Renewable Energy

 

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The US Military Likes Solar Energy and it is cheaper than utility power

 

 

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Caribbean Going Green - Will the Cayman Islands be next?

 

 

Richard Branson Launches A Green Energy Plan For The Caribbean

In 1979, when Richard Branson bought the 74-acre Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands, he paid less than $300,000. It was untouched, undeveloped, inhabited only by birds and jungle critters. Back then, no one worried a wit about carbon emissions, ocean acidification, rising sea levels. To bring electricity to his island retreat Branson, like virtually everyone else on the small islands of the Caribbean, installed diesel generators.

Necker Island

As far as fuels go, diesel is hard to beat. It’s easy to transport and contains a lot of energy in a small volume. It’s already ubiquitous in the islands as fuel for boats. And it’s never been cleaner, with U.S. government standards limiting sulfur content to no more than 15 parts per million. For decades, diesel was simply the way to go.

But Branson wants to change that. Because running on diesel means that the cost of electricity on Caribbean islands averages about 50 cents per kwh, about five times what it is on the mainland United States.

In early February, Branson leveraged his star power to convene a three-day meeting of dignitaries from 13 Caribbean nations including the Virgin Island, St. Kitts & Nevis, Turks & Caicos and the Cayman Islands. While enjoying both Necker Island and Branson’s neighboring Moskito Island, they discussed the costs of powering their island homes and the economics of switching over to clean, green renewable energy.

Working with The Carbon War Room (an anti-carbon group he co-founded) as well as the energy experts at the Rocky Mountain Institute, Branson is promoting something called the 10 Island Renewable Challenge. The idea is to get the island nations of the Caribbean to switch away from diesel. The argument is simple: going carbon-free won’t just help keep the air clean and reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — it will save lots of money too.

To help the cause, Carbon War Room and RMI have worked with the World Bank and the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation to earmark $300 million for new renewable energy projects in the islands.

Necker Island will be the first to make that shift. Within three years Branson aims to be using solar and wind, with battery backup, to provide for 80% of Necker’s energy needs, with a long-term goal of 100%. Branson has contracted with NRG EnergyNRG Energy to build Necker’s renewable micro-grid.

“What we hope to do is use Necker as a test island to show how it can be done,” said Branson in a statement. “The only way we’re going to win this war is by creative entrepreneurship.”

Among the world’s CEOs and billionaires, Branson has real environmentalist cred. Sure the founder of Virgin Records, Virgin Airways, and now Virgin Galactic is responsible for millions of tons of carbon emissions over the years. But he’s been trying to make up for it. As early as 2008 his airline flew a Boeing Boeing 747 from London to Amsterdam on a low-carbon fuel made of babassu oil and coconut oil. He’s also a backer of the new solar-powered airplane SolarImpulse.

Jon Creyts, a managing director at the Rocky Mountain Institute, was in attendance at the conference, and shared with the group RMI’s research on just how much sense it makes for the islands to shift from diesel. According to Creyts, when you factor in the costs of fuel, transmission and capital investment, the average cost of electricity in the Caribbean ranges from 32 cents to 65 cents per kwh. That’s as much as five times what the average American pays for electricity. Most of that cost is in the diesel; a 1,000 kw diesel generator running at 100% capacity gulps about 70 gallons in an hour. That equates to .07 gallons per kwh. At current diesel prices in the Virgin Islands of $3.50 per gallon that comes out to 25 cents per kwh in diesel.

Compare that with the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s figures for the all-in costs of other generation methods. Gas turbines can do about 7 cents per kwh, offshore wind 22 cents, and solar photovoltaic 14 cents.

The increased costs of building in isolated locations might add a couple cents per kwh, but overall it’s hard to argue that the islands should stick with diesel. Even before Richard Branson’s new efforts, Aruba had worked with RMI and Carbon War Room to institute a green energy revolution. In recent years Aruba invested $300 million to build a 20-turbine wind farm rated at 30 mw that meets 20% of the island’s power needs. It replaced its old electric turbines with more efficient models, and is building a solar panel park. Since beginning its efforts in 2006 Aruba has reduced its imports of heavy fuel oil from 3,000 barrels per day to 1,700 barrels, saving some $50 million a year.

