Smart campus technologies harness the potential to advance everything from productivity to security measures to the operations of the buildings in which students live and study. The United States a…
Source: The Power of the Smart Campus
“When the price of oil was above $100, many of the less developed oil exporting OPEC members decided to capitalize on the high price and cash out by taking loans using the precious liquid as collateral … However, few oil exporters anticipated such an acute oil plunge in such as short time span, which resulted in the value of the collateral tumbling by 70%, and now find themselves have to repay the original loan by remitting as much as three times more oil!”
Here’s one of the dumber borrower schemes out there, and a bunch of clueless governments in oil producing countries are at the heart of it: borrow money and agree to pay back the equivalent amount in barrels of oil, not using the market value of oil at the time the deals are struck, but at the time the loans must be repaid. So loans incurred when oil was above $100 a barrel now must be repaid with oil that is only valued at $40-$50 a barrel, meaning debtors must repay 2 to 3 times the amount of oil they would have had oil prices stayed high. The Chinese, the creditor on the other side of these transactions, receive a lot more oil, but they’re running out of storage and refinery capacity. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:
When the price of oil was above $100, many of the less developed oil…
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Figure 1: Projected Job Growth by Sectors – Green Economy Report, 2011 (1)
“WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Energy today released the agency’s first annual analysis of how changes in America’s energy profile are affecting national employment in multiple energy sectors. By using a combination of existing energy employment data and a new survey of energy sector employers, the inaugural U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER) provides a broad view of the national current energy employment landscape.
USEER examines four sectors of the economy — electric power generation and fuels; transmission, wholesale distribution, and storage; energy efficiency; and motor vehicles — which cumulatively account for almost all of the United States’ energy production and distribution system and roughly 70 percent of U.S. energy consumption. By looking at such a wide portion of the energy economy, USEER can provide the public and policy makers with a clearer picture of how changes in energy technology, systems, and usage are affecting the economy and creating or displacing jobs.
Some key findings of the report include:
3.64 million Americans work in traditional energy industries, including production, transmission, distribution, and storage.
Of these, 600,000 employees contribute to the production of low-carbon electricity, including renewable energy, nuclear energy and low emission natural gas.
An additional 1.9 million Americans are employed, in whole or in part, in energy efficiency.
Roughly 30 percent of the 6.8 million employees in the U.S. construction industry work on energy or building energy efficiency projects.
A copy of the full report is available HERE.
The report also found several energy industries with projected increases in new jobs. Responding to the USEER survey of employers, the energy efficiency sector predicted hiring rates of 14 percent in 2016, or almost 260,000 new hires. Projected hiring rates were at 5 percent within the electric power generation and fuels sector, reflecting overall growth despite a loss of employment in 2015 in the oil and natural gas extraction sectors. Transmission, wholesale distribution, and storage firms anticipate 4 percent employment growth in 2016. Solar energy firms predicted 15 percent job growth over the next year.
Yet even as the report found the opportunity for job growth in many energy sectors, over 70 percent of all employers surveyed found it “difficult or very difficult” to hire new employees with needed skills.
“The transformation of our energy system and the growth of energy efficiency technologies are creating opportunities for thousands of new jobs, especially in energy efficiency and solar,” said David Foster, Senior Advisor on Energy and Industrial Policy at the Department of Energy. “This report gives an important snapshot of energy employment in America, and subsequent reports will provide better information to guide policies and priorities that create new jobs, appropriately train workers, and promote a successful national energy policy.” …” (1)
“…As a rule of thumb, investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency generate about 3 times the amount of jobs that other energy related investments create (gas, oil, coal, nuclear). Average numbers of jobs created per million euro invested (3CSEP):
[…] (2)
Figure 2: Job Generators Comparison Chart (3)
“[…] While much of the debate on climate change and employment has focused on renewables, another and more significant source of jobs from decarbonization has received much less attention. Substantial efficiency gains are technically feasible and economically viable in industry, housing, transportation, and services. Businesses can make a profit and households can enjoy real savings. And spending the surplus on things other than fossil energy will boost an economy’s employment.
