The end all be all

If there's been one 'controversial' portion of my blog thus far, it's the posts where I've talked about the Japanese nuclear crisis, and the changes it might bring to energy around the world. And when I mean controversial, only in the sense that it has garnered the most attention. With that said, I look to bring one last story about the situation in Japan. Following the events and fallout from Fukushima, there has been a growing number of Japanese people calling out for a revolution of renewable energy. Apparently the crisis has spawned several antinuclear protests in Tokyo on a scale that hasn't been seen for decades. Japanese media have estimated that 15,000 have marched through Tokyo calling for the end to all of the nuclear plants in Japan. This may seem like a minimal part of the population, but Japan's people aren't normally known for doing something like this, and I don't blame them after the events that have occurred.

There are now a large growing number of the population that are in favor of completely overhauling their energy system to include a lot more renewable plants instead of updating the current ones to better safety standards. The sentiment, it seems is that there is a larger cost for these nuclear plants than what appears on the surface. The hidden costs of nuclear include aging plants that need to be updated as well as the issue of disposing of spent fuel. Renewables, on the other hand, don't have these waste issues and many in Japan believe that clean energy could supply the necessary energy to Japan through smaller scale production. The group in favor of these renewables wants all of Japan's nuclear plants removed by 2020, which doesn't seem like a reasonable request at all considering how many nuclear plants Japan has. So the culture surrounding nuclear energy has definitely changed within Japan, as expected, but it will be interesting to see if Japan's government follows. I definitely think the culture about nuclear around the world will go in a negative direction over the next few years, but we shall see.

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/0503/Japan-s-nuclear-energy-debate-some-see-spur-for-a-renewable-revolution

Well that ends this blog at least in its current form. This will definitely be the last post concerning renewable energy and possibly the last post of this blog. I may turn this blog into something else (sports, music) if I get an itch to write. I'd like to thank any readers that I may have had over the past four months. It's been a pleasure writing...

The Feds not backing clean energy?

Here's a story that I had never considered and I'm sure most of you haven't either. Apparently, the government has done a very poor job of guaranteeing loans to alternative energy development. This is news to me, as I figured that these loans would be automatic since this sector will be growing in the next few decades. Clean energy companies need these federal loans because private investors are unwilling to fund expensive new technology. What's interesting about this is that the US Government Accountability Office examined the federal loan guarantee program and found that the Energy department has treated applicants for these loans inconsistently, favoring some and disadvantaging others. It looks like if we want consistent results in our renewable energy production then we should be giving out these loans on a consistent basis.

Source: http://michiganmessenger.com/48707/lack-of-federal-loan-guarantees-slows-alternative-energy-development

As Predicted...

According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the outlook for cleaner energy doesn't look as good as it should by 2035. The EIA has released a report (Annual Energy Outlook 2011) that explains in detail future outlook of energy production in the US. There's definitely a lot of information in there, and I actually didn't read it, but took my information from: msnbc. Within this report there's some good news and quite a bit of bad news.

Our energy imports will drop from 25% in 2009 to 17% in 2035, which means that we are becoming less reliant on foreign oil, especially from Saudi Arabia. However, with this comes increased production in natural gas to meet increasing demands, so this doesn't necessarily mean that our energy will become cleaner. This also means that oil prices are expected to increase to about $135 a barrel, so gas will definitely keeping rising in the next 25 years. Renewable energy is also expected to increase, from about 8% of the country's total production in 2009 to about 13% in 2035. So its good that renewables will become a bigger part of USA's energy but its not the nearly 20% that we should have according to the Renewable Portfolio Standards. I believe that renewables are growing at a slower rate than we want is because of the ever increasing demand for more energy as well as the technology gap to get these renewables on the grid. For these renewables to work on the grid properly, many transmission lines with appropriate ratings and power electronics have to be built. Once this technology gets caught up, I think renewable energy production may rise at an exponential rate. That's pretty much where most of the good news ends.

With current laws and regulations set in place, we are set to make very slow growth in terms of renewable energy production. With this in mind, shale gas production will grow fourfold to meet growing energy demands. Coal will be looking at a 25% increase in production from 2009 to 2035, and carbon emissions are also expected to grow, but at a much slower rate than before. Keep in mind that this is a scenario where the current laws and regulations remain in place, but like I've stated earlier, much has to be done within the power electronics sector to get these renewables on the grid to begin producing at a stable rate. I also believe that if corporations became more incentivized to purchase clean energy like Google and Microsoft do, then growth in the renewable sector would increase a substantial amount.

Oh yeah... and GO AMERICA. As I wrote this, Osama was confirmed dead. Truly a historical moment in American history. We'll see how it plays out though.