Save money, reduce CO2 emissios as much as planting 3 million trees,
and make local power more reliable.
Most any airport could do this, putting solar panels on rooftops and some of those buffer acres that can’t be used for anything else.
Press release, 18 August 2015,
Kochi airport becomes world’s first to completely operate on solar power,
Cochin International airport… has scripted another chapter in
aviation history Continue reading
The carbon bubble is popping faster than most people imagined,
and renewable sun, wind, and water power is taking over.
Ari Phillips, ThinkProgress, 15 May 2015,
It Only Took Four Months For China To Achieve A Jaw-Dropping Reduction In Carbon Emissions,
China is the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, so small
decreases in its emissions seem like monumental feats when compared
to other countries. According to a new analysis, in the first four
months of 2015, China’s coal use fell almost 8 percent compared to
the same period last year — a reduction in emissions that’s
approximately equal to the total carbon dioxide emissions of the
U.K. over the same period.The analysis, published by Greenpeace and Energydesk China, reviewed
data from a number of sources, including China’s industrial output,
and found that China had reduced its coal output by 6.1 percent in
the first four months of 2015. The research team calculated that the
drop in coal use translates into a nearly 5 percent drop in domestic
CO2 emissions.Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst who worked on the Greenpeace report,
told RTCC that the report shows that China’s industrial output and
thermal power generation are falling while renewable energy sources
like hydro, wind, and solar are growing fast.
Niall McCarthy, Forbes, 12 May 2015,
China’s Revolution In Wind Energy [Infographic], Continue reading
Maybe Southern Company and Georgia Power should listen to Urenco’s owners:
the nuclear industry is flatlining after Fukushima.
Stanley Reed wrote for Dealbook.Nytimes.com 27 May 2013,
Powerhouse of the Uranium Enrichment Industry Seeks an Exit,
The company that operates this uranium enrichment center, Urenco, is
the world leader in the field. It is also plumply profitable. So why
are its owners eager to sell it?The answer, as with many things involving nuclear power, is a
combination of economics, geopolitics and the Promethean prospect of
an energy source that is as potentially green and abundant as deadly
dangerous….
Last month former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Jaczko
said all 104 operating U.S. nuclear power reactors are unsafe.
This month former Indian
Atomic Energy Regulatory Board Chair Gopalakrishnan
says the reactors currently building in India, already three years
behind schedule and now found to incorporate numerous defects and
deficiencies amid gross lack of transparency, must be stopped.
When will the NRC stop the restart of the flawed and non-transparent San Onofre 2?
When will the NRC or GA PSC or the GA legislature or even Southern Company
coming to its senses stop the 19-month-late $1-billion-overbudget
flawed-concrete Plant Vogtle 3 and 4 before they waste any more
of our resources that could be going to solar and wind jobs and energy?
Solar power is going so well worldwide that Deutsche Bank has just
increased its projections for global demand,
noting that India and Italy have already in 2013 reached grid parity
without subsidies with other sources of energy,
and it expects the rest of the world to follow as early as 2014.
The big winner is rooftop solar.
Is Georgia paying attention?
Becky Beetz wrote for Global PV 26 February 2013,
Deutsche Bank: Sustainable solar market expected in 2014,
Buoyed by bullish demand forecasts, and increasing utilization rates
and pricing, Deutsche Bank forecasts a solar market transition from
subsidized to sustainable in 2014. Italy REC solar photovoltaic
plantThe German bank has raised its 2013 global solar demand forecast to
30 GW — representing a 20% year-on-year increase — on
the back of suggestions of strong demand in markets including India,
the U.S., China (around 7 to 10 GW), the U.K. (around 1 to 2 GW),
Germany and Italy (around 2 GW).Rooftop installations are, in particular, expected to be a main
focus, says Deutsche Bank. A trend for projects being planned with
either “minimal/no incentives” has also been observed, despite the
belief that solar policy outlooks are improving, particularly in the
U.S., China and India, and “other emerging markets”.