The U.S. Virgin Islands had taken tentative steps toward solar, signing long-term deals with solar developers to buy power from three systems with peak capacity of 18 mw. That will meet about 18% of the territory’s peak demand. A 20-year deal with Toshiba Toshiba will cost an average of 17 cents per kwh. The islands also require that all new construction use solar power for hot water heating.

It sounds good, but even on the islands, reality is a challenge. According to a study last year by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, solar developers need an average of 10 acres of land to put up 1 mw of solar panels. That implies that if the U.S. Virgin Islands were to go totally solar and replace its two big oil-burning generators that put out about 100 mw around the clock, they would likely need at least 1,500 acres of land (or roofs) covered in panels, a bunch of wind turbines to provide power at night, plus some sort of ingenious energy storage system smooth out the peaks. That could be doable on St. Croix, which consists of about 53,000 acres and the 1,500-acre Hovensa oil storage terminal on its south side. A 1,100-acre chunk of land adjacent to the terminal is now in process of being cleaned up and redeveloped.

An even better idea for the very long term is for these islands to tap their enormous and endless domestic energy opportunity: geothermal. Most of the islands in the eastern Caribbean were formed by volcanic action. The volcano on Montserrat erupted violently in 1997, killing 19. Because they are located close to the boundaries of two tectonic plates, the islands have plenty of natural volcanic heat that they could tap at relatively shallow depths. Already Iceland Drilling Company, based in the world’s capital of geothermal energy, is reportedly working on exploratory geothermal projects in Dominica and Montserrat. Projects are also being drawn up for Nevis and St. Vincent.

In time each of these islands could be powered by steam turbines running on virtually endless supplies of cheap energy harnessed from the Earth’s own internal furnace.

But solar, wind and geothermal are all expensive. Another part of the challenge, says Creyts, who was a McKinsey consultant before joining RMI, is that most of the Caribbean islands have pretty lackluster credit ratings and not much borrowing capacity. Indeed, Jamaica, St Kitts-Nevis, Grenada, Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda all have public debt loads approaching or surpassing 100% of GDP. That’s why it was so vital to get the World Bank and OPIC on board to help arrange low-cost financing.

There’s no shortage of potential projects for the islands to pursue, with energy-hungry hotels, hospitals and schools offering the lowest-hanging fruit. Naturally, there’s plenty of corporate partners ready to help the islands make the shift. Executives from Philips, Johnson Controls, Sungevity, Vestas and NRG were present at the Necker Island retreat.

There’s some incentive for these island nations to think about moving a little quicker in their renewables plans. Many Caribbean nation’s have joined the PetroCaribe pact created by Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez, whereby Venezuela has for years sent them discounted oil. Though Chavez’ successor Nicolas Maduro has continued the oil discounts, there is concern that amid Venezuela’s slow-motion economic collapse the largesse will soon end, forcing the islands to pay more on the world market.

Renewable, carbon-free energy doesn’t yet make economic sense in the most densely inhabited parts of the world that are already well served by reliable energy sources. But islands like these represent a motivated laboratory of energy evolution. In time, the lessons learned in the islands will be ripe for application across the other energy-starved corners of the world. More

 

Protecting Many Species to Help Our Own

NEARLY 20,000 species of animals and plants around the globe are considered high risks for extinction in the wild. That’s according to the most authoritative compilation of living things at risk — the so-called Red List maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

This should keep us awake at night.

By generalizing from the few groups that we know fairly well — amphibians, birds and mammals — a study in the journal Nature last year concluded that if all species listed as threatened on the Red List were lost over the coming century, and that rate of extinction continued, we would be on track to lose three-quarters or more of all species within a few centuries.

We know from the fossil record that such rapid loss of so many species has previously occurred only five times in the past 540 million years. The last mass extinction, around 65 million years ago, wiped out the dinosaurs.

The Red List provides just a tiny insight into the true number of species in trouble. The vast majority of living things that share our planet remain undiscovered or have been so poorly studied that we have no idea whether their populations are healthy, or approaching their demise. Less than 4 percent of the roughly 1.7 million species known to exist have been evaluated. And for every known species, there are most likely at least two others — possibly many more — that have not yet been discovered, classified and given a formal name by scientists. Just recently, for instance, a new species of leopard frog was found in ponds and marshes in New York City. So we have no idea how many undiscovered species are poised on the precipice or were already lost.

It is often forgotten how dependent we are on other species. Ecosystems of multiple species that interact with one another and their physical environments are essential for human societies.

