Dubai flooding: Dramatic photos after UAE sees heaviest rainfall in 75 years
Well, folks, you better get used to it.
Money can’t buy the weather. (Although I’m sure some opportunistic entrepreneurs are pitching it.)
Ok, climate deniers, this is what global warming looks like. And it’s likely to start occurring more regularly. From the perspective of a glider pilot, and amateur climatologist, the picture is more clear. Warm air rises till it condenses into clouds. That then unloads unimaginable torrents of rain.
And there you have it.
The sea level is not just rising, the oceans are warming. And that warming causes it to evaporate more quickly and saturate the sky quicker than the air can hold the water. And there you have the recipe for thunderclouds. Big, tall ones that appear to be drenching the right people.
Source: Dubai flooding: Dramatic photos after UAE sees heaviest rainfall in 75 years
I’m a bit tired of the ignorance-based questions being asked on Quora, but I can’t and don’t fault media-based ignorance. But,if I don’t illuminate Fundamental Truths, How will people learn.
Quora? Are there any alternative solutions that could have been considered instead of building a gas-fired backup power plant?
NO!
And that answer is provided by my 35 years in the gas and alternative energy businesses.
Having started Alternative Resource Company in 1986, I’ve examined this space deeply. The company name was shortened to Altresco, which designed the complex business model required to accomplish that goal.
The detailed business structure and formulas for “orchestration” of the 24 stakeholders in a way that stayed sustainably and transparently beneficial to all parties. (However, it’s stayed mysterious to all but Altresco and me since.)
But we also had to develop a natural gas-fired cogeneration facility that did yield the emission-free waste heat we used to replace all combustion of dirty oil at the industrial.
But to clear the skies for a much bigger area, we had to open the natural gas gate from Canada, which shipped us enough otherwise wasted (flared) gas to replace all oil burning in the region.
The bottom line of this message is that natural gas is the only fuel that we could use to provide both reliable emissions-free heat to the industrial and electricity generation to the grid was to use the newly available natural gas.
By substituting emissions-free heat to replace the 200,000 BBls of dirty ship oil the giant industrial complex had been burning for 45 years. The skies of Western Massachusetts became very clear blue.
By 2007, all of the clean natural gas in North America had nearly been used up. Only fracking has kept ample natural gas supplies available, and we need to be grateful that we can generate reliable natural gas electricity.
Getting back to the question. The only way to provide affordable and reliable electricity for the last four decades has been using the cleanest coal generators and nuclear energy whenever possible.
However, neither coal nor nuclear-generating plants are flexible enough to work with intermittent renewable electricity. The only option for retaining reliability while integrating growing renewable electricity has been to find equipment that can ramp up and down quickly.
The only equipment that can provide that flexible reliability is gas-fired generation.
And, before 2007, there was not enough gas in the US to fill the gaps left by retiring coal or nuclear plants.
So, the newly available natural gas is needed to maintain grid reliability without the hulking coal and nuclear plants is natural gas-fired generation. We are fortunate in North America to have the massive new natural gas supplies that fracking provides.
Fundamental Facts about Fracking
It’s time for the truth about fracking. The communities in the areas of fracking are the best and most modern they’ve ever been.
Fracking is the most environmentally beneficial approach ever used to extract oil and clean natural gas. It’s also bringing new prosperity to the communities in the area.
Politicians leveraging “Fracking fears” are demonstrably corrupt and or ignorant about the realities of fracking. It is an example of politics based on weak, inaccurate, but highly promoted mythology.
And, regarding the “fracking advocacies:” This is just one more example of how organizations are just cashing in on the terrifying myths they’ve created to gain donations and other money from well-intended but ignorant patrons.
The reality is that the people located in fracking areas are being far better served and prosperous than they’ve been for decades.
The anti-fracking opponents are utterly ignorant of how and why fracking is such an improvement over the “traditional” carelessly drilled wells that are now abandoned and leaking contamination into the aquifers they drilled through.