More analysis by
Jeff Spross in ThinkProgress 3 March 2013,
Solar Report Stunner: Unsubsidized ‘Grid Parity Has Been Reached In India’, Italy–With More Countries Coming in 2014.
As Renew Economy also
points out, this is the third report in the past month
Paul Bowers, CEO of Georgia Power, doubled down on baseload nuclear,
coal, and natural gas for the next fifty years.
What’s he scared of?
Nick Coltrain wrote for OnlineAthens yesterday,
Renewable push not in the cards for Ga. Power,
“Renewable (energy sources are) going to have a sliver,”
Bowers said of fuels to create electricity. “Is it going to be
2 or 4 percent? That’s yet to be determined. Economics will drive
that. But you always remember (that renewable energy is) an
intermittent resource. It’s not one you can depend on 100 percent of
the time.”
One time you can depend on it is hot summer days when everybody is
air conditioning, which is why
Austin Energy flipped in one year
from spouting such nonsense to deploying the most aggressive solar rooftop
rebate program in the country.
Austin Energy did the math and found those rebates would cost
about the same as a coal plant and would generate as much energy.
And when it is needed most, unlike the fossilized baseload grid,
which
left millions without power in the U.S. in June
and
hundreds of millions without power in India in July.
Bowers knows better than the nonsense he just spouted;
as recently as
November 2011 he told Georgia Trend,
Two professors in India have done the math and found that
there’s plenty of available land in India (much of it on rooftops)
to power its billion people on solar energy alone.
And solar uses less water than nuclear or coal, also as we already knew for the U.S.
Today in The Hindu,
India can meet energy needs sans N-power: Study,
According to their study, 4.1 per cent of the total uncultivable and
waste land area in India is enough to meet the projected annual
demand of 3,400 terawatt-hour (TWh) by 2070 by solar energy alone (1
terawatt-hour per year equals 114 megawatts). The land area required
will be further reduced to 3.1 per cent “if we bring the other
potential renewable energy sources of India into picture”,
they claim. They conclude that land availability is not a limiting
constraint for the solar source as believed. According to their
study, 4.1 per cent of the total uncultivable and waste land area in
India is enough to meet the projected annual demand of 3,400
terawatt-hour (TWh) by 2070 by solar energy alone (1 terawatt-hour
per year equals 114 megawatts). The land area required will be
further reduced to 3.1 per cent “if we bring the other
potential renewable energy sources of India into picture”,
they claim. They conclude that land availability is not a limiting
constraint for the solar source as believed.
The graph above shows land occupation needed to generate 1 gigawatt hour (1GWh)
for each of coal, nuclear, hydroelectric, and solar.
It is Figure 3 from the actual study,
Is land really a constraint for the utilitzation of solar energy in India?
by H. Mitavachan and J. Srinivasan, Current Science, Vol. 103, No. 2, pp. 163-168, 25 July 2012.
More from the Hindu article, with graphs from the journal article:
Last month the U.S. grid failed due to heat wave demand, this month, it’s India’s grid. 
There are several common features: coal, baseload, outdated grid, and distributed renewable energy through a smart grid as the solution.
SFGate quoting NY Times, yesterday, India grid failure causes power blackout,
The Ministry of Power was investigating the cause, but officials suggested that part of the problem was probably excessive demand during the torrid summer.
Same as in the U.S. grid failure. Except India did it bigger, according to the Economic Times of India today,
The blackout which has left 600 million people without electricity in one of the world’s most widespread power failures.
Yet officials are in denial, according to the SFGate story:
“This is a one-off situation,” said Ajai Nirula, the chief operating officer of North Delhi Power Limited, which distributes power to nearly 1.2 million people in the region. “Everyone was surprised.”
Well, they shouldn’t be, if they were watching what happened in the U.S. And India gets most of its electricity from coal, whose CO2 emissions contribute to climate change, producing ever-hotter summers. Just like in the U.S.
The story includes a clue to the solution:
