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PUW: Progressive Energy Stocks Progress Toward Cleaner Energy [view article]
Good article. Thanks for going into the major holdings. Nothing wrong with cleaning up the existing sources and investing in alternative sources as well. An all in approach. Solar and wind should receive equal or greater subsidies but if existing source can be improved all the better. I am more of a no subsidies guy, at a minimum half of the ethanol subsidy should go to solar/wind now, ask Nancy why this isn't happening... Replyier
PUW: Progressive Energy Stocks Progress Toward Cleaner Energy [view article]
Frflyer is right--solar and wind energy producers receive few subisidies and tax credits compared to the amount given to the oil and gas industry, and even biofuels producers. Nonetheless, investment and development has grown in the past few years, and that growth is certain to continue.<br><... you'd like to learn more about renewable energy finance and the future of the renewables market, you should check out the Renewable Energy Finance Forum-Wall Street, held June 18-19 in New York City.<br><br&... brings together financiers, investors, and renewable energy project developers to network and share ideas about the future of the renewable energy industry. One of the official REFF sessions will feature representatives from the American Council on Renewable Energy, the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, New Energy Finance, the Stella Group, and Lazard Freres & Co discussing the economic and policy factors fueling (and constraining) the renewable energy market.<br><b... more information, visit REFFWallStreet.com. ReplyPUW: Progressive Energy Stocks Progress Toward Cleaner Energy [view article]
What will work is to put our efforts into solar and wind and other clean renewable energy. There will never be any fuel to explore for, mine, transport, store, smelt, modify for safe burning, burn or use for fission, or clean up the mess from.As the following shows, we convert to clean energy with current technology.
www.setamericafree.org...
A Blueprint For U.S. Energy Security
And PV solar is within a few years of achieving grid parity. In fact, Nanosolar is probably already there.
"Nanosolar’s founder and chief executive, Martin Roscheisen, claims to be the first solar panel manufacturer to be able to profitably sell solar panels for less than $1 a watt. That is the price at which solar energy becomes less expensive than coal.
With a $1-per-watt panel,” he said, “it is possible to build $2-per-watt systems.
According to the Energy Department, building a new coal plant costs about $2.1 a watt, plus the cost of fuel and emissions, he said."
from www.grinzo.com/energy/.../
Scientific American A Solar Grand Plan
www.sciam.com/article....
How solar thermal and concentrating solar plants in the southwest could power the whole country, using less land than now used for coal mining, 1% of our deserts.
The argument against solar and wind that rests on the supposed problem of intermittency or unsteadiness of their availability hasn't seemed to stopped the Danes.
"There are areas in Denmark and Germany who use more than 40 percent of their electricity from wind. From what I have read, they are less concerned about the intermittency than we are in the United States even though we aren't at 1 pecent yet. Why? Because we are told by the fossil fuel guys, hey, can't use wind, can't use solar, what about the intermittency. If wind gets up to 40 percent of the electricity we use and solar gets up to 40 of the electricity we use, the other percents of electricity we need can be made up from the fossil fuel plants that are still there. If they are run less at full power, they can last a long time. That can be your electricity `battery.'"
gristmill.grist.org/st.../...
Denmark gets 20% of it's energy from wind.
And it isn't stopping Abu Dubai
"Abu Dhabi is not content to just sell you the oil that fuels your SUV; now its going to sell you sunshine to keep your lights on and power your electric car when the internal combustion engine goes the way of the buggy whip. Masdar, the oil-rich emirate’s $15 billion renewable energy venture, and Spanish technology company Sener on Wednesday announced a joint venture called Torresol Energy to build large-scale solar power plants in Australia, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the United States." (specifically, the very same southwest where the SciAm article recommends that Americans build solar plants)
"The irony is too rich to leave unsaid: A leading oil producer invests billions in carbon-free energy while a leading consumer of fossil fuels - the United States - continues to subsidize Big Oil while offering only tepid support for green technology. It is inevitable that climate change will foster the rise of renewable energy - the only question is which countries and companies will profit from the new energy economics. It is entirely possible that the U.S. will trade energy dependence of one kind - on Middle East oil - for another - on Middle East and European solar technology - in the era of global warming. It’s no coincidence that most of the solar energy companies with contracts to build utility-scale power plants in California and the Southwest have overseas roots - Ausra hails from Australia, BrightSource was founded by American-Israeli pioneer Arnold Goldman, Solel is based in Israel and Abengoa is headquartered in Spain."
With as much public money as we spent over 35 years to build the high speed information highway, we could solve the energy problem in a simillar time frame.
Reply
PUW: Progressive Energy Stocks Progress Toward Cleaner Energy [view article]
" Most solar energy firms remain heavily reliant on government subsidies, and politicians may be less likely to dole out funding to such programs as budgets tighten and constituents cope with unemployment and high gas prices."You must be kidding. Nuclear, and especially oil receive far more in subsidies than solar does. And coal is at least as much. The entire alternative energy proposal now in congress is for $6 billion for one yeard. That's for solar, wind, geothermal etc. Oil gets more than ten time that much all by itself.
www.setamericafree.org...
www.monitor.net/monito...
www.progress.org/2003/...
www.eoearth.org/articl...
And one estimate of all the hidden costs of oil is over $800 billion annually. That includes costs like $100 billion for military protection of oil shipments, health costs, environmental costs. It also adds $300 billion to our trade deficit.
Nuclear has big issues with water, the billions of gallons needed to cool the plants. Droughts in the southeast are threatening shutdowns of reactors, with one in Alabama already having been shut down briefly.