These systems provide food, fresh water and the raw materials for construction and fuel; they regulate climate and air quality; buffer against natural hazards like floods and storms; maintain soil fertility; and pollinate crops. The genetic diversity of the planet’s myriad different life-forms provides the raw ingredients for new medicines and new commercial crops and livestock, including those that are better suited to conditions under a changed climate.

This is why a proposed effort by the I.U.C.N. to compile a Red List of endangered ecosystems is so important. The list will comprise communities of species that occur at a particular place — say, Long Island’s Pine Barrens or the Cape Flats Sand Fynbos in South Africa. This new Red List for ecosystems will be crucial not only for protecting particular species but also for safeguarding the enormous benefits we receive from whole ecosystems.

Another important step was the recent creation of a new Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. The organization, created under the auspices of the United Nations, will provide the scientific background for international policy negotiations affecting biodiversity.

Do we need to protect so many species? Or can we rely on ecosystems with a depleted number of parts? Recent results from a study of grassland ecosystems shed important new light on these questions. Seventeen grasslands with different numbers of species were created and then studied over many years. The analysis, published in Nature last fall, showed that more than 80 percent of the plant species contributed to the effective functioning of the ecosystems, causing, for instance, a greater buildup of nutrients in soils.

Another study, published in Science in January, showed that more species allow for better functioning in arid ecosystems, which support nearly 40 percent of the world’s human population. The bottom line is that many species are needed to maintain healthy ecosystems, and this is especially the case in a rapidly changing world, because species take on new roles as conditions change.

Benefits provided by ecosystems are vastly undervalued. Take pollination of crops as an example: according to a major United Nations report on the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, the total economic value of pollination by insects worldwide was in the ballpark of $200 billion in 2005. More generally, efforts to tally the global monetary worth of the many different benefits provided by ecosystems come up with astronomically high numbers, measured in tens of trillions of dollars.

These ecosystem services are commonly considered “public goods” — available to everyone for free. But this is a fundamental failure of economics because neither the fragility nor the finiteness of natural systems is recognized. We need markets that put a realistic value on nature, and we need effective environmental legislation that protects entire ecosystems. More

 

International Year of SIDS Launched

 

The International Year of SIDS was launched this morning by PM of Samoa, President of General Assembly, UN Secretary General, President of Nauru and USG of UNSIDS Conference. The event was emceed by Ambassador Jumeau of Seychelles. A great start to build momentum towards UNSIDS Conference in August 2014 focused on genuine and durable partnerships.

 

UN Report says small-scale organic farming only way to feed the world.

Transformative changes are needed in our food, agriculture and trade systems in order to increase diversity on farms, reduce our use of fertilizer and other inputs, support small-scale farmers and create strong local food systems. That’s the conclusion of a remarkable new publication from the U.N. Commission on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The report, Trade and Environment Review 2013: Wake Up Before it is Too Late, included contributions from more than 60 experts around the world (including a commentary from IATP). The report includes in-depth sections on the shift toward more sustainable, resilient agriculture; livestock production and climate change; the importance of research and extension; the role of land use; and the role of reforming global trade rules.

The report links global security and escalating conflicts with the urgent need to transform agriculture toward what it calls “ecological intensification.” The report concludes, “This implies a rapid and significant shift from conventional, monoculture-based and high-external-input-dependent industrial production toward mosaics of sustainable, regenerative production systems that also considerably improve the productivity of small-scale farmers.”

The UNCTAD report identified key indicators for the transformation needed in agriculture:

• Increasing soil carbon content and better integration between crop and livestock production, and increased incorporation of agroforestry and wild vegetation
• Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of livestock production
• Reduction of GHGs through sustainable peatland, forest and grassland management
• Optimization of organic and inorganic fertilizer use, including through closed nutrient cycles in agriculture
• Reduction of waste throughout the food chains
• Changing dietary patterns toward climate-friendly food consumption
• Reform of the international trade regime for food and agriculture

IATP’s contribution focused on the effects of trade liberalization on agriculture systems. We argued that trade liberalization both at the WTO and in regional deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had increased volatility and corporate concentration in agriculture markets, while undermining the development of locally-based, agroecological systems that better support farmers.

The report’s findings are in stark contrast to the accelerated push for new free trade agreements, including the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the U.S.-EU Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which expand a long discredited model of economic development designed primarily to strengthen the hold of multinational corporate and financial firms on the global economy. Neither global climate talks nor other global food security forums reflect the urgency expressed in the UNCTAD report to transform agriculture.