The fundamental truth is that the Gaslands movie should have been labeled as the fiction it tells.
The fear-inducing movie presented as an anti-fracking documentary movie, “Gaslands,” was produced to help build irrational fears of “fracking” impacts and depicted the Town of Barnhart as a fracking-caused ghost town.
In reality, Barnhart, TX, today is the finest it’s ever been. Barnhart has experienced several booms and bust cycles, the 1910-2010 agriculture period preceding the movie shot, with the last dooming cycle being related to the human-induced water scarcity from over-pumping the freshwater aquifers in the area for agricultural irrigation.
The advent of fracking brought new modern life to this west Texas town and brought new prosperity to the town and areas surrounding it.
In reality, today’s Barnhart is a success story about how positive the fracking economy is. Rather than obliterated by fracking, it’s become the finest, most modern town it’s ever been with new growth. It’s even listed in Travel Advisor as an interesting and peaceful place to visit.
Top energy news: Wind and solar hit record levels of power generation; and more | World Economic Forum
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Queued Up: Characteristics of Power Plants Seeking Transmission Interconnection | Electricity Markets and Policy Group
For my friends that I’ve discussed some alternative options with, this verifies my position that the amount of superfluous intermittent electricity generation is limitless.
This talk explains why I’ve not been able to explain my thinking to audiences who want to understand.
Over the past 35 years, I’ve brought together several independent power generation businesses in situations considered “impossible.”This talk is humbling and gratifying at the same time. I’ve only been able to say, “We just think differently.”
My thinking has always been oriented toward orchestrating businesses to last at least 20 years or longer. This has made them complex beyond any single stakeholder’s imagination.
Yet, as we start “seeing” each entity, the complexity can be broken down into simple and transparent relationships that all parties can see are in their best interest to maintain and honor their participation enabling agreements.
The occasional saving grace is the side that has what Simon calls infinite thinking and has enough empathy to recognize the other side’s seemingly inexplicable and scripted behavior is based on the truth as they’ve been taught to perceive it.
No matter how much I’ve experienced and learned, I’ll never be a “master”and will always appreciate teachers that reframe my perspectives so I can better understand the “Why” of nearly every situation.
Harmony, and balance, are the magic needed to accomplish the impossible
Harmony and balance are words we don’t hear enough of in “entrepreneurialism.”
Yet they are two invisible keys and core principles of the kingdom of sustainability.
So deeply embedded in the minds of people like Jeff Bezos that it’s autonomic, and a foundation of all regenerative enterprises.
You’ll also find it in the culture of companies like Proctor and Gamble, Bristol Myers, Walmart, and the Indian organization POSOCO which has made it possible, so far, for India’s national GDP to expand tenfold through their management of the Indian National Grid.
I smile, knowing that many people who will instantly understand where I’m coming from are the leaders and dispatch center managers at POSOCO.
(Power system operation Corporation)
Particularly SK Soonee, and friends.
When I was in India in 2013, with the objective sharing my current experience with the North American Grid, Independent, Systems operators (ISOs), and the havoc being caused by the completely unplanned massive surge of new wind generation, and so on. It was unimaginable to nearly everyone that I was not there to sell ANYTHING.
I was there because I’d been involved in initiating Independent private power generation IPP in 1997.
I also felt that India, not being bound by the Politics of the western Renewable energy chaos, might have a chance to bypass some of the turmoil while maintaining the kind of grid reliability the U.S, and EU had enjoyed for decades before being flooded with wind energy that was not anticipated in the Resource, and Transmission planning before 2014.
One of my personal core principles has always been transparently sharing knowledge with my circles of “friends.” I’ve called that “relationship, trust building, and collaboratively gaining understandings of what’s in the cloud front headed our way.
And, long before, during the 90s, when I’d been the “guru” of orchestrating and financing BOT, and BOOT generation projects, without any viable “sovereign (national) guarantee. (Always a requirement of U.S. companies abroad, in developing nations.)
