CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

The world of solar energy has been tumultuous of late in the United States: the BLM essentially bans solar power projects on public lands, then reverses its decision because of public outcry. Not to mention the inaction in the Senate on one set of renewable energy legislation, and the action in the House on another. Here’s another twist in the road of clean energy promotion.

Ten Million Solar Roofs In Ten Years
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has introduced a new bill into the Senate to help ease the cost for homeowners wanting to install solar panels. The 10 Million Solar Roofs Act of 2008 will offer rebates for up to half the installation costs of solar photovoltaic systems, and would be in place for the next ten years. In addition to private homes and businesses, non-profit organizations, and state and local governments would be eligible for the rebates.

The bill, the text of which is available for download, will be formally filed when the Senate reconvenes on Monday. Co-sponsoring the bill are Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Ben Cardon (D-MD), Arlen Specter (R-PA), John Warner (R-VA), and Robert Menendez (D-NJ).

Fresh contenders have entered the UK wind power debate, as a turbines expert funded by the Renewable Energy Foundation publishes an investigation into a hotly-disputed subject - the variability in output to be expected of a large UK windfarm base.

In a just-released article for the journal Energy Policy, titled Will British weather provide reliable electricity?, consulting engineer Jim Oswald and his co-authors model the output to be expected from a large, 25+ gigawatt UK windfarm collection of the type the government says it would like to see in service by 2020. Wind is generally seen as the renewable technology best suited to the UK climate, and so it forms the bulk of most renewables plans for Blighty.

One of the most frequent criticisms levelled at wind power is variability. That is, when the wind drops (or blows too hard) the windmills stop spinning and you get no power. To begin with, Oswald simulates the output rises and falls that might result from a lot of windfarms distributed around the UK by using Met Office archived data from different points up and down the land. Many wind advocates have argued that with enough windfarms, widely enough distributed, you would get more reliable power output as some windmills would always have wind.

Oswald's analysis says this isn't true, with calm conditions across pretty much all the UK being fairly regular events.

Analysis from 1996 to 2005 shows similar results: large, rapid, and frequent changes of power output being common occurrences ... any national power system has to manage under the worst case conditions likely to occur ... These are not extreme cases, whose frequency is so low as to render the events negligible. Rather, these are representative ...

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Flush with success from drilling into the Trenton-Black River rock formation, Fortuna Energy Co. in Big Flats is poised to explore natural gas deposits in Marcellus Shale in New York and Pennsylvania.

The formation lies 300 to 6,000 feet underground and covers about 54,000 square miles, running from the Southern Tier of New York across Pennsylvania into Ohio and West Virginia. Researchers estimate the shale may contain enough natural gas to match the entire U.S. demand for two years.

The company is already targeting the Marcellus Shale formations in northern Pennsylvania and has plans to drill six pilot wells in Bradford County, Pa., later this year. Four pilot wells into the same formation also have been drilled in Tioga County, N.Y., the company's president James O'Driscoll said Monday during an editorial board meeting at the Elmira Star-Gazette.

More drilling will be scheduled for New York once Gov. David Paterson signs legislation that expands how many acres that drilling through the shale will require. For Trenton-Black River exploration, the wells are spaced about 640 acres apart and the drill bore is vertical. Because Marcellus Shale wells are drilled horizontally, the new law would allow horizontal drilling in several different directions over a 640-acre area, all from a single drill pad.

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Water can be used to fuel a car when used as a supplement to gasoline. In fact, very little water is needed! only one quart of water provides over 1800 gallons of HHO gas which can literally last for months and significantly increase your vehicle's fuel efficiently, improve emissions quality, and save you money.

AUGUSTA, Maine - Two utility companies unveiled plans Tuesday for a $1.9 billion overhaul of Maine’s electricity transmission lines aimed at bolstering reliability and encouraging large-scale wind power development in Aroostook County.

Central Maine Power and Maine Public Service Co. filed applications on Tuesday with state regulators for two massive transmission line projects. If approved as proposed, the projects would likely be paid for by all New England energy consumers with Maine ratepayers accounting for about 8 percent of the cost, officials said.

The first project would build an additional, 345-kilovolt transmission line along the existing CMP corridor, passing through nearly 80 communities from Orrington to Newington, N.H. The $1.4 billion expansion is part of a long-term plan to upgrade the state’s aging power infrastructure, which studies predict could encounter serious reliability problems as early as 2012 without major fixes.

The second project would connect northern Maine communities to the New England power grid. While such a connection has been discussed for years, it was regarded as economically unfeasible until recently when Aroostook County became the hot spot for potential wind farm development in the state.

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Staff at the Public Service Commission now say Iberdrola could be permitted to own wind farms as part of its $4.5 million bid to buy Energy East Corp., provided each wind farm is approved by the state on a case-by-case basis.

PSC staff still opposes Iberdrola owning wind farms or any power plants in the state as a condition of the merger. But, they say, if the commission approves the deal, the Spanish energy conglomerate should have each wind power project reviewed individually, according to a June 26 brief filed on behalf of PSC staff.

The brief was in response to an administrative law judge's June 16 non-binding ruling that Iberdrola should not be permitted to build wind farms in the company's service territories.

It is unlikely the PSC's five commissioners will make a decision at their July 16 meeting. The deadline for all parties to respond to the June 26 filings is Thursday and their review will take senior staff analysts several weeks, PSC spokesman James Denn said.

It is also possible the parties could settle before the commission votes on the matter, Denn said.