In 2007, another important report out of the multilateral system, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), with contributions from experts from over 100 countries (and endorsed by nearly 60 countries), came to very similar conclusions. The IAASTD report concluded that “Business as Usual is Not an Option,” and the shift toward agroecological approaches was urgent and necessary for food security and climate resilience. Unfortunately, business as usual has largely continued. Maybe this new UNCTAD report will provide the tipping point for the policy transformation that must take place “before it’s too late.”

This paradigm applies to Small Island Developing States (SIDS) even more acutely than mainland states as the majority of their food is imported. The other factor that would affect SIDS is a rise on fossil fuel prices, which could double the cost of all imported items overnight, including food prices. Editor

Former energy secretary speaks on climate change

If you smoke and get lung cancer 20 years later, you might view your action as a matter of personal choice. But what if you knew that your smoking now would cause lung cancer in your grandchildren 50 years later?

Steven Chu

Steven Chu presented this imaginary scenario as an analogy to human-induced global warming and climate change.

 

Chu, the longest-serving U.S. Secretary of Energy (January 2009 through April 2013) and winner of a Nobel Prize in physics in 1997, spoke about climate change as part of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Eugene P. Wigner Distinguished Lecture Series in Science, Technology and Policy. Chu is currently a professor at Stanford University.

“There is a delay in climate change as the atmosphere and ocean heat up,” he said, noting that the water temperature at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico is 35 degrees, but the surface temperature is 86 degrees in summer.

“It may take 100 years to heat up this huge thermal mass so it reaches a uniform temperature,” he said. “The damage we’ve done today will not be seen for at least 50 years.”

He showed the audience a slide of the earth’s surface temperature record from 1800 to 2011.

“The globe is warming up,” he said, acknowledging that the temperature rise has leveled off in the past 12 years for reasons not yet understood.

The temperature rise has been steepest since 1980, Chu said. Scientists have attributed this trend to the sharp increases in emissions of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, from the growth in fossil fuel power production and in transportation using fuels made from oil.

“It may take 100 years to heat up this huge thermal mass so it reaches a uniform temperature,” he said. “The damage we’ve done today will not be seen for at least 50 years.”

Chu cited the melting of glaciers in the Arctic and the heat wave in 2003 in Europe that killed 52,000 people as dramatic examples of a changing climate.

Reinsurance companies, which sell insurance to companies that sell it, have tracked extreme events that trigger large insurance company losses, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, forest fires, tornados and floods.

The extreme events that have been “trending upwards” in number are weather-related, Chu said, adding that the number of violent storms is higher over the past 50 years compared with previous 50-year periods in weather records.

The costs of hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, he noted, have included the weatherization of levies and subways and the closure of many small businesses. In addition, U.S. government-backed flood insurance has contributed $26 billion to the national debt.

“If you include ethanol production in the U.S., we are the largest producer of transportation liquids in the world,” Chu said. “We will not run out of oil, gas and coal anytime soon.”

To slow the use of fossil fuels, Chu suggested “better solutions,” such as increased use of energy-efficient appliances. He argued that tighter energy standards have not only improved the efficiency of refrigerators, room air conditioners and clothes washers but also lowered their cost.If you smoke and get lung cancer 20 years later, you might view your action as a matter of personal choice. But what if you knew that your smoking now would cause lung cancer in your grandchildren 50 years later?

Steven Chu presented this imaginary scenario as an analogy to human-induced global warming and climate change.

Chu, the longest-serving U.S. Secretary of Energy (January 2009 through April 2013) and winner of a Nobel Prize in physics in 1997, spoke about climate change as part of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Eugene P. Wigner Distinguished Lecture Series in Science, Technology and Policy. Chu is currently a professor at Stanford University.

“There is a delay in climate change as the atmosphere and ocean heat up,” he said, noting that the water temperature at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico is 35 degrees, but the surface temperature is 86 degrees in summer.

“It may take 100 years to heat up this huge thermal mass so it reaches a uniform temperature,” he said. “The damage we’ve done today will not be seen for at least 50 years.”

He showed the audience a slide of the earth’s surface temperature record from 1800 to 2011.

“The globe is warming up,” he said, acknowledging that the temperature rise has leveled off in the past 12 years for reasons not yet understood.