My experience in that area, and with the dozens of countries willing to use EXIM credit to support their process guarantees, most of the “energy” related companies in Japan, Korea, ASEAN, and EU had joined the “portfolio” I consider, and refer to as my “Team.” And once I came to feel that attitude, and broad empathy, my “principle.” is that I never enter into business arrangements where I can’t imagine twenty year balanced, and harmonious relationships.
(Always considered ridiculously naive, by economic participants, with less than five-year horizons. )
NY Times Names Pittsfield, MA as Top 10 City People Moved To
From Altresco’s perspective, all business is designed to create benefits that last a minimum of 20 years.
We developed the Altresco Pittsfield business on that basis. In 1990 we started providing emissions-free heat to the GE Pittsfield Complex, replacing the annual combustion of 200,000 Bbls of the same kind of high pollution Bunker C fuel causing the Covid precursor pollution throughout the industrial world.
The Pittsfield Generation business was not a typical “power Plant” development as has been the standard for the past 20 years.
The Altresco Business system was thoughtfully and collaboratively designed, resulting from transparent collaboration with New England Electric Systems, the six pipeline companies bridging the 2400 miles between the Alberta, Canada, gas producers, and our “co-generating” station, with particular dedication and collaboration between Tenneco Gas Transmission and NEES, the Massachusetts department of environmental quality, DEQE. , and 14 additional participants that allowed the Altresco Pittsfield Facility to operate as a complete utility, nestled under the wing of New England Electric, interconnected to and dispatched by NEPOOL (now NEISO)
Although a “Qualifying Facility” under the PURPA regulation, the “Power Purchase Agreement” with NEES was meticulously crafted to provide much more significant benefit to the 14 individual “stakeholders” than either a “power plant” style development or even New England Electric System themselves could have accomplished alone.
I will soon be posting an acknowledgment thanking and recognizing the 57 Individuals that were members of what turned into a team that was all wholly dedicated to bringing this facility and the peripheral benefits to Upstate Eastern New York and Western Massachusetts.
Source: NY Times Names Pittsfield, MA as Top 10 City People Moved To
MISO approves 2000 miles of new transmission
My question is: How will this transmission improvement improve the “Stranded Power” uptake and reduce curtailments of the growing amount of wind generation in MISO. Is this expansion designed to encourage and incentivize energy storage and other DERs?
Leading Developers Through the Local Government Approval Process – Burns, Figa & Will
This wonderfully clear article written by Attorney Candace Figa is as sound an explanation of the nuances of “project development” as I’ve ever read. Leading Developers Through the Local Government Approval Process – Burns, Figa & Will
I’m also posting this today, on her late husband’s birthday. And in Memoriam of the Honorable Phillip S. Figa, who was the single most impactful man in my professional life, and in every success, Altresco was able to achieve during the 1986-1999 era.
I will always do my best to uphold the values Phil, and the law firm of Burns Figa and Will brought to every transaction and situation globally.
Here are the countries that import the most Russian oil | TheHill
The gift of Ukraine’s solidarity, along with the global support to stop Putin’s aggression is creating a potential win for all of humanity as it’s forcing rapid shifts away from the Russian fossil fuel that’s a huge part of the global carbon emissions.
Russia is irreparably breaching and dissolving the world’s trust as a reliable fuel supplier.
And, an unintended but globally beneficial outcome is a greater carbon emissions reduction TODAY, than the COP26 targets could bring about in decades.
The support for the Ukrainian people is now a fight for a better world.
Nearly all of these countries are taking firm stands against the hideous Putin’s Russian war crimes.
This is driving more broad international carbon reduction than the COP26 agreements because it’s removing the optionality of reduced oil consumption.
Source: Here are the countries that import the most Russian oil | TheHill
Cogeneration has its own set of requirements, and those cannot be met by “grid-connected” cogeneration.
As the first developer, Altresco, to finance, build, and operate a natural gas-fired cogeneration facility at the GE Complex in western Massachusetts, it was imperative to understand how and why 24 different supply chains elements behaved the way we needed.