For example, the United States is a diversified economy that imports substantial amounts of equipment for renewables. A recent study carefully considered economy-wide effects of reducing emissions by 40 percent by 2030 through a mix of clean energy and energy efficiency (Pollin and others, 2014). It concluded that $200 billion a year in investment would generate a net gain of about 2.7 million jobs: 4.2 million in environmental goods and service sectors and their supply chains but 1.5 million lost in the shrinking fossil- and energy-intensive sectors. The net gain of 2.7 million jobs would reduce the unemployment rate in the 2030 U.S. labor market by about 1.5 percentage points—for example, from 6.5 percent to 5 percent. The authors consider this a conservative estimate; for example, it does not take into account the 1.2 to 1.8 million jobs likely gained from reinvested savings.
Other studies show similar results. A review of 30 studies covering 15 countries and the European Union as a whole found appreciable actual or potential net gains in employment (Poschen, 2015). Most studies considering emission targets in line with the ambitions announced for a Paris agreement in December find net gains on the order of 0.5 to 2.0 percent of total employment, or 15 million to 60 million additional jobs. In emerging market economies such as Brazil, China, Mauritius, and South Africa, green investment was found to accelerate economic growth and employment generation when compared with business as usual. Several studies suggest that more ambitious climate targets would generate greater gains in employment (for a discussion of particular countries, see Poschen, 2015). […]” (3)
(1) http://bit.ly/1RsVAdc
(2) http://1.usa.gov/1Tby7lt
(3) http://bit.ly/1RlUaV8
offshore wind turbine was anchored by the Fukushima Offshore Wind Consortium and is located approximately 12 miles off the cost of Fukushima, a region of Ja
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.hydrogenfuelnews.com
>” The turbine has been built to withstand 65-foot waves.
The 344-foot 7 MW (megawatt) Offshore Hydraulic Drive Turbine features a rotor diameter of 538 feet and three giant blades, each stretching 262 feet in length. The structure is fastened to the seabed by four 20-ton anchors, and loose chains connect the turbine to the seabed, fortifying it against large waves.
One of the chief engineers of the turbine, Katsunobu Shimizu, told NBC News that “These turbines and anchors are designed to withstand 65-foot waves.” He also explained that “here we can get 32-foot-tall tsunamis. That’s why the chains are deliberately slackened.”
The consortium purposely designed the structures to be able to withstand the fierce and unforgiving weather native to Japan’s waters. In fact, this problematic weather even caused issues during the construction of the turbine. Installations had to be reportedly put on hold on four separate occasions because of typhoons.
The offshore wind turbine is one of three planed for the area.
The Fukushima Offshore Wind Consortium is led by Marubeni Corporation and also involves nine other firms, such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which was the company that supplied the turbine. The $401 million project is funded by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, and was created for the purpose of developing and testing the wind technology for additional commercialization, and to bring new industry to the Fukushima region of Japan that was devastated by the earthquake in 2011.
The 7 MW offshore wind turbine is one of three turbines planned for the facility. When the final turbine is installed later this year, the three turbines are expected to generate a combined total of 14 MW. […]”<
Japan is due to switch on a nuclear reactor for the first time in nearly two years on Tuesday, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seeks to reassure a nervous public that tougher standards mean the sector is
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.reuters.com
>” […] Abe and much of Japanese industry want reactors to be restarted to cut fuel imports, but opinion polls show a majority of the public oppose the move after the nuclear crisis triggered by the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
In the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years earlier, the meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi plant caused a release of radioactive material and forced 160,000 from their homes, with many never to return.
The crisis transfixed the world as the government and the Fukushima operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), fumbled their response and took two months to confirm that the reactors had undergone meltdowns.
Kyushu Electric Power said it aimed to restart its No. 1 reactor at its Sendai plant at 0130 GMT on Tuesday (2130 ET on Monday).