The company says it will invest at least $2 billion in wind-power generation in the state if it is permitted to acquire Energy East. Should the merger be approved, PSC staff want measures in place that would require the company to follow through on its promise. The staff has concerns that there are no guarantees that the investments would occur, the filing stated. As Iberdrola builds the plants, the $201 million dedicated to customer benefits could be reduced.

Organizations have come out on both sides of the argument. The New York Consumer Protection Board and state Department of Environmental Conservation support the acquisition. Independent Power Producers of New York says Iberdrola, which is the second-largest wind energy operator in the country, should not be able to produce and provide power. The state prohibits "vertical market power," or the ability for power providers to also operate as power generators.

The bid is supported by key members of the state Legislature, as well as U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, D-NY, and Gov. David Paterson.

Ethanol plants based on food crops are taking a serious hit because of the price hike for grains and the flooding in the Mid-west that has wiped out a significant number of crops. In just the most recent news, Heartland Ethanol is tossing plans to build seven corn ethanol plants in Illinois, and even worse, they’re dissolving the company – all due to feedstock prices. VeraSun Energy is delaying construction at two of their plants because of the flooding.

With corn passing $8 a bushel and a 10% drop in production over the last year, it seems that corn ethanol is finally reaching the end of its popularity (of what little it had left) and corn ethanol plants are either already in, or nearing the red without the prospect of getting funding thanks to the credit crunch.

Corn ethanol is likely just the first of many crop-based ethanols to take an immediate dive, despite the best efforts of biofuel companies. Ethanol stocks are getting downgraded since Citi analysists are predicting more large-scale shut-downs as small and midsize producers will be forced to shut down due to the price issues, representing a loss of between 2-5 billion gallons of ethanol per year. Citigroup analyst David Driscoll is predicting that about 76% of ethanol plants are at risk of shutting down in the next few months. Earth2Tech has counted 11 plants whose operations are suspended just since May (see the above map). Feels a little bit like a rapid downward spiral, doesn't it?

What does this mean for the future of biofuel? Well, most likely it means more research will be going in to cellulosic ethanol and creating fuel from municipal waste, and those companies already working on that technology will get a little more wiggle room from competitors for awhile. Figuring out how to turn trash to fuel is a whole lot more logical than turning crops to fuel anyway. And I suspect fuel from algae will gain in popularity pretty quickly, making coal plants happy since it’s an opportunity for them to “green up” their image among the general population. I highly doubt the shutdowns will do much to change grain prices in the short term.

However, it’s tough to mentally dig ourselves out of yet another boom-to-bust industry in our already flailing economy, especially one that once held so much hope for those that wanted to "go yellow." We’ll just have to watch, wait, and hope that necessity is indeed the mother of invention and some awesome new cellulosic ethanol technology will bust wide open.

A self serving factual misleading statement before FERC by NYISO.

The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) – www.nyiso.com – is a not-for-profit corporation that began operations in 1999. The NYISO operates New York’s bulk electricity grid, administers the state’s wholesale electricity markets, and performs comprehensive reliability planning for the state’s bulk electricity system.

The Capitol is reporting that billionaire and three-time gubernatorial candidate Tom Golisano is planning to pour millions of dollars into the fight for the Senate majority.

Golisano is planning to start his own 527 organization and spend up to $1 million on each candidate he supports - mostly Democrats, but he has not ruled out supporting Republicans. From the story:

Golisano will be supporting Erie County Legislator Kathy Konst (D) in her bid to unseat State Sen. Dale Volker (R-Erie), former boxer Joe Mesi (D) in his primary bid to succeed retiring Sen. Mary Lou Rath (R-Erie) and former State Sen. Rick Dollinger (D-Monroe) in his bid to unseat Sen. Joe Robach (R-Monroe), though Golisano is unlikely to announce these specific candidates at his press conference next week.

This is interesting, as the Buffalo News has a story today with Konst saying that she is “under heavy pressure” to abandon her Congressional bid to run for the state Senate instead. In the story, she talks about meeting with Golisano.

Konst, meanwhile, brings some personal ability to finance the campaign, and said she hopes to get support from Buffalo Sabres owner B. Thomas Golisano, a former gubernatorial candidate who in the past has helped Republicans running for the State Senate.

She said she has met with him and expects his support.

If Golisano decides throw his weight and money behind these candidates, it could change the playing field significantly for the Senate Democrats. Senate Republicans still maintain a fundraising advantage over the Democrats. In these sorts of races, there are diminishing returns as you go up into the millions for each race, but there is a base amount necessary to put a race in play. Golisano’s support of a few specific candidates would allow the Democrats to distribute more resources to fewer fronts and elevate a race that wasn’t even on the radar, such as in Volker’s district, to a Tier 1 race.

Ten years ago, the first gas well in the area's current exploration boom was drilled in Chemung County, and landowners throughout the region signed leases with gas and oil companies during the ensuing years.

Many of those leases are nearing expiration, coming at a time of renewed and even greater interest in the region's natural resources, thanks to the identification of the Marcellus Shale natural gas field as potentially the largest in the nation.

"And we are sitting right on top of it," Lindsay K. Wickham, New York Farm Bureau field adviser and local issues specialist, told some 300 people gathered Monday night at Watkins Glen High School.

Wickham said the thickest point of the gas field in New York appears to be in the area of Broome, Delaware and Sullivan counties. Signing bonuses paid to landowners for drilling leases and promised royalties for production are evidence of the interest companies have in the area.

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