The Argonne National Lab says an airliner crashing into a reactor could cause a complete meltdown, even if the containment building isn't compromised
"The total of all oil-related external or “hidden” costs of $825 billion per year. This
total is nearly twice the figure authorized for the Department of Defense in 2006.
To put the figure in further perspective, it is equivalent to adding $8.35 to the price
of a gallon of gasoline refined from Persian Gulf oil. This would raise that figure to
$10.73, making the cost of filling the gasoline tank of a sedan $214.60, and of an
SUV $321.90."
"Federal subsidies to new nuclear power plants are likely between 4 and 8 cents per kWh (levelized), and could well be the determining factor driving the construction of new nuclear power plants. $9 billion per year in the U.S."
Nuclear doesn't make us energy independent.
""The United States and Russia signed a deal that will boost Russian uranium imports to supply the U.S. nuclear industry, the Commerce Department said Friday….
The new agreement permits Russia to supply 20 percent of US reactor fuel until 2020 and to supply the fuel for new reactors quota-free."
"So if, under a President McCain, we build a bunch of new nuclear reactors -- they could be fueled 100 percent by Russia.
I can almost hear Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin saying, "Excellent." "
from: gristmill.grist.org/st...
We import a bigger percentage of our Uranium than our oil.
Nuclear is costlier and more time consuming than solar or wind to get up and running.
"Estimates of the cost to construct nuclear power plants are as high as $4,000 per kilowatt, as compared to about $1,400 per kilowatt for wind projects."
The nuclear industry isn't accountable for safety.
"The nuclear industry has long enjoyed limited liability for nuclear accidents under the Price-Anderson Act, which ensures that taxpayers, not industry, will pay for damages in the event of a serious accident."
Transporting nuclear waste from all over the country to Yucca Mt. Nevada is potentially dangerous, and expensive.
"Part of our electric rates go to payments to the federal Nuclear Waste Fund, which is intended to fund the construction of the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada and pay for transportation of waste to the proposed disposal site. To date, Wisconsin customers have paid about $600 million into this fund." That's just one state.
Dismantling old nuclear reactors is expensive.
"Nuclear plant owners are responsible for costs to dismantle retired units, dispose of waste, and decontaminate the site. Each unit has its own decommissioning trust fund, paid for by customers. Wisconsin ratepayers have spent $1.5 billion for the eventual decommissioning of the Point Beach, Kewaunee, and Genoa plants."
That's $500 million each.
www.cleanwisconsin.org...
"David Fleming, creator of the concept of Tradeable Energy Quotas and author of the forthcoming and rather wonderful “Lean Logic”, has just published The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy, which is a thorough demolition of the case for nuclear power being a solution to peak oil. and climate change. You can down load the pdf. for free here or you can order printed copies here. Like much of David’s writing, it patiently yet assertively builds its arguments, backed up by exhaustive research, to build a case against nuclear power that looks pretty much bulletproof to me." from
www.grinzo.com/energy/.../
transitionculture.org/.../
Link to The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy"
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Editors
General Discussion on STR
Is this a buy or a sell? ReplyNatural Gas: Naturally not Participating [view article]
Shocks come in many sizes and shapes..natural gas has a very bright future. Consider...oil sands development will become more imperative as Peak conventional oil wears on...oil sands are VERY natural gas intensive. Since most of the natural gas in North Americal is also near most of the oil sands (Canada..Alberta)...SH... 1... Agriculture (worldwide) is highly nitrogen fertilizer intensive...fertilizer of every kind is highly Nat Gas intensive...more people..more food...more soil enrichment...SHOCK 2..I'm sure the point is made...the effort is decent but most people on this site are going to expect more than your picture at the top of the page. Reply
Natural Gas: Naturally not Participating [view article]
The people who have trouble with spelling must benewbies to the web. It is the message, not the
spelling.
And the message is this. Gas is used in peoples'
homes. And it is big in the inflation statistics. It
is not allowed for energy producers to just burn it
up because it has a cost advantage over other choices.
Use by power producrs would cause the price to rise and inflation numbers would look terrible, and people
would complain.
And for national security, if the dollar becomes non-convertable, we can just nationalize the gas.
So go ahead and "own" it, but don't think that you
can export it or get a fair price for it. Ever. Reply
Natural Gas: Naturally not Participating [view article]
"...of the likes which we haven't been seen since..." ???? "likelihood of hurricane endued catastrophy" ???? Is this even English? Have to agree with the earlier poster. The sloppiness of this article makes it nearly incomprehensible. Is the analysis as slapdash as the writing? ReplyNatural Gas: Naturally not Participating [view article]
I'm long XTO and CHK. Both are acting well today. But I don't understand why. There is no significant change in the outlook for Nat Gas prices other than the "hope" that we have a cold winter. So, unfortunately, I believe that recent strength in Nat Gas's price is probably just seasonal and unsustainable.I know that vis-a-vis crude, it seems very underpriced and unloved, but that doesn't seem to impress anyone else. No one says buy it because as oil goes, so goes Nat Gas.
Hopefully, in the fullness of time, something will jog the price trend of Nat Gas so it will generate a long term escalation in the associated stock prices of the drillers/producers --- but I'm hard pressed to think of what such a catalyst might be. Reply
Natural Gas: Naturally not Participating [view article]
Thanks for the demeaning comments, now more importantly what’s your take on near term natural gas prices? ReplyGaseseses
Natural Gas: Naturally not Participating [view article]
"...the likely hood of a significant reduction..."Likely hood ?? Robin Hood? Da Mafia??
"...natural gases' inherent volatility..."
gases' ??
A little proofreading goes a long way. Reply