Comments on: Clean Energy Switch to Cost Fossil Industry $4 Trillion by 2020

By: Anti-Wind Propaganda Plot Exposed by DeSmogBlog

Anti-Wind Propaganda Plot Exposed by DeSmogBlog — Wed, 09 May 2012 22:12:27 +0000

[…] ATI is the right-wing “think-tank” behind the lawsuit to harass hockey stick climatologist Michael Mann. Its exposed memo outlines the details of the new propaganda push to turn people against wind power by coordinating the efforts of all the other right-wing groups that are willing to destabilize the climate for centuries for the sake of $4 trillion in profits to be made by fossil energy before 2020. […]

By: Susan Kraemer

Susan Kraemer — Thu, 03 May 2012 02:11:00 +0000

Thanks, interesting. And that is amazing: “In South Australia we got 26% of our electricity from wind last year” I had no idea it was so high.

By: Susan Kraemer

Susan Kraemer — Thu, 03 May 2012 02:00:00 +0000

Thank you Doug. Will fix

By: Ronald Brak

Ronald Brak — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:12:00 +0000

As wind has zero fuel cost and is a price taker rather than a price giver, it has the effect of lowering wholesale electricity prices and owners of current generating capacity don’t like that. But that’s what new technology does, it improves on things and there is nothing to stop these companies from investing in wind power. Here in Australia we have energy companies with both fossil fuel plants and wind turbines. In South Australia we got 26% of our electricity from wind last year and while there were costs to integrating this wind energy into the grid, for consumers they were outweighed by the half a cent or more reduction in wholesale electricity prices caused by wind. But these same companies who have invested in wind power have worked to slow the expansion of point of use solar power. They don’t want solar to drop the daytime price of electricity. I’m afraid they don’t really have the consumer’s best interest at heart. But I knew that from when they tried to manipulate the market to temporarily jack the price of electricity up to $10 a kilowatt-hour in Adelaide.

By: wattleberry

wattleberry — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:12:00 +0000

Whilst the adoption of consumer level generating capacity is a huge benefit, we have to wonder not only how industry is going to react[pardon the pun] but also governments. The levying of tax on fuel and the profits of the power suppliers has always been a major and particularly convenient way of collecting a large proportion of their revenues and they are going to have some serious head-scratching to do in devising a replacement. As this has never been one of their most obvious activities up to now, unless they change their ways we can surely expect less than enthusiastic support from them as well, other than a lot of hot air.
Maybe we can harness that?

By: electric38

electric38 — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:17:00 +0000

Yeah, we have a choice. We could convert the old refineries and coal mines into solar farms, but to see the way these corporate giants have manipulated politics and lawmaking with their earnings… No thank you. Consumer owned solar PV rooftops are the preferred choice. After all the rooftops are there already anyways aren’t they?

By: Susan Kraemer

Susan Kraemer — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:05:00 +0000

Yeah it does seem like a natural combo. There are some hybrids between solar and gas (no coal) in the Middle East/North Africa, one in Egypt IIRC… …. here it is: Kuramayat

http://www.greenprophet.com/2011/11/exclusive-pics-kuraymat-egypt/ where the solar and gas share the same back end of the turbines for steam power.)
And I covered Algeria’s Desertec Sonelgaz project that includes another solar/fossil hybrid

http://www.greenprophet.com/2011/12/3rd-desertec-deal-signed-algerian-solar-will-ship-to-the-eu/

By: Susan Kraemer

Susan Kraemer — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:04:00 +0000

Mostly what they are competing against for now is utility scale wind farms, and there is a huge run up in utility scale solar farms about to come online in the U.S. But there is an enormous change coming – in California with 500 something distributed solar plants over 1 MW now, will have about 17,000 by 2017 (now permitted and in the works) so even the commercial scale (on big box stores etc) distributed is going to really change.

By: RenewableDoug

RenewableDoug — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:00:00 +0000

I was not able to find the IEA report at the link given (http://www.iea.org/papers/2012/Tracking_Clean_Energy_Progress.pdf).

They seem to have gone through a website re-design and I did find it here: http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/Tracking_Clean_Energy_Progress.pdf

By: TomSparc

TomSparc — Wed, 02 May 2012 18:23:00 +0000

Yes, the Dirty Energy Corporations could invest and compete in renewables – but that misses some fundamentals.

