Category Archives: Tidal
The Mother of All Hoaxes
By Alan Caruba
There was a brief flurry of stories in the media at the beginning of what has become a historic summer of hot weather across the U.S. that global warming was to blame. They faded swiftly because the public has concluded that global warming is the mother of all hoaxes, because we are in the midst of a failing economy and the political campaigns that will decide if the nation literally lives or dies.
This has not stopped the Public Broadcast System’s News Hour from airing a new series “on how climate change in the Pacific Northwest is affecting the region’s Native American Indian tribes—flooding their reservations and threatening the region’s salmon fisheries.” Climate change is shorthand for global warming.
While the nation’s media continues to propagate the hoax, what hope is there for the TRUTH?
Significantly “the NewsHour’s year-long Coping with Climate Change series is funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.” The nation’s leading foundations have been funding the global warming hoax for decades and continue to do so.
So one more article about the deception and duplicity of global warming may seem superfluous and it would be if the U.S. Air Force wasn’t spending $59 per gallon of “green biofuel” and the U.S. Navy wasn’t doing the same for its Great Green Fleet. The justification for this is the utterly false assertion that “alternatives” are needed in the event we can’t produce or import petroleum.
The U.S. is floating on an ocean of oil, but for now it can only be extracted from lands owned privately because the Obama administration has done everything in its power to restrict access to it on federally owned lands and, of course, the billions of barrels locked up off-shore.
In exactly the same way that the Obama administration has presided over the loss of billions in subsidies and loan guarantees for the solar panel companies or the ridiculous costs of wind power industry compared to a single coal-burning plant, at the heart of it all has been the claim the global warming is caused by “greenhouse gas” emissions, carbon dioxide, that imperil the Earth.
Recently, my friend Joseph L. Bast, the president of The Heartland Institute, wrote an article, “IPCC Admits Its Past Reports Were Junk”, posted on AmericanThinker.com.
It struck me that very few people even know that IPCC is the acronym for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Few people know that the entire global warming hoax was generated by the IPCC, let alone know what it is.
Most people associate global warming with Al Gore who has been among its most prominent advocates, warning that “the Earth has a fever” and that we were doomed if we didn’t stop generating carbon dioxide. Gore and his collaborators wanted to sell “carbon credits” in exchanges around the world and for a while he greatly enriched himself.
In Australia, the government has imposed a tax on carbon dioxide which it likely to destroy its manufacturing base along with the extraction of coal and other minerals.
Here in the U.S. the Environmental Protection Agency continues to assert that carbon dioxide must be regulated as a “pollutant” under the Clean Air Act and, if successful, will likewise destroy what is left of our manufacturing base and all other industries that generate or use energy to function.
And the man in the street remains completely clueless about the impending ruin of the nation based on the reports of the IPCC which the Inter-Academy Council (IAC), a group created by the world’s science academies to provide advice to international bodies, has long since concluded were utterly false and baseless.
On June 27, the IPCC issued a statement saying it had completed the process of implementation of the recommendations that an August 2010 IAC analysis had made after examining who was contributing to their reports, who was reviewing their content (the same people!), and the astonishing, utterly false, claim of “a consensus” that global warming was happening.
As Bast points out, “It means that all of the ‘endorsements’ of the climate consensus made by the world’s national academies of science—which invariably refer to the reports of the IPCC as their scientific basis—were based on false or unreliable data and therefore should be disregarded or revised.”
“It means that the EPA’s ‘endangerment finding’—with its claim that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and threat to human health—was wrong and should be overturned.”
It is a terrible thing to live in a nation governed by falsehoods, spending the public wealth on useless technologies, living under the tyranny of government departments and agencies pursuing those lies for their own agendas and political masters.
Unless the harm perpetrated in the name of global warming is reversed, we shall all remain the victims of the United Nations IPCC, the EPA, and all other entities seeking to control every aspect of our lives.
The poles are not melting, the glaciers are growing, the oceans rise mere millimeters over centuries, and right now planet Earth is cooling.
