (RES). The grants-in-lieu-of-credits program has been wildly ... read more >>
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The Chinese State Grid company is to join the energy storage seekers this year according to state news agency Xinhua this week. The State Grid is set to build a pilot integrated renewable energy power storage system this year utilising battery technology. The demonstration project is to be built in Zhangjiakou, Hebei and speculators predict the build costs will be circa 20 billion yuan ($2.9 billion). Renewable energy would be utilised to a far greater degree if storage technology can be cracked and made economically feasible. The energy from renewables could be stored in reserve for times when the wind does not blow or sun does not shine. It could also help grid network companies manage and control the amount of renewable electricity coming onto the grid without renewable generators losing out financially. The US Government allocated over US $180m to battery storage companies earlier this year. There are also compressed air and large scale pumped hydro storage projects the country... read more >>
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