The temperature rise has been steepest since 1980, Chu said. Scientists have attributed this trend to the sharp increases in emissions of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, from the growth in fossil fuel power production and in transportation using fuels made from oil.

Chu cited the melting of glaciers in the Arctic and the heat wave in 2003 in Europe that killed 52,000 people as dramatic examples of a changing climate.

Reinsurance companies, which sell insurance to companies that sell it, have tracked extreme events that trigger large insurance company losses, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, forest fires, tornados and floods.

The extreme events that have been “trending upwards” in number are weather-related, Chu said, adding that the number of violent storms is higher over the past 50 years compared with previous 50-year periods in weather records.

The costs of hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, he noted, have included the weatherization of levies and subways and the closure of many small businesses. In addition, U.S. government-backed flood insurance has contributed $26 billion to the national debt.

“If you include ethanol production in the U.S., we are the largest producer of transportation liquids in the world,” Chu said. “We will not run out of oil, gas and coal anytime soon.”

To slow the use of fossil fuels, Chu suggested “better solutions,” such as increased use of energy-efficient appliances. He argued that tighter energy standards have not only improved the efficiency of refrigerators, room air conditioners and clothes washers but also lowered their cost. More

 

Is Lovelock a Seer and World Catastrophe Inevitable

James Lovelock is now 94 years old and has been making predictions about climate change since the 1960s, most of which, alarmingly, have come true – he thinks we have twenty years before “global warming will hit the fan.”

James Lovelock

What’s his best advice? “Enjoy life while you can.” Not the most reassuring of verdicts for parents and grandparents concerned about the future generations, never mind their own brief strut and fret about the stage.

So is Lovelock to be taken seriously, or is he just another doomsday prophet? Let’s take a look at his track record.

Lovelock has been, above all, resolutely independent and is most often given the epithet of “maverick.” Freedom to explore his own ideas has been his guiding principle. He invented the instrument that could detect chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) which led to the detection of the hole in the ozone layer. He worked at NASA on the earliest explorations of Mars. He also claims he invented the microwave oven.

Most famously, he came up with the Gaia Hypothesis. Once widely ridiculed by fellow scientists, this now is the theory at the base of all climate science. It is now broadly accepted that our planet is a self-regulating system, as he proposed therein. Gaia proposes that all the living and non-living components on the earth are integrated to form a single and self-regulating organism. It automatically controls itself and maintains its own survival.

Controversially, he has always championed nuclear power, a position that used to earn him scorn, but has swung around to be increasingly re-championed. He sees nuclear energy as the only possible alternative to the use of fossil fuels. Maintaining that he is a Green and an Environmentalist, he qualifies the belief in nuclear power by explaining that our forebears only evolved in the first place on a rock which was fallout from a nuclear explosion.

He predicted that extreme weather will become the norm. He said that by 2040 London would be underwater and parts of Europe would look like the Sahara.

Lovelock also says it is too late now to halt the decline. Recycle all we like; never ask for a plastic bag, invest in wind farms, plant more trees, consume ethically, don’t fly; take the train. None of it will make one iota of difference. One of his most terrifying assertions is that we should have acted back in 1967. Anything we’re doing now, is almost “certainly a waste of time and energy.” Its all re-arranging those proverbial deck chairs on the Titanic.

His especial contempt is for renewable energy. Cover the entire country with windmills if you must, he postulates, they will never provide enough energy. He lives in the south of England. The source of the irreversible slide into catastrophe, according to Lovelock, is human’s capacity to stick their heads in the sand. They want to go on as they are. “They want business as usual.”

Of course it is nothing but “business as usual” in England this winter as large parts of the country lie submerged, and many homes and businesses face ruinous consequences. The problem that was “up ahead” is here, and now. The dead cannot even be buried as the graveyards are too awash.

51 percent of Brits in a poll conducted by the Sunday Times blame global warming for the UK floods and the leader of the opposition has said that climate change is now an issue of national security.

That current problem aside, mass migration, famine and epidemics are the forecast for the future. This is where Lovelock sees a role for nuclear power. Technology, he thinks, is the only salvation, and this probably will include synthesized foodstuffs. He also supports fracking, yet another issue that puts him at loggerheads with the green movement. He only sees it as a pragmatic measure, to buy some more time.