For me, this physical cogeneration plant is a monument to the intense commitment to the insanely complex collaboration between the 24 stakeholders who became the “community” of people, representing 24 different corporations and agencies.
The plant was running when this picture was taken.
And worth noting is the (new) beautiful blue skies that took the place of 80 years of toxic acid rain-producing industrial pollution. The difference was the “new” availability of clean natural gas.
The ruling the link below takes you to is what the proposed new pipelines, desperately needed in Massachusetts, cannot get.
And there was more in additional rulings that allow natural gas being used for power generation to bypass all of the retail Local Gas Distribution tariffs and pay them a “transportation” charge for moving gas through their pipelines.
(When I’ve tried to help overcome the current blockages of new pipelines into New England, they’ve just blown me off as an old “power plant “developer” that couldn’t possibly know anything they don’t.
We accomplished this through meticulous collaboration with New England Electric System (now National Grid, Tenneco Gas transmission, TransCanada Pipeline, five “independent” natural gas producers in Alberta, Canada, with aggregation by Vectra Energy, and Total petroleum, four different divisions of General Electric, NEPOOL, (now New England ISO), the Department of Environmental Quality Engineering (DEQE) , and another dozen more minor, but critical stakeholders.
The most extraordinary collaboration I’ve ever been part of created positive benefits for all of the direct stakeholders, including the environment.
When I speak of collaboration with the purpose of saving the beauty of our planet, this is the model I’m thinking of.
How much would it cost to power the entire U-S-with solar panels and battery storage?
One of the flaws in the “renewable energy” narrative is that it only addresses electricity consumption, and electricity is only 19% of the energy the U.S. uses.
I don’t know anyone more interested in eliminating “combustion” from our energy mix than I am.
But, I’ve also been scorched by “renewable energy” evangelists for pointing out that if we used the same thermal energy storage that the CSP does, but heated it with the enormous electricity capability we’re not able to use as electricity, we could take out that industrial combustion use fed by gas, and oil.
Here’s another example of what happens with solar generation, when it’s added to the essential “reliability” generation our economy requires.
If you were to add up the wind generation electricity, and this over generated solar electricity and used it to replace the industrial heat in the first chart, we’d see both pollutions and carbon emissions go down a lot.
If we used EV’s to store the extra electricity, rather than the utility-scale batteries, we’d see a massive drop in urban pollution from transportation fuels.
If we do that aggressively, we will be able to use a lot more solar, a lot more wind, the pollution could get closer to today’s covid 19 level pollution, and the oil price would stay so low that the petroleum industry would wither and die.
But there is hope for the fossil fuel industry because, rather than the dirty petroleum products, we’ll still need natural gas.
And we need to use clean natural gas for both industry, heat and making flexible electricity.
A truth that is “inconvenient” is that about is that natural gas is being burned anyway, to avoid methane pollution that’s 26 times worse than CO2.
If we make electricity with it, to replace dirty oil engines, we end up with the greenest of all options.
My point is that we must get over the notion of trying to power an entire economy from one or two sources of energy.
With the combination of Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Hydroelectric, Pumped Hydroelectric Storage, Battery Storage, Thermal Energy Storage, Natural gas, LNG storage, and Nuclear, we can power the whole global economy, with pollution-free electricity plus support the fourth industrial revolution without burning any dirty fuels.
California cities top air pollution list — again | Utility Dive
Covid 19 to the rescue.
Climate has been debatable. Pollution is not.
Pollution is not coming from power generation in any California city. In California, It’s almost all coming from vehicles, because the industry is using clean natural gas.
Industry, and power generation have Nitrous Oxide and particulate limitations.
Vehicles do not. (Big trucks, have Nox limits. Smaller cars, SUVs, light-duty trucks, no.)
Califonia’s pollution has not come from power generation for a long time. It’s traffic.
Utility industry news and analysis for energy professionals.
