Blogcritics Author: molivo

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Spinning Wind Turbines and Bird Death

molivo — Mon, 15 May 2006 18:33:57 EDT

Almost any subject can be spun for political use and this just might be the case with bird loss and wind turbines. Often times one does not know what to believe. Not at all surprisingly, birds have some political clout in the wind arena. California is considering moving an entire wind farm due to the number of people rallying behind bird loss issues. In Massachusetts, there is a large group of opposition stalling the development of a Nantucket Island Wind farm.Looking into this area, birds have it tough. Any number of things may cause their individual deaths or their collective demise. In nature, bird collisions and death are a rather common occurrence. Most of these death happen to younger birds. Overall, about 30% of total first-year bird deaths happen by collision. The biggest cause of bird death however is human infringement due to depleting the environment and collisions with person-made objects. So how much are we impacting the birds? The following list shows the approximate number of U.S. annual bird deaths and the cause.Deaths due to collision:300,000,000 - buildings 200,000,000 - free roaming cats 150,000,000 - transmission and distribution lines 70,000,000 - trucks and autos 60,000,000 - pesticides 50,000,000 - communication towers - doubling by 2010As compared to wind turbines the bird mortality rate is about 2.0 birds per year per tower. Also, it is becoming more common practice to site new wind farm developments out of the way of migratory paths and the increased size of the turbine blades also minimize the chance of bird death on collision.

For the most part the energy field is run by major corporations and regulated by government. Political or corporate motivation aside for the moment... Mike - Ifenergy.com

Climate Change Versus CO2 Capture Technology

molivo — Mon, 8 May 2006 21:19:14 EDT

According to an American Bar Association (ABA) newsletter on energy, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are rising at 2 parts per million (ppm) per year (the newsletter article cites: The discovery of Global Warming). On a comparative basis in the 1700s, CO2 in the atmosphere was at 290 ppm; in 1960 the concentration was at 315 ppm, and it has increased to 370 ppm today. The threshold to avoid catastrophic climate impacts is 450 ppm (35 years to critical at this rate).As we can all see, there is no immediate relief in sight for reducing CO2 emissions and most likely our overall emissions of CO2 will rise as economies such as China and India continue to expand along with other country/economy infrastructure development. In 2005, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report for policy-makers that outlines the critical issues, both benefit and impact, associated with the new CO2 capture technology. The report affirms that CO2 capture technology is both viable and necessary; in relation to this, the report also states that fossil fuels will continue to dominate through the middle of this century.The ifenergy.com post FutureGen Generation Next Power explains CO2 capture technology and CO2 storage. Note that this article explains that there is an associated cost for the reduced emissions -- in the case of FutureGen it's about 10%.Presently Norway, Canada and Algeria use industrial point source CO2 capture plants. New developments are underway in the U.S. as well as Europe. The potential for CO2 capture technology used in widespread application is estimated to be near an overall 40% capture of all global fossil fuel emissions.The ABA newsletter cites that until a legal and regulatory framework is established the full potential of CO2 capture will not be realized. I agree without a legal/regulatory framework, the added construction/operations costs of capture plants make the use of capture technology attractive only from an emission reduction or a climate change standpoint and not from a consumer or business standpoint.

For the most part the energy field is run by major corporations and regulated by government. Political or corporate motivation aside for the moment... Mike - Ifenergy.com

Renewable Energy - Just How Sexy is It?

molivo — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 22:01:35 EDT

This article is co-authored by Hans De Keulenaer and Michael Olivo. Hans De Keulenaer is the Manager for Electricity & Energy at the European Copper Institute. He maintains the Sustainable Energy Blog.Hans establishes the quick stage for this article by providing information on the most attractive countries for renewable technology/energy investment; he also provides some detail about their decision-making considerations for investment in those countries. After Hans' introductory material, Michael provides a brief op-ed commentary.Top Five Countries to Invest in Renewable EnergyAccording to the Ernst & Young Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index, the five most attractive countries for investment are Spain, USA, Germany, UK and India, in that order.The index provides an overall score for renewable technologies that are currently entering the market on a large scale, i.e. wind, solar and biomass. Wind, as the most important renewable from a business perspective today, is weighted 85%, solar and biomass respectively 5% and 10%. For each technology, an index is constructed based on a mixture of infrastructure and technology factors:Infrastructure (35%): Market risk, planning and grid connection issues, cccess to finance Technology (65%): Power offtake attractiveness, tax climate, grant/soft loan availability, market growth potential, current installed base, resource quality, project sizeFinancial aspects, i.e. access to finance, power offtake attractiveness, tax climate and grants/soft loans, often regarded as the critical factor of success for renewable energy sources, are weighted together 35.5%. They're a very necessary, but far from sufficient, condition for development. Setting aside this informative post:So how sexy is renewable energy? I imagine a meeting where a board of directors is considering getting into the new renewable energy arena...Executive Director to the board: "We might consider investing in new wind generation capacity of 500 MW but first we must consider the tax climate, and what about the market risk, and for that matter the grid connection issues? With all this planning and the lack of soft loan availability, I'm not sure if the weighted factors considering the offtake attractiveness would be supported by our infrastructure..."Sounds sexy to me.

For the most part the energy field is run by major corporations and regulated by government. Political or corporate motivation aside for the moment... Mike - Ifenergy.com

Capital Predictions for Alternative Energy

molivo — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 04:48:22 EDT

When it comes to investment in alternative/renewable energy and technology, predictions vary as they usually do, but even more so when entering into unexplored territory -- maybe because all the options are as yet to be laid out. Also, in another factor that plays in, according to various information sources, capital investment in alternative/renewable energy have not quite reached vogue status. However, one source relied upon by industry investors, New Energy Finance, provides the following financial predictions for investment in renewable energy: Currently, only around $US20 billion per year is invested worldwide in renewable energy capacity, mainly wind and solar, with some biomass and biofuels. A further $5 billion is spent on research each year, particularly in hydrogen and fuel cells. We expect this figure to grow to over $100 billion globally within a decade -- a sustained compound annual growth rate of 15-20%. New Energy FinanceSeparately, here's one recent example of an Angel alternative/renewable energy investment as reported by the Associated Press: Venture capitalist John Doerr made his name and fortune with early investments in Netscape Communications Corp., Amazon.com Inc., Google Inc. and other pioneering tech firms that went from scrappy startups to household names... "This field of greentech could be the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century," Doerr said. "There's never been a better time than now to start or accelerate a greentech venture." Full ArticleAnother major player in the energy world is London's Impax Group: Impax ...a financial advisory and asset management Company quoted on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange.The quick summary of what they're up to and into: ...recently launched Impax New Energy Investors LP (the "New Energy Fund"), a private equity fund targeting investments in projects in the renewable energy and related sectors, predominantly in Western Europe. ...raised debt and equity finance for the two largest biomass generators in Europe. ...financial adviser to The Crown Estate for the second round of offshore wind leases, leading to awards worth up to 7.2 GW.There's the overview - for more information New Energy Finance offers a free weekly e-newsletter if you'd like to get more inside this area.

For the most part the energy field is run by major corporations and regulated by government. Political or corporate motivation aside for the moment... Mike - Ifenergy.com