The plant on the west coast of Kyushu island is the furthest away of Japan’s reactors from Tokyo, where protesters regularly gather outside Abe’s official residence to oppose atomic energy.
At nearly 1,000 km (600 miles) from the capital, Sendai is closer to Shanghai or Seoul.
A successful restart would mark the culmination of a process whereby reactors had to be relicensed, refitted and vetted under tougher standards that were introduced following the disaster.
While two reactors were allowed to restart for one fuelling cycle in 2012, the whole sector has been shut down since September 2013, forcing Japan to import record amounts of expensive liquefied natural gas.
As well as cutting energy costs, showing it can reboot the industry safely is crucial for Abe’s plans to export nuclear technology, said Malcolm Grimston, a senior research fellow at Imperial College in London.
“Japan also has to rehabilitate itself with the rest of the world’s nuclear industry,” said Grimston.
At the Sendai plant, Kyushu Electric expects to have power supply flowing within a few days if all goes to plan. It aims to start the station’s No. 2 unit in October.
The head of Japan’s atomic watchdog said that the new safety regime meant a repeat of the Fukushima disaster would not happen, but protesters outside the Sendai plant are not convinced.
“You will need to change where you evacuate to depending on the direction of the wind. The current evacuation plan is nonsense,” said Shouhei Nomura, a 79-year-old former worker at a nuclear plant equipment maker, who now opposes atomic energy and is living in a protest camp near the plant.
Of Japan’s 25 reactors at 15 plants for which operators have applied for permission to restart, only five at three plants have been cleared for restart. […]”<
See on Scoop.it – Green & Sustainable News
“It’s a whole new way of thinking about solar energy,” says startup CEO about using transparent solar cells on buildings and electronics.
Sourced through Scoop.it from: news.nationalgeographic.com
>” […] With the help of organic chemistry, transparent solar pioneers have set out to tackle one of solar energy’s greatest frustrations. Although the sun has by far the largest potential of any energy resource available to civilization, our ability to harness that power is limited. Photovoltaic panels mounted on rooftops are at best 20 percent efficient at turning sunlight to electricity.
Research has boosted solar panel efficiency over time. But some scientists argue that to truly take advantage of the sun’s power, we also need to expand the amount of real estate that can be outfitted with solar, by making cells that are nearly or entirely see-through.
“It’s a whole new way of thinking about solar energy, because now you have a lot of potential surface area,” says Miles Barr, chief executive and co-founder of Silicon Valley startup Ubiquitous Energy, a company spun off by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michigan State University. “You can let your imagination run wild. We see this eventually going virtually everywhere.”
Invisible Spectrum Power
Transparent solar is based on a fact about light that is taught in elementary school: The sun transmits energy in the form of invisible ultraviolet and infrared light, as well as visible light. A solar cell that is engineered only to capture light from the invisible ends of the spectrum will allow all other light to pass through; in other words, it will appear transparent.
Organic chemistry is the secret to creating such material. Using just the simple building blocks of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and a few other elements found in all life on Earth, scientists since at least the early 1990s have been working on designing arrays of molecules that are able to transport electrons—in other words, to transmit electric current. […]
Harvesting only the sun’s invisible rays, however, means sacrificing efficiency. That’s why Kopidakis says his team mainly focuses on creating opaque organic solar cells that also capture visible light, though they have worked on transparent solar with a small private company in Maryland called Solar Window Technologies that hopes to market the idea for buildings.
Ubiquitous Energy’s team believes it has hit on an optimal formulation that builds on U.S. government-supported research published by the MIT scientists in 2011.
“There is generally a direct tradeoff between transparency and efficiency levels,” says Barr. “With the approach we’re taking, you can still get a significant amount of energy at high transparency levels.”