Their expertise is in drilling holes in the ground and selling what comes out. The people in the industry only know how to do that – not the high-tech stuff needed to build solar PV and wind turbines.

Also, the fossil corporations have *massive* capital cost sunk in to a framework totally designed for extracting, processing and transporting fossil fuels. They don’t want to throw that away.

Also, these fossil corporations are used to working on *massive*, easy profit margins. That’s not what renewables offer – it’s high volume, low profit margins – with you and me enjoying some of those profits when we sell electricity back to the grid.

The CEOs of these dinosaur corporations have decided the most profitable route for them is to lie and cheat in order to protect the status quo and their multi-trillion dollar industry. They will continue throwing everything they can at undermining the renewable energy revolution.

By: Ross

Ross — Wed, 02 May 2012 18:05:00 +0000

That can also be looked at as a massive incentive for traditional utilities and grid operators to adapt or lose even more revenue to decentralised and locally used renewable power.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 02 May 2012 11:35:00 +0000

Well it is a bit of both.
Most of the big wind frams and utility scale PV are owned by you guested it a large corp. So with clean tech there is a portion which is still own by “utility” companies. As power plants are replaced over the next 10 years, a power company can deciede old dirty way we have always done it or new clean way.

But when individuals and business make there own, they lower their need to buy from the utilities company.

By: dmtk

dmtk — Wed, 02 May 2012 07:45:00 +0000

Wrong.

They want to stick to the model “WE, and only WE, sell energy to YOU” as long as they can.

Renewables change the game fundamentally – consumers can make energy and consumers can sell energy. Energy made for self-consumption will eat their profits.

By: Ronald Brak

Ronald Brak — Wed, 02 May 2012 07:32:00 +0000

Well, in Australia we have a coal plant that uses solar thermal on small scale to heat water and another with solar panels on the roof, but I would guess that it most cases it wouldn’t be worth the cost of retrofitting old coal plants. But that doesn’t mean the workers there can’t be given jobs in clean energy in the same locality.

By: Susan Kraemer

Susan Kraemer — Wed, 02 May 2012 07:26:11 +0000

Yeah it does seem like a natural combo. There are some hybrids between solar and gas (no coal) in the Middle East/North Africa, one in Egypt IIRC… yeah, here it is: Kuramayat http://www.greenprophet.com/2011/11/exclusive-pics-kuraymat-egypt/ where the solar and gas share the same back end of the turbines for steam power.)
And Algeria’s Sonelgaz http://www.greenprophet.com/2011/12/3rd-desertec-deal-signed-algerian-solar-will-ship-to-the-eu/

By: RobS

RobS — Wed, 02 May 2012 06:22:00 +0000

I think there is an untapped market for retrofitting fossil fuel plants, for example you could have a solar tower beside an existing coal plant with its coal furnace removed then pump the molten salt into the existing boiler assembly, you can thereby make use of the existing boilers and turbines and keep many of the existing plant staff which would allay much of the criticism of he technology. If you coud offer communities which rely on coal power industry a renewable upgrade of their local plant which emits no pollution without damaging local employment who but the most fringe of anti renewable ideologues would oppose such a plan?

By: Susan Kraemer

Susan Kraemer — Wed, 02 May 2012 05:09:00 +0000

Agreed. There’s nothing stopping them from making energy that leaves a livable planet for the next generations, except reluctance to start over (financially) with non-damaging energy investing. Penny wise, pound foolish.

By: Ronald Brak

Ronald Brak — Wed, 02 May 2012 04:46:00 +0000

Personally that’s not quite the way I would look at it. Energy companies are in the business of providing us with energy. Fossil fuel plants wear out and companies providing dirty power could have said, “Well, times are a changing,” and replaced them with clean capacity and transitioned to being clean energy providers. So it’s not so much that they stand to lose money, it’s more that they’re fighting tooth and nail and dirty lies so as not to have to change how they make money, and unfortunately damaging the world environment as a result.

By: Wind Farms Not Causing Climate Change, Just Circulating Warmed Air

Wind Farms Not Causing Climate Change, Just Circulating Warmed Air — Wed, 02 May 2012 04:27:59 +0000

[…] of shrews. But climate science is different. The richest industry on the earth is not taking losing $4 trillion to the competition lying down. Climate scientists are in the cross hairs. They need to be more […]