Source: California cities top air pollution list — again | Utility Dive
Another expression of “Regenerative.”
Amsterdam to embrace ‘doughnut’ model to mend post-coronavirus economy | World news | The Guardian
Dutch officials and British economist to use guide to help city thrive in balance with planet.
Source: Amsterdam to embrace ‘doughnut’ model to mend post-coronavirus economy | World news | The Guardian
Why wait till the economy needs to be fixed, when, in undeveloped areas of countries, considered to be “Developing” we can design it right from the beginning?
In Kenya, only 9 million people, out of the 53 million population, qualify as “consumers” and can buy consumer products. 44 million make less than $3 per/day with 75% of those making less than $1 per day and subsisting on what they can grow on their tiny patches of land.
Yet there are more people than the combined populations of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Sweden. And the Natural Capital, along with renewable energy availability, land, and water is adequate to feed the entire population.
The difference has been that Kenya has only experienced the “extractive capitalism” that takes all of the profits that smallholder farmers might earn, and moves those profits up to the middle men who ship the balance of the “profitability” home.
The proposed “Altresco” Regenerative Business system model” is being designed to bring a fair share of the profitability back to the farmers, so they can become “consumers” and start enjoying the quality of life that will exist when all of the Sustainable development goals have been met.
The Regenerative Capitalism model we are designing, along with utilizing carbon free electricty, is allowing us to design all of the Sustainable Development Goals into the local productivity chain.
From sustainable to regenerative: bold business moves to transform the agriculture system
Yes.
“Regenerative”has a lot of moving parts.
The barriers come up when the plan is to make a sale, rather than creating a business system.
Creating the business system is what the McDonald brothers did without even realizing it till Ray Kroc took his multimixer sales hat off long enough to learn Why they needed them.
At Altresco Pittsfield, we created a business system rather “installing a power plant.” And, that’s the reason no one successfully reverse engineered it. They couldn’t see the system past the parts, and the window that created the opportunity closed before they could.
Today, we’re in Africa, and the situation, and needs, are far bigger than electricity systems can address alone, because there’s no “system” to utilize it.
Six years ago, we discovered, at the location of our now operating farm that all of the resources needed to create a food production system are available.
The actual farming was commenced 5 years ago, using all of the principals now being defined as regenerative, and we now have a proven working “business”with the principles of “regenerative.”already embedded.
We’re ready to ramp up as quickly as capital becomes avaiable, and an additional benefit will be provided to the broader community through transparent sharing as we write, and share the book.
Here’s the Article, and we’re proving that the challenges can be manageable.
____________________________________________________________________
Regenerative practices could bring huge win-wins for farmers, food companies and the environment, implementing them will involve overcoming wide-ranging barrier.
Source https://regenerationinternational.org/2020/01/17/from-sustainable-to-regenerative-bold-business-moves-to-transform-the-agriculture-system
Bringing light to the “darkest” parts of Africa.
Getting lights, food security and discretionary income to 600 million people is achievable. No “charity,” just productive work and fair earnings for the adults in the families
The potential profitability is in the areas of Sub Saharan Africa where no one is looking. And, it’s sustainable productivity that supports business structures where “every party wins”. From the poorest subsistence farmers, up through the entire supply, services, and support tiers of a high value-added processing plant
The only thing new about the approach is the broad-based business model. The revenue model is already working in South Africa where the raw ingredients are grown, and concentrated, frozen or powdered into long shelf life exportable products. The difference between South Africa and the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa has been South Africa’s availability of cheap and reliable electricity.
There are many large underutilized areas of Sub-Saharan Africa that have complete ecosystems capable of growing the needed raw food products. They just lack the reliable energy needed by the value-added segment of the process.
Now, with affordable and reliable clean and renewable electricity that can be near the point of food production, we can bring the capability to do the value-added food processing to the food farming areas.
This will bring a whole new economy to the area by enabling the gross revenue enhancement of food processing. Sustainability is in the fabric of this business model. A new food processing plant using 50 employees, will create a minimum of 1000 peripheral jobs.
