Perpetual Innovation

Category: Energy

  • FPL gets approval to charge customers for fracking investment… The Real Story.

    FPL gets approval to charge customers for fracking investment | Tampa Bay Times:

    I was astounded to here that FPL is getting into the Fracking business. There’s this baloney about trying to save some money for their investors. FPL Customers pay, in advance, to drill Nat Gas wells in Alabama, and then reap some of the benefits of the wells, if any, in the form of low NatGas prices in the future.


    It sounds too good to be true. And leaves you shaking your head as to why a publicly regulated power utility would wonder off the path into the woods looking for firewood and NatGas.


    So the Fla PSC rubber stamped the deal. As they always do. (Although the PSC turned down a petition to pay for Federal Lobbying, an obvious red herring in the mix.)

    Comes to find out that NextEra, the parent company of FPL, already has oil drilling interests… 


    There are many reasons why a power company might want to get into the drilling business, but the one given seems like the very last on the list.

    Water, maybe. Fracking takes huge amount of water, as does power generation.

    Pipe lines. Power companies already have massive right-of-ways related to power lines. This seems like a perfect fit: run power through the line and gas through the ground.

    The one I like best would be to capture the NatGas that is flared in oilfields, produce power and send the power off to the grid through wire. We currently flare half of all NatGas produced in the USA. Nobody really wants to talk about it, but probably more than half. (Better to flare it, then release the methane, but still a very ugly and wasteful business).

    Here seems to be the answer: Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) through pipelines to markets, domestic and abroad. We in the US pay only bout 1/3 of what the rest of the world pays for NatGas. At about $3.50 per unit for us, and maybe $10-$12 for most other countries. Liquidification and shipping LNG is in the works on many fronts. Cheniere Energy, Inc.
    (trading symbol LNG) is coming on board with export terminals with a vengeance. 

    Imagine what it will look like when our mountains of NatGas start to look like mountains of dollars.

    So what does this mean in the next era of power utilities? I don’t really know. It should take some time to understand the maze and the interlinking parts. 

    Here is discussion about Spectra Energy (drilling and such) and FPL and the pipeline in existence and/or planned. LAKE.org article. There’s a pipeline through the Gulf…

    So very interesting.

    And, of course, it has to be mentioned: NatGas is far better than that other major fuel (not mentioning any names, like Coal), but it is still not a renewable resources. Non-sustainable, by any other name, is still a broken business model… It’s just a mater of time.

    ‘via Blog this’

  • Energy Efficiency & Renewables… Good signs for both.

    In one recent edition of the New York Times, there were two very positive articles on energy efficiency and improving the cost/kwh of renewables.  The Monday, November 24, 2014, issue featured “Good News on Energy,” by Ralph Cavanagh of theNatural Resources Defense Fund, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/24/opinion/good-news-on-energy.html? and “Solar and Wind energy Start to Win on Price vs. Conventional Fuels,” by Diane Cardwell, http://nyti.ms/1yJq2r0.

    From Cavanagh, peaked energy use occurred in the US in 2007 and has trended downward since with a small increase in 2013.  And, economic growth is increasing more rapidly than the growth in energy usage because technology is making energy sources more efficient.  The LED light bulb is a good example.  Improvements over the last 40 years have done more to meet US energy needs than the combined contributions of oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear power.

    Electricity consumption has decreased since 2000 despite the introduction of new consumer electronics.  Moreover, oil consumption by homes, businesses and vehicles is down 12% since the peak in 2005.  June, 2013, began a 12-month period in which the combined usage of renewables exceeded hydroelectric power.  More than 12% of our energy supplied comes from renewables and that category is growing faster than the others.

    In her article, Cardwell confirms that the cost of providing electricity from wind and solar has dropped significantly in the last five years, so much so that in some markets renewable generation is now cheaper than coal or natural gas.  Several utility companies in the Great Plains and Southwest where wind and sunlight are abundant have signed power purchase contracts, known as “power purchase agreements,” for solar and wind at prices below that of natural gas.

    According to Lazard, an investment banking firm, the cost of utility-scale solar energy is 5.6 cents/kwh with wind as low as 1.4 cents/kwh.  Without federal subsidies that are up for renewal by Congress in 2016, solar costs are about 7.2 cents/kwh and wind would be 3.7 cents/kwh.  Natural gas is at 6.1 cents/kwh on the low end and coal is at 6.6 cents.

    Both renewables and fossils have limitations.  For renewables, the wind has to blow and the sun has to shine as electrical storage technology needs a break through.  For the fossils, there are regulations and costs due to carbon emissions pollution.  One can expect this hybridization of fossils and renewables to continue for a considerable period of time.
    Minor edits: 12/17/2014.

  • Virtual Event Program | GreenBiz

    Virtual Event Program | GreenBiz:

    BIG VERGE conference starts today.

    Put on by Green Biz.

    Virtual if you want to have a baby footprint on a great meeting. The travel time is a little less than going to San Francisco (although you will miss the foods and sounds and local color).

    This is a really interesting mix… Including some big companies and some disrupters.

    ‘via Blog this’

  • The energy we (US) use, and don't!

    WoW! This is the new energy charge for the US. Note that the new chart shows how much energy we waste as well as how much weed is! Far more goes to waste.
    And 2013 was the first year that energy consumption was up, since 2010. One benefit of a recession is that you produce less of a carbon footprint, and get more efficient.
    https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2014/Apr/NR-14-04-01.html#.VCOBhMcpDMK

  • BioLite BaseCamp Stove | Turn Fire into Electricity by BioLite. Saving lives, one stove at a time. Kickstarter Funded project.

    Repost from IPzine…
    BioLite BaseCamp Stove | Turn Fire into Electricity by BioLite — Kickstarter:

    I love it. But only 62 hours to get in on the KickStarter offer. They are at twice goal with $800k+ and 3,000 backers.

    Yes, it was DARK in Miami, when Hurricane Andrew came through South Miami/Homestead on August 24, 1992. Well, afterwards really. It would be weeks before most of us would get power. So bar-b-q grilling was the norm. That was not quite as much fun after a week or two without baths and without air conditioning. Little or no ice and warm drinks. Muggy and humid.

    You did want to cook, obviously, but all the heat from the grill was the last thing we needed.

    But a really cool cooking stove popped up in New York. A tiny stove the burned wood (or charcoal) and produced focused head for cooking. No need to cook the cook too.


    This technology works wonders in countries where there is little or no electricity, and wood is often scarce, and the smoke from open cooking causes some of the world’s worst health issues (probably only exceeded by water/sanitation).

    You gotta see how far the technology has come. This is a BIG stove, relatively, that generates electricity (USB power) and has battery. It has an internal fan, to fan the fire so it can produce some serious heat possibilities — especially given the ability to focus the flame.

    This version comes with an LED light so you can see what’s cooking at night.

    As they say, this is the first version of the BaseCamp that is crowd designed. When you jump in on the crowd funding at KickStarter (BaseCamp) you will get a free carrying case.

    You also get the warm-fuzzy feeling of knowing that this technology will save millions and millions of lives in energy starved countries.

    All very very cool.

    ‘via Blog this’