Oddly enough, Lovelock remains an optimist, and describes himself as “cheerful.” Those who have met him say he is wonderful company, full of zeal and love of life. In one interview he compared the state of things now with the world in 1938 on the brink of the Second World War. He remarked that the war was somehow liberating, as, once it got going, people “loved the things they could do,”it gave them a sense of purpose. He believes we are in a similar state today. Knowing something terrible is on the horizon, and having it actually happen, are two differing conditions, and people are better prepared to get on with it when they have to.

He says there have been seven disasters since humans evolved and the one that is about to happen, as before, will “separate the wheat from the chaff” but out of that, a person may emerge who “really does understand” and can “Live with it properly.” This is the bedrock of his optimism. At one of these catastrophic and violent junctures only 2,000 individuals were left. Evidently, they adapted and survived.

Quite recently, he did admit he had gone too far with his scare-mongering ideas and perhaps had “extrapolated too far.” This was when he wrote that only a few breeding pairs of humans would survive, and live a hunter-gatherer type existence in the Arctic. Billions of others would have been wiped out. At that point, the data did not correlate with his previous predictions, and there had been a slight slowing down in the temperature rise. He did admit he had made a mistake but insisted that it was only a deference. He gave these comments in an interview on MSNBC, adding Al Gore’s book An Inconvenient Truth had made the same mistake.

Lovelock has never fit the mould, and is an autodidact, he learned his science from library books. His parents were not well-off enough for him to go to university and so he got a job as a lab assistant. He believes if he had a conventional scientific education he would have been corralled into a speciality. He did eventually get to Manchester University, but he could only afford two out of the three years course in chemistry. Instead, he has remained a generalist, unique in these times. He does not believe he would ever have had the epiphany which led to the Gaia theory if he had been funneled into a narrow field of discipline.

That is not to say the Gaia theory was not rigorously tested. He tested it his own way, by creating a computer model of a planet he called Daisyworld,which could become self-regulating through natural selection. It was a simple model, and it irritated scientists at the time, but it has remained unfalsified. It was his close friend and neighbour, William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, who came up with the name of Gaia. She was the earth goddess in Greek mythology.

Perhaps it is this mythical, rather romantic, name that has led to some becoming almost Gaia worshippers. To Lovelock, Gaia is science not religion and he refuses to have “faith” in it. He prefers to keep it at “trust.” The most difficult aspect of the Gaia theory is that it is not invested in the future success of the human race. Gaia seeks only to renew itself.

Humans and all their plans are irrelevant to the rebalancing of the system if they get in the way. Writer John Gray, who interviewed Lovelock in 2013, goes to far as to conclude that “finally dislodging the human animal from primacy in the world” could be seen as “completing Darwin’s work.” More

James Lovelock is best known as the father of Gaia theory; the idea that all parts of our planet form a complex interacting system, like a single organism. His new book depicts Gaia in trouble. In this interview Lovelock sounds a final warning for planet earth and enthuses about his upcoming space trip.

http://youtu.be/29Vip-PbuZQ

 

Richard Branson Wants Caribbean Islands to Swap Diesel for Renewables

Dirty diesel is the most common form of electricity generation throughout Caribbean island nations, but that will change if billionaire Richard Branson has anything to do with it.

Branson is using his private island in the British Virgin Islands, Necker Island, as a test bed for a microgrid that will run on renewable generation. The project on Necker, which is supported by NRG Energy, is not just an exercise in bringing renewables to the region at any cost. It aims to make renewables affordable to island economies.

“What we’ve learned in the renewable world is everyone wants to save the world,” David Crane, NRG’s chief executive, told The New York Times. “But very few people want to pay more for energy.” The average price of electricity in the Caribbean is about four times higher than it is in the mainland United States.

The push for clean energy is the core mission of the Ten Island Renewable Challenge led by the Carbon War Room, a nonprofit founded by Branson. The problem for most islands is that the upfront cost of renewable technology and storage is relatively expensive given that most island nations have small populations. Because the projects are relatively small, compared to projects in the US or Europe, it can be difficult to get financing.

At the same time, however, islands across the globe depend on diesel, which makes electricity incredibly expensive compared to regions that rely on other fossil fuels such as coal or natural gas. Hawaii, for example, has the highest electricity rates in the United States, about double the price of the next closest state.

Branson's challenge in the Caribbean already has the support of Aruba, British Virgin Islands, St. Lucia, and Turks and Caicos. Aruba, for example, already has a wind farm and is planning more.

