Commentators from Greenpeace to the World Bank agree that climate change is an emergency, threatening civilization and life on our planet. Any solution must involve the control of greenhouse gas emissions by phasing out fossil fuels and switching to alternative technologies that do not impair the human habitat while providing the energy we require to function as a species.
This sobering reality has led some prominent observers to re-embrace nuclear energy. Advocates declare it clean, efficient, economical, and safe. In actuality it is none of these. It is expensive and poses grave dangers to our physical and psychological well-being. According to the US Energy Information Agency, the average nuclear power generating cost is about $100 per megawatt-hour. Compare this with $50 per megawatt-hour for solar and $30 to $40 per megawatt-hour for onshore wind. The financial group Lazard recently said that renewable energy costs are now “at or below the marginal cost of conventional generation”—that is, fossil fuels—and much lower than nuclear.
In theory these high costs and long construction times could be brought down. But we have had more than a half-century to test that theory and it appears have been solidly refuted. Unlike nearly all other technologies, the cost of nuclear power has risen over time. Even its supporters recognize that it has never been cost-competitive in a free-market environment, and its critics point out that the nuclear industry has followed a “negative learning curve.” Both the Nuclear Energy Agency and International Energy Agency have concluded that although nuclear power is a “proven low-carbon source of base-load electricity,” the industry will have to address serious concerns about cost, safety, and waste disposal if it is to play a significant role in addressing the climate-energy nexus.
A bleak new federal report found that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose to levels the world has not seen in at least 800,000 years, highlighting the irreversible and mounting deleterious effects of human activity on the planet, as ABC News reported.
Global carbon dioxide concentrations reached a record of 407.4 parts per million during 2018, the study found. That is 2.4 ppm greater than 2017 and "the highest in the modern instrumental record and in ice core records dating back 800,000 years," the report said, according to CNN.
It wasn't just the amount of carbon dioxide that set record levels. Other greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide also continued a rapid rise into the atmosphere. Together, the global warming power of greenhouse gases was 43 percent stronger than in 1990, according to the State of the Climate report released Monday by the American Meteorological Society, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information.
Everybody knows that ALBANY is the CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE, and how could have it been the hottest month on Earth, if it was not the hottest month ever in Albany?
Closing the deal and getting my signature on a contract should have been a slam dunk for NRG, one of the largest American energy companies and the developer of the project in my community. Instead, my three-month journey through its sales process turned me from a hot lead into an annoyed non-subscriber with a lower opinion of NRG than I had had when the process began.
The fact that many of the negative aspects of my experience are common across community solar marketing is cause for concern. For community solar to get to a breakout point for growth, developers (and their partners and contractors) should take a fresh approach to marketing and sales that’s focused on transparent education and clarity of information.
A CCA is like an electricity "buyers club." By leveraging the purchasing power of tens of thousands of households, a CCA can negotiate for clean electricity at an affordable price. A CCA negotiates the price and generation sources of residents' electricity with a selected supply company, and that supplier becomes the default source of electricity for the households and small businesses in the member municipalities. National Grid continues to deliver and bill for the electricity. While cost is important, the biggest benefit of forming a CCA is that every household is automatically enrolled in the program (except those in the state's Home Energy Assistance Program). From an environmental perspective, it will have the same impact as if every house and small business were to install solar panels on their roofs overnight. Because electricity accounts for 19 percent of our carbon emissions, a CCA that supplies clean electricity will be enormously beneficial.
CCA gives residents more and better electricity choices. Anyone can opt out of the CCA program at any time and at no cost. Residents can switch to another electricity generation mix within the CCA program (if one is offered), back to National Grid, or to another energy supplier entirely. Residents have all the current supply options plus one or more options within the CCA.
Maybe this is good, maybe it's not. Most of these renewable energy projects would be built without local buy-in, because of the state mandates. Not sure if it really makes that much of a difference, but I'll have to watch and look to see if it makes sense to continue in the program or opt-out. I certainly have a lot of concerns with those industrial solar farms that are popping up everywhere.
Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is an inorganic, colorless, odorless, non-flammable, non-toxic extremely potent greenhouse gas, and an excellent electrical insulator.SF 6 has an octahedral geometry, consisting of six fluorine atoms attached to a central sulfur atom. It is a hypervalent molecule. Typical for a nonpolar gas, it is poorly soluble in water but quite soluble in nonpolar organic solvents. It is generally transported as a liquefied compressed gas. It has a density of 6.12 g/L at sea level conditions, considerably higher than the density of air (1.225 g/L).