Related articles
- By its actions, the IPCC Admits Its Past Reports Were Unreliable (wattsupwiththat.com)
- IPCC Admits Its Past Reports Were Junk (americanthinker.com)
- Joseph L. Bast: IPCC Admits Its Past Reports Were Junk (junkscience.com)
- CLIMATE SCAM: IPCC Admits Its Past Reports Were Junk (sgtreport.com)
- You Knew That: IPCC Admits Its Past Reports Were Junk (tarpon.wordpress.com)
- Hockey Schtick: New paper shows IPCC models exaggerate water vapor feedback (junkscience.com)
- PBS NewsHour global warming coverage: IPCC/NOAA Scientists – 18; Skeptic Scientists – 0 (junkscience.com)
Let consumers, not bureaucrats decide our country’s energy future
While President Obama is trying futilely to convince the American people he supports an “all of the above” energy policy, he has remained stubbornly committed to vast subsidies for unproven, expensive technologies like wind.
Obama has repeatedly described his intention to increase wind subsidies “doubling down,” an appropriate use of gambling terminology.
The U.S. Senate will likely be put on record soon on amendment votes to extend wasteful, expensive subsidies for windmills and to create vast new subsidies for natural gas vehicles. These votes will tell us which senators, like the president, want to double down on a losing hand and which think it might be time to try a free market energy policy.
Sadly, it is hardly a given that Republicans will oppose massive taxpayer-funded giveaways to favored energy players. The clearest evidence of that comes from New Jersey, where Governor Chris Christie has led the way on a disastrous proposed offshore wind scheme.
New Jersey’s offshore wind boondoggle was authorized by the Offshore Wind Economic Development Act, signed into law by Gov. Christie in 2010. A cost analysis of the act conducted by the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University concluded that the wind project would cost the state as much as $4.1 billion, drive up electricity rates up as much as 4.2% and cost up to 4,440 jobs. More recently a consulting firm hired by state officials to analyze the bid from Fishermen’s Atlantic, LLC to construct the project found that it would result in the loss of almost 30,000 jobs, and drive up electricity rates by $286 million.
With hefty federal subsidies for wind in place, such boondoggles will continue to spring up around the country. Fortunately, the principal federal subsidy for wind, the so-called Production Tax Credit (PTC) is scheduled to expire at the end of this year. Unfortunately, the Senate will soon vote on extending this giveaway, despite the fact that wind is second only to solar in subsidies and is highly suspect both economically and environmentally.
While Obama tells us it’s time to end the outrageous subsidies for fossil fuels, the facts are the vast majority of subsidies go to wind and solar. — In 2010, subsidies per megawatt-hour were $0.63 for natural gas, $0.64 for coal, $52 for wind, and $968 for solar.
Instead of looking at those numbers and concluding it’s time to pull the plug on wind subsidies and even more scandalous solar subsidies, some Washington politicians look at them and conclude we need to massively increase subsidies for natural gas.
The Senate is poised to vote on doing just that, on an amendment that would add the provisions of the so-called Nat Gas Act to the surface transportation bill. This amendment, sponsored by New Jersey’s Senator Robert Menendez, would provide hefty subsidies – up to $64,000 per truck – to subsidize the conversion of vehicles to natural gas.
The bill, sadly, has bipartisan support, including from Republicans like Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, who apparently believes that the only difference between Republicans and Democrats is which industries they prefer to choose to lavish with special giveaways.
The consequences of huge subsidies to shift natural gas into the transportation sector are easy to foresee. If we artificially boost demand at taxpayer expense, prices will go up. That means higher natural gas bills for home heating bills, and it means higher prices for all the industries that use natural gas as a feedstock.
Just as ethanol subsidies rippled through corn prices to higher food prices, natural gas subsidies would have economy-wide effects through higher prices for chemicals, plastics, and fertilizers.
Moreover, with natural gas prices collapsing thanks to the fracking revolution, these subsidies are wholly unnecessary.
As long as the EPA and overzealous state regulators can be kept at bay, natural gas vehicles will come to market without subsidies. In fact, this week Chrysler and General Motors announced duel-fuel pick-up trucks that run on both compressed natural gas and gasoline.
Why not let consumers decide if they want these vehicles, instead of putting a government thumb on the scale at a cost of billions of dollars?