Other islands are looking at solar, wind, LED lighting for municipal applications, waste-to-energy, and geothermal. For years, Barbados has been toying with the idea of using a special breed of sugar cane for co-generation, but has yet to invest in a large-scale project. Late last year, Puerto Rico mandated energy storage to go with wind and solar projects on the island, which could be a model for other islands if it is successful.

On the 74-acre Necker Island, the microgrid will combine wind, solar, and batteries that can support about 80 percent of the island’s energy requirements. On small islands, like Necker, microgrids may seem like a natural solution, but cost remains an issue if they are powered by renewables.

Although the cost of renewables have come down, and might be competitive with expensive diesel power, intermittent renewable energy requires expensive storage and sophisticated controls to balance grid conditions on that small of a scale.

Branson has the will and the deep pockets to invest in such a project, but the results will have to be replicable at a price that non-billionaire utility customers can afford on other islands.

Some of the solutions may be in attractive financing, rather than in proving the technology. In some places, subsidies for diesel make it more affordable and if those are ended, renewables look more attractive. Short-term tax benefits for renewables can also help to get projects off the ground. The Carbon War Room said it would help islands with assistance in attracting project engineers and financiers.

“There’s tens of thousands of islands burning diesel fuel that’s really destroying their economies because it’s so expensive,” Crane told the The New York Times.

Branson is hoping for quick results, and not just on Necker Island. "We're hoping to get a number of islands to sign up to get as carbon-neutral as they can over the next few years," Branson told Phys.org. “Immediately afterwards,” he wrote in a blog post, “we want to head to the Pacific Islands and implement everything we will have learned.” More

 

The Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit & Expo - Call for Papers'

The Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit & Expo

Co-located with the Islands Innovation Summit & Showcase/ Pacific Defense Energy Summit & Showcase

September 15-17, 2014

Honolulu Convention Center, Honolulu, HI

http://islandsconnect.com

The event is the preeminent meeting place for international leaders and energy experts at the forefront of the clean energy movement. Securing energy independence and developing a clean energy industry that promotes the vitality of our planet are two reasons why it is critical to reaffirm already established partnerships and build new ones throughout the Asia-Pacific region and the world. The summit will provide a forum for the high-level global networking necessary to advance this emerging clean energy culture.

'Call for Papers' Submission deadlines:

Panel Proposals - Due March 28th

Islands Innovation Challenge & Defense Energy Challenge - Due May 31st

For further information, partnerships, island/community showcase, or group programs, please contact Regina Ramazzini at regina@techconnect.org

Expecting the Unexpected: Abrupt Climate Change

Senior scientists discuss the potential for abrupt disruptions of human and natural systems as a consequence of climate change.

Pacific island states ‘must think beyond grid to electrify’

JAKARTA, Indonesia ---- Despite advances in research and development on renewable energy, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Pacific remain the most energy-poor in the world, with an estimated 70 per cent of the population still without access to reliable energy.

A paper from the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University lays the blame on the pervasive focus on traditional approaches to rural electrification that prioritise grid extension. Grid extensions connect a home to a local utility grid.

But extending the grid lines in the Pacific region whose populations are spread across tens of thousands of islands may not be suitable and cost effective, the paper says.

“Both utility agencies and the private sector need incentives to extend electricity grids and to set up off-grid systems in rural areas. To provide those incentives, government subsidisation of upfront costs is necessary instead of merely subsidising operation and maintenance costs,” says Matthew Dornan, the primary author of the report.

Dornan says off-grid electrification projects, which involve mainly renewable energy, may be more sustainable in the long term. However, it requires significant upfront costs that are often impossible for local households or government to shoulder, he says.

“In terms of off-grid technologies, the key is simplicity,” explains Dornan. “Technologies should only be installed where they can be supported by institutional arrangements, be that a utility agency or a community technician.”

Renewables may play a stronger role in low-density, off-grid networks, but only with large-scale support, experts say.

According to Linus Mofor, a spokesperson for the International Renewable Energy Agency, “institutional strengthening, increased collaboration among islands and enhanced coordination of development partners, donors, regional institutions and national authorities and institutions are essential for efficient use of resources for renewables deployment in the region.”

Though his paper focused on SIDS, Dornan believes that his findings can help governments and development institutions alike in tackling the challenges of energy poverty.

“Sub-Saharan African and Pacific island countries can learn from one another given the capacity constraints that governments in both regions share,” he notes. More