Barr says that Ubiquitous is on track to achieve efficiency of more than 10 percent—less than silicon, but able to be installed more widely. “There are millions and millions of square meters of glass surfaces around us,” says Barr. […]”<
See on Scoop.it – Green Building Design – Architecture & Engineering
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a transportation fuel option is back on the competitive race track, thanks to a part of the temporary (three-month) highway funding bill passed by the U.S. Senate Thursday, according to natural gas vehicle (NGV) advocates. The House-passed version had a similar provision.
Image Source: www.freightlinertrucks.com
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.naturalgasintel.com
>” […] At a Congressional hearing last December, the global energy and procurement director for Atlanta-based UPS called for “removing barriers” to NGVs, adding that if Congress really wanted to accelerate the adoption of LNG use in heavy-duty trucks and more use of U.S.-produced natural gas supplies, it needed to eliminate “disproportionate taxing of LNG compared with diesel fuel.”
Noting that President Obama was expected to sign the latest measure, Newport Beach, CA-based Clean Energy Fuels Corp. said the new leveling provision will effectively lower the tax on LNG by 14.1 cents/gal. Twenty-six state legislatures have already taken similar action, a Clean Energy spokesperson told NGI.
Clean Energy CEO Andrew Littlefair said the use of LNG in heavy-duty trucks, locomotives and large marine vessels has been growing steadily in North America, and “anyone who cares about a cleaner environment and energy independence should be very grateful for what the U.S. Congress has done, making LNG much more competitive.”
Executives with America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA), and the NGVAmerica and American Gas Association (AGA) trade associations echoed Littlefair’s sentiments.
“We applaud Congress for including language to equalize the federal highway excise tax on LNG,” said ANGA CEO Marty Durbin. “This provision has garnered strong bipartisan support over the years, and we are thrilled to see it become law.”
Calling the action a “common-sense change” that will mean greater fuel cost savings, NGVAmerica President Matt Godlewski said the passage of the LNG provision is great news for trucking fleets that are looking for clean-burning fuels. His calculation places the excise tax on LNG at 24.3 cents/DGE, compared to its current 41.3 cents/DGE level, Godlewski said.
“Currently, fleets operating LNG-powered trucks are effectively taxed for their fuel at a rate 70% higher than that of diesel fuel,” he said.
An AGA spokesperson clarified the number to point out that the current federal excise tax on both diesel and LNG is 24.3 cents/gallon, but because LNG does not have the same energy content/gallon of fuel, it takes 1.7 gallons of LNG to equal a gallon of diesel. “Since the excise tax is based on volume (gallons) — not energy content — LNG is taxed at 170% of the rate of diesel on an energy equivalent basis,” he said.
“This provision provides the level playing field that natural gas has needed to reach its full potential as a transportation fuel,” said Kathryn Clay, AGA vice president for policy strategy.
Each of the trade groups has been lobbying Congress for some time to take this corrective action on LNG. Under the new provision, the energy equivalent of a diesel gallon of LNG is defined as having a Btu content of 128,700, which AGA said is equal to 6.06 pounds of LNG.
Separately, the new measure defines the energy equivalent of a gallon of compressed natural gas (CNG) as having a Btu content of 115,400, or 5.66 pounds of CNG. […]”<
See on Scoop.it – Green & Sustainable News
In a fairly radical departure from the principles that normally govern hydroelectric power generation, Austrian engineer Franz Zotlöterer has constructed a low-head power plant that makes use of the kinetic energy inherent in an artificially induced vortex. The water’s vortex energy is collected by a slow moving, large-surface water wheel, making the power station transparent to fish – there are no large pressure differences built up, as happens in normal turbines.
Sourced through Scoop.it from: blog.hasslberger.com
>” […] The aspect of the power plant reminds a bit of an upside-down snail – through a large, straight inlet the water enters tangentially into a round basin, forming a powerful vortex, which finds its outlet at the center bottom of the shallow basin. The turbine does not work on pressure differential but on the dynamic force of the vortex. Not only does this power plant produce a useful output of electricity, it also aerates the water in a gentle way. Indeed, the inventor was looking for an efficient way to aerate the water of a small stream as he hit upon this smart idea of a plant that not only gives air to the medium but also takes from it some of the kinetic energy that is always inherent in a stream.