Another essential is creating privately owned and managed farmers cooperatives. Business-oriented management at the outset will also provide the capability of maintaining the transparent equitable distribution models. The cooperatives can maintain the new buying power and affordable electrification at the farmer level.
The distributed energy and food processing approach can now make it possible for smallholder farmers to produce and monetize crops that would be lost to spoilage without the markets, and refrigeration capability in the immediate areas of production. Tomatoes, avocados, citrus, extractives for essential oils, can now be grown and processed for far-off markets.
Part of our commitment is to develop this enterprise in a way that also allows others to replicate the successes and avoid repeating the inevitable –Surprises- that accompany first implemented new enterprises.
For more information call or text Bill Williams at 01 303 888 0380, William@Altresco, or connect on Facebook or LinkedIn with William Ross Williams.
©William Ross Williams 12.02.2019.
Let’s all work together!
Don’t throw any of the renewable capacity away! It’ll be worth more than imagined as soon as we put the “third” leg on this “low carbon” stool.
The new abundance of clean natural gas can provide the stability needed to double the usable output from wind and solar.
Plus, making electricty that eliminates the need to burn diesel fuel with electricity is a double win.
The “renewable energy” only show has wreaked instability on our electricity lifelines, and is starting to take down power for whole regions.
By creating what I call gas primary hybrid microgrids where reliability is priority one and than then reduce it’s carbon by 80% using integrated solar, wind and storage, Everybody wins, and no one loses.
Renewable energy was never expected to do more than generate billions of dollars in jobs, and hardware sales in what had become a stagnant situation.
The sale of equipment without correlating it to markets has created a nightmare. Now it’s time to bring “Lets make a difference thinking” back into play so we can create the powerful results we need, and want.
Today, we can create a livable and secure energy future, with much more low carbon electrification that will in turn enable the digitalised 4th Industrial revolution.
All together now, we can turn this world around.
Getting lights, food security and discretionary income to 600 million people is achievable. No “charity,” just productive work and fair earnings for the adults in the families
The potential profitability is in the areas of Sub Saharan Africa where no one is looking. And, it’s sustainable productivity that supports business structures where “every party wins”. From the poorest subsistence farmers, up through the entire supply, services, and support tiers of a high value-added processing plant
The only thing new about the approach is the broad-based business model. The revenue model is already working in South Africa where the raw ingredients are grown, and concentrated, frozen or powdered into long shelf life exportable products. The difference between South Africa and the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa has been South Africa’s availability of cheap and reliable electricity.
There are many large underutilized areas of Sub-Saharan Africa that have complete ecosystems capable of growing the needed raw food products. They just lack the reliable energy needed by the value-added segment of the process.
Now, with affordable and reliable clean and renewable electricity that can be near the point of food production, we can bring the capability to do the value-added food processing to the food farming areas.
This will bring a whole new economy to the area by enabling the gross revenue enhancement of food processing. Sustainability is in the fabric of this business model. A new food processing plant using 50 employees, will create a minimum of 1000 peripheral jobs.
Another essential is creating privately owned and managed farmers cooperatives. Business-oriented management at the outset will also provide the capability of maintaining the transparent equitable distribution models. The cooperatives can maintain the new buying power and affordable electrification at the farmer level.
The distributed energy and food processing approach can now make it possible for smallholder farmers to produce and monetize crops that would be lost to spoilage without the markets, and refrigeration capability in the immediate areas of production. Tomatoes, avocados, citrus, extractives for essential oils, can now be grown and processed for far-off markets.
Part of our commitment is to develop this enterprise in a way that also allows others to replicate the successes and avoid repeating the inevitable –Surprises- that accompany first implemented new enterprises.
For more information call or text Bill Williams at 01 303 888 0380, William@Altresco, or connect on Facebook or LinkedIn with William Ross Williams.
©William Ross Williams 2.16.2019.
