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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (12414)	7/15/2011 9:38:06 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 24232

EIA Shows Start of Major Energy Shift: Can We Keep it Going? By Stephen Lacey on Jul 14, 2011 at 8:37 am Each day, the Energy Information Administration releases a slice of data from its archives illustrating the state of the U.S. energy market. It’s a helpful and often fun resource for anyone who likes energy data. (It can also be a downer, as the charts often show how far we have to go to scale non-hydro renewables.) This chart, showing historic capacity additions to the U.S. electrical mix, is a case in point. To the optimist, it shows the beginning of a massive shift, with wind taking a huge slice of new power plant build-out in the last six years. From 2005 to 2009, wind represented about 35% of installed capacity, and in 2010 represented $11 billion in investment and 25% of new capacity additions. As we saw with hydro in the 40's, coal in the 50's and nuclear in the 70's, we’re realizing the beginning of a new era in energy. But the pessimist may ask: “Where’s everything else?” Indeed, there’s a notable lack of “other,” meaning solar PV, small hydro, geothermal and biomass. The fastest growing sector, solar PV, will put about 2 GW of capacity online in the U.S. this year — very large compared to historic growth, but still small in this context. Small hydro is bogged down in regulatory red tape, new geothermal build-out is moving slowly due to technical and financing issues, and concerns about emissions slowed biomass generation. And all of these resources are suffering from a lack of long-term certainty on the federal level. And, of course, many renewables, like wind power, provide power for less time in a given day than many traditional plants, so their share of total delivered electricity is less than their share of capacity. One wonders what this chart will look like a decade from now. We can only hope it has a lot more color on it. thinkprogress.org

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (12414)	7/15/2011 9:47:43 AM
From: Mannie	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24232

cold & wet in the NW to continue for a while...

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (12414)	7/15/2011 12:34:37 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24232

ECOtality Inc. and car2go team up to bring charging infrastructure to San Diego July 14, 2011 by Katie Gatto ECOtality Inc., a company that works on clean electric transportation and storage technologies, has announced the formation of a partnership with car2go, a car sharing service that is a subsidiary of Daimler North America Corporation. The two companies will be developing a system that will provide a large-scale electric vehicle-charging infrastructure that will be designed to support the first 100-percent electric car-sharing program in North America. The program, which is being put into place in the San Diego metropolitan area, will consist of a fleet of about 300 smart fortwo electric drive vehicles, making it the largest single fleet of electric vehicles in the United States to date. There are expected to be roughly 1000 charging stations deployed in the metro area as part of the project. Jonathan Read, the CEO of ECOtality, had this to say about the project, "Innovative car-sharing programs like car2go's service are pivotal to encouraging the mainstream adoption of electric vehicles. As we deploy approximately 1,000 Blink charging stations in the San Diego region as part of The EV Project, we are creating the robust public infrastructure necessary for car2go's program to succeed. Together, we will show that EVs are a perfect fit for the lifestyle of San Diego drivers." The project is expected to begin late in 2011. Data collected from this first city will be used to understand how consumers use electric vehicles and better understand charging patterns. This data will be used in the roll out of a larger scale program. At an undisclosed point in the future ECOtality hopes to be able to put out a network of 14,000 commercial and residential charging stations in 18 major cities in the United States. The project is partially funded by the U.S. Department of Energy through a federal stimulus grant as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. © 2010 PhysOrg.com physorg.com