[…] Zotlöterer’s results are quite respectable. The cost of construction for his plant was half that of a conventional hydroelectric installation of similar yield and the environmental impact is positive, instead of negative.
The diameter of the vortex basin is 5 meters.
The head – difference between the two water levels – is 1,6 meters.
The turbine produced 50.000 kWh in its first year of operation.
Construction cost was 57.000 Euro […] “<
With California’s growing cap-and-trade program expected to yield a budgetary bonanza, lawmakers and interest groups have ample ideas for how to spend the money. Floating proposals ahead of a pivotal period for budget negotiations, they say they want to fund port improvements, pay for heavy-duty trucks and ferries, nurture urban rivers, sponge up carbon in soil and provide discounted bus passes.
Image source: http://mammothlakeshousing.com/120-million-available-through-cap-and-trade-funds-for-affordable-housing-in-ca/
Source: www.sacbee.com
>”[…] Seeking to counteract climate change, lawmakers in 2006 authorized California to establish its first-in-the-nation carbon auction program, compelling businesses to purchase allowances for what they pump into the atmosphere.
By this time last year, the system already had generated hundreds of millions of dollars that were parceled out via the budget, including a controversial annual outlay to support high-speed rail. But this year is different: Oil and gas producers have been obligated to buy permits for the first time, likely generating a multibillion-dollar influx.
“With transportation fuels coming under the cap, there will be more money for years to come. That changes the dynamic,” said Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles. “Because there’s going to be a lot more money, there’s going to be that many more projects competing for dollars.”
Gov. Jerry Brown’s January proposal underestimated the amount available in the coming fiscal year by as much as $3.9 billion and most likely by around $1.3 billion, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. The updated numbers will come this week in Brown’s May revision.
Per a formula established in last year’s budget agreement, 60 percent of the auction dollars will flow to areas such as high-speed rail, urban transit and housing. The remaining 40 percent is up for debate in the Legislature. […]
The competing proposals raise a larger question about what type of project qualifies. Money spent out of the cap-and-trade fund must verifiably work to curtail the greenhouses gases that fuel climate change.
“It is a fee, and we want to spend it appropriately,” said Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, who carried the bill establishing the program.
Critics assailed Brown last year for directing revenue to the high-speed rail project, arguing that carbon reductions wouldn’t materialize for years. Legislative leaders are scrutinizing ideas this year and filtering out proposals that don’t pass muster.
At de León’s prodding, a Senate bill seeking to clean up urban watersheds was amended to seek funding from a different source. Another proposal floated by a range of environmental and community activist groups argued for subsidized bus passes.
“We know that the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California is from transportation, so there a number of ways we are addressing that, and one way of getting cars off the road is improving the choices in public transit,” said Magavern, whose organization was among those making the proposal.
In his January budget, Brown proposed using the money over which lawmakers have control on an array of areas, including energy-efficiency upgrades for public buildings, waste diversion and fire prevention (forest fires pour huge amounts of carbon-thick smoke into the air). That largely holds the line on last year’s proposals.
A potential addition would direct dollars to help water resources. As a prolonged drought has prompted extraordinary conservation mandates from Brown, the administration has been studying the ways in which energy and water overlap.
There, too, policymakers have experts working to quantify how much energy is used in transporting and heating water. If they can establish they’re reducing emissions, they can tap into the cap-and-trade money.
“There are a lot of really smart people working on getting this right,” said Pavley, who has a bill directing the state to study the energy footprint of water systems. “I think it opens up an amazing possible win-win for expenditure of auction revenues.”
With a growing pile of money spurring interest, Pavley said, officials must be vigilant about keeping their focus on cutting greenhouse gases. Sacramento suffers from no shortage of ideas for spending money, but not all of them fit that framework. […]”<
See on Scoop.it – Green & Sustainable News
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