Invisible views
Thank you all for joining the audience. My plan is to provide the unbiased and helpful energy strategies that will take renewable and clean energy to the next level.
One of my favorite quotes is “ in order to accomplish the impossible, one must be able to see the invisible “ Lourde Torres. Meralco, Philippines.
My fondest memories are not about financial closings or the ribbon-cutting at power plants. What brings back the joy that will keep me writing, discovering and sharing, are the moments and times when we were all working together toward a common goal that had been ordained by others to be impossible.
The 30-year Altresco journey has taken me around the world, literally, more times than I can count. It has involved visiting at least 34 different countries. (So many that it’s hard to sort out the landscapes in my mind) . but what remains vividly clear are the people I’ve met, and the lessons I learned from them.
These lessons and experiences are the knowledge base that my current views were seeded with. Since the turn of the millennium, I’ve been focused pretty exclusively on energy storage and renewable energy integration.
Over the last decade, my long view attitude has not been attractive to a short view energy business approach. Nonetheless, am very grateful for the amazing and unimaginable progress that the short view go-getters have accomplished. That gratitude is because, as a result of that amazing progress, we are back to the first time in decades where my long-term view is once again compatible.
Seeing the invisible
What our brains see is a really gnarly old tree. It’s about 800 years old. But there’s more. Also in the frame is a view of 2 ½ Billion years of our planet’s history.
That is the “invisible part”
If you will look through the tree to the cliffs in the background, what you are seeing are cliffs that are a thousand feet high, and show a “picture” of nearly every layer of Earth’s evolution.
The shocking comparison this brings to mind is that within a hairs width of time, we have managed to bring about what can turn into yet another noticeable cataclysmic extinction. The only trace of humankind will be petrified trash, laced with plastic that would not petrify.
Come on people, we’re better than this.
The solutions we see among the Altresco team are as clear as the cliffs in the picture are. But what applying today, in order to establish are once you focus on the cliffs instead of the tree. In fact, the core premises are based on an earlier project that we organized, financed, owned and operated. That project not only accomplished the goals we had in mind. It exceeded them in every way.
On that project, we were learning with every step, and honestly, we were also astonished when it all came together. Yet success was not the lesson. It was just the beginning of the lessons we have learned since.
A whole new industry arose as a result of that success, but try as they did, no one ever learned the true secrets that enabled Altresco Pittsfield to become the new benchmark for the industry.
I’m very excited to see the stars back in alignment, but I want to do one thing differently. This new model is going to surpass the beneficial and game-changing impact of the Altresco Pittsfield model.
However, this time we intend to do things in a way that people will be able to replicate, and that we will be able to help them replicate. The probability of success is much higher, and most of all, the transformation this can create is critical.
This go-round, we want to be mentors. and in doing that, our knowledge can be part of the future. rather than just a case study.
The Altresco goal is to create a step by step book explaining how and why the elements need to be assembled. This business opportunity
Let’s skip the mythology and delve into the potential profitability of “refined”Alternative energy.
Our US$10 trillion global energy bill dwarfs what’s needed to limit global heating
Stephen Peake, The Open University
The world’s energy bill for 2022 is set to be the highest ever, topping US$10 trillion (£8.3 trillion). This is the total price paid for all forms of energy across all sectors by all people. Something like 80% of this bill is for coal, oil or gas, or for electricity generated from these fossil fuels.
Our addiction to energy is equivalent to more than 10% of global GDP. Infuriatingly, a lot of the energy we buy goes up in smoke or wasted heat before it even gets a chance to do any useful heating, cooling, cooking, transporting or manufacturing. Energy spending is now greater than total global tax revenue or corporate profits and dwarfs military expenditure. When energy prices are high, as they are now, a good proportion of our overall energy bill becomes profit in the pockets of oil and gas producers.
In the natural world, most species thrive by exquisite optimisation of their energy consumption. Seemingly-lazy animals ensure they use just enough energy to survive – and no more.
Our high-energy, high-carbon human society is rather different. Each year, we spend no less than four times more on our energy bills than we invest to minimize and avoid those bills in the future. The good news is that the tide has turned and annual investments in clean energy (US$1.4 trillion) are now greater than investments in fossil fuel systems (US$1 trillion).
But we still waste energy spectacularly, and we could quickly and practically do something about it. The IPCC has said that “there are options available now in every sector that can at least halve emissions by 2030.”
When energy is expensive and the climate clock is ticking, this is a massive missed opportunity to pump solar and wind energy instead of oil and gas.
COP in context
Numbers involved in the recent COP27 climate negotiations are put to shame by the amount being spent in the real world outside the negotiating rooms.
For instance, a goal to send US$100 billion a year to climate-vulnerable nations by 2020 was introduced in 2009 and enshrined in the 2015 Paris Agreement but has still not been met. The latest figure was US$83.3 billion in 2020.
US$100 billion is just 1% of global consumers’ energy bills. Even the US$1 trillion cost of climate-related loss and damage is still just 10% of our current annual energy bill.
It is still possible, even now, to stick to the Paris Agreement and limit global heating below 2°C through a rapid transition towards clean energy systems. But it will require a lot of investment. By the end of the decade, the amount of extra funding and investment needed to achieve our climate and sustainable development goals will be double the amount the world invests in all kinds of energy this year.
Harnessing the rules of finance and economics
The global economy is of course dynamic. The IEA’s latest energy scenarios are based on a global economy in 2050 of more than double its current size and an increase in human population from 8 billion to just under 10 billion. With long-term historic growth at around 3% a year, things are always changing. This in turn means a lot of investment in infrastructure happens “naturally”. Indeed, each year, around a quarter of our GDP is spent on new machinery, buildings and infrastructure.
But, as part of a shift away from fossil fuels, we could reduce some of that investment in fossil fuel infrastructure, meaning fewer new oil wells, coal power plants, gas pipelines and so on. That money could instead be invested in clean energy systems.
There’s more: investments in energy efficiency and renewables can take into account the avoided future costs of energy along with the environmental and social problems associated with fossil fuels. We call this net incremental investment and cost accounting.
It may not sound sexy, but this way of thinking is possibly our greatest weapon in the fight to limit the costs of climate change. It is why capital investments in the real world are being redirected towards energy efficiency and modern clean energy systems.
While the second law of thermodynamics means we always have to work (often hard) to gather and concentrate energy into forms and products we need, we can do much better at exploiting the laws of finance and economics to tackle climate change. Reducing our global energy bill is the key.
Stephen Peake, Professor of Climate Change and Energy, The Open University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
As IRA drives renewables investment, attention turns to transmission upgrades | S&P Global Market Intelligence
Please retain this article so we can discuss where the $ multi-trillion sustainable alternatives are hidden, and why.
Who Had Good Climate Data in the 70s? Exxon, That’s Who. | Sierra Club
Source: Who Had Good Climate Data in the 70s? Exxon, That’s Who. | Sierra Club
This article describes why everything we’ve been told about “energy” including “Gretta’s” and other’s insane absolutism have grown from seeds the fossil fuel companies started planting over 50 years ago.
By 1967 Exxon scientists had scientifically verified that Global Warming was not only real, but it had also already begun.
Scientists are wrong was the consensus denial position the small coalition of Exxon, its siblings, along with Shell and other oil companies started doing in the 70s, and 80s, active denial phase, realized that pure “denial” was no longer adequate;
Other strategies became mandatory.
OK, so we know we have to disguise our continued perpetuation of climate-changing commerce. We have to have buy-in from every entity we influence.
So, that’s going to take some organizing of “stakeholders,” including the ones that appear to be fossil fuel negative.
along with a controllable that highly respected “climate” advocacies is based on 99% mythology created by the “deniers”
I’m an active advocate of correlated truths and behaviors and have spent my life questioning “why” we’re supposed to accept the”Corrupted ” and misleading mythology as “fact”
Altresco Companies 