In the aftermath of Solyndra, politicians should recognize that its time to pull the plug on energy subsidies, scale back on onerous regulations, and let consumers, not bureaucrats, decide our country’s energy future. The U.S. Senate should therefore reject both on the PTC and Nat Gas amendments.
Phil Kerpen is vice president for policy at Americans for Prosperity and the author of “Democracy Denied” (BenBella Books, 2011). Steve Lonegan is executive director of Americans for Prosperity – New Jersey.
Read more: Fox News
Related articles
- Subsidized Windmills: Symbols of Corruption and Incompetence (tarpon.wordpress.com)
- Removing the disconnect between talk and action on energy policy (mb50.wordpress.com)
- Sen. Alexander seeks end to wind energy tax credit (knoxnews.com)
- Action Alert: Oppose the Wind Energy Production Tax Credit (junkscience.com)
DOE Releases Reports on Major Potential of Wave and Tidal Energy Offshore USA
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released two nationwide resource assessments showing that waves and tidal currents off the nation’s coasts could contribute significantly to the United States’ total annual electricity production, further diversify the nation’s energy portfolio, and provide clean, renewable energy to coastal cities and communities.
These new wave and tidal resource assessments, combined with ongoing analyses of the technologies and other resource assessments, show that water power, including conventional hydropower and wave, tidal, and other water power resources, can potentially provide 15% of our nation’s electricity by 2030. The reports represent the most rigorous analysis undertaken to date to accurately define the magnitude and location of America’s ocean energy resources. The information in these resource assessments can help to further develop the country’s significant ocean energy resources, create new industries and new jobs in America, and secure U.S. leadership in an emerging global market.
The United States uses about 4,000 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity per year. DOE estimates that the maximum theoretical electric generation that could be produced from waves and tidal currents is approximately 1,420 TWh per year, approximately one-third of the nation’s total annual electricity usage. Although not all of the resource potential identified in these assessments can realistically be developed, the results still represent major opportunities for new water power development in the United States, highlighting specific opportunities to expand on the 6% of the nation’s electricity already generated from renewable hydropower resources.
The two reports—”Mapping and Assessment of the United States Ocean Wave Energy Resource” and “Assessment of Energy Production Potential from Tidal Streams in the United States”—calculate the maximum kinetic energy available from waves and tides off U.S. coasts that could be used for future energy production, and which represent largely untapped opportunities for renewable energy development in the United States.
The West Coast, including Alaska and Hawaii, has especially high potential for wave energy development, while significant opportunities for wave energy also exist along the East Coast. Additionally, parts of both the West and East Coasts have strong tides that could be tapped to produce energy.
Earlier this year, DOE announced the availability of its national tidal resource database, which maps the maximum theoretically available energy in the nation’s tidal streams. This database contributed to the “Assessment of Energy Production Potential from Tidal Streams in the United States” report, prepared by Georgia Tech.
The wave energy assessment report, titled “Mapping and Assessment of the United States Ocean Wave Energy Resource,” was prepared by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), with support and data validation from researchers at Virginia Tech and DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The report describes the methods used to produce geospatial data and to map the average annual and monthly significant wave height, wave energy period, mean direction, and wave power density in the coastal United States. NREL incorporated the data into a new marine and hydrokinetic energy section in their U.S. Renewable Resource atlas.
In addition to the wave and tidal resource assessments released , DOE plans to release additional resource assessments for ocean current, ocean thermal gradients, and new hydropower resources in 2012. To support the development of technologies that can tap into these vast water power resources, DOE’s Water Power Program is undertaking a detailed technical and economic assessment of a wide range of water power technologies in order to more accurately predict the opportunities and costs of developing and deploying these innovative technologies. The Program is currently sponsoring over 40 demonstration projects that will advance the commercial readiness of these systems, provide first-of-a-kind, in-water performance data that will validate cost-of-energy predictions, and identify pathways for large cost reductions.
These resource assessments, techno-economic assessments, and technology demonstration projects are critical elements of DOE’s strategy to capture the very real opportunities associated with water power development, and to further define the path to supplying 15% of the nation’s electricity through water power technologies.
DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy invests in clean energy technologies that strengthen the economy, protect the environment, and reduce dependence on foreign oil. DOE’s Water Power Program is paving the way for industry and government to make sound investment and policy decisions about the deployment of renewable water power technologies by quantifying the nation’s theoretically available water power resources.
Related articles
- DCENR Submits WestWave Project for EU Funding (Ireland)
- Turbines to Harness Tidal Energy in Admiralty Inlet (USA)
- OPT Announces Presentation at Rodman & Renshaw Annual Global Investment Conference (USA)
- UK: NREL Installs Tidal Power Vessel in Humber
- UK: Pelamis Wave Power Device Set Sail for Orkney
Related articles
- UK: Rolls-Royce Hits 100MWh Milestone with Tidal Technology (mb50.wordpress.com)
- UK: Siemens Increases Stake in Tidal Energy Company Marine Current Turbines (mb50.wordpress.com)
- Wave Power Wants Piece Of Newport Beach Surf (earthtechling.com)
UK: Tidal Energy, Possible Answer for Renewable Industry
THE latest bid to revive plans for a Severn barrage comes at a time when the renewable energy sector is facing increasing problems.
Supporters of a barrage argue that it is second only to wind power in its ability to produce a substantial amount of electricity and in being a proven technology.
That is debatable, but what is certain is that the wind industry is facing increasing difficulties in getting projects off the ground.
Not only are wind farms becoming more likely to be rejected by local planners, investors are becoming increasingly put off by a perceived lack of political support, particularly in Wales.
This was highlighted in the summer when First Minister Carwyn Jones announced that the Welsh Government did not see the need for a large overhead pylon network in Mid Wales to connect wind farm developments to the grid.
The statement suggested the Welsh Government did not support major new wind farm developments since burying the power cables would add significantly to the cost.
The solar power industry has also had a hard time of it, although it is perhaps a victim of its own success.
The UK Government has twice changed the framework on feed-in tariffs (FITs), on both occasions causing disruption in the sector.
First it imposed an upper limit of 50 kilowatts (kw) on the size of installations entitled to FITs, killing off the development of large solar parks. Then it announced it was to half the FITs rate from 43p to 21p by December 12, a far larger and earlier cut than had been previously suggested.
Supporters of renewable energy hope new biomass and anaerobic digestion plants will take up some of the slack, but there is every likelihood these will also face local planning difficulties, as waste burning plants elsewhere have.
In this context, tidal energy projects could be the best hope for renewable energy.
by Chris Kelsey (walesonline)
Related articles
- More funding for wave and tidal (bbc.co.uk)
- Believe it, renewable tidal energy, alternatives from water (ees2001.wordpress.com)
UK: Siemens Increases Stake in Tidal Energy Company Marine Current Turbines
British tidal energy company, Marine Current Turbines Ltd, announces that Siemens is increasing its share in the company to 45%.
“With this increase in its stake, Siemens is strengthening its activities in ocean power generation. We will actively shape the commercialization process of innovative marine current power plants,” said Michael Axmann, CFO of the newly founded Solar & Hydro Division within Siemens’ Energy Sector.
Marine Current Turbines (MCT) has evolved from a pioneer to a technology leader in horizontal axis marine current turbines and now has 25 employees. In February 2010 Siemens acquired a minor stake in the Bristol-based company and thus entered the marine tidal current market. Financial details of today’s announcement are not disclosed.
Ocean power is emerging with strong growth rates driven by global CO2 reduction commitments. Until 2020, experts anticipate double-digit growth rates for the ocean power market. Based on further estimates the global potential for power generation using tidal power plants is 800 terrawatt-hours (TWh) per annum. For comparison, that is equivalent to between three and four percent of power consumption worldwide.
Dr Andrew Tyler, CEO of MCT said: “Through the expansion of the partnership with Siemens, we have further strengthened our position in the tidal energy market. We have the increased backing of a major industrial player which is essential to support the commercialization of our proven technology. We are about to approach investors to secure funding for our first two tidal array projects, and Siemens’ increased investment as well as UK Government support should give investors the confidence that we have the necessary backing to deliver these crucial projects and the ones to follow.”
MCT plans to present two Project Investment Prospectuses to the market within the next month for its 8 megawatts (MW) Kyle Rhea project in Scotland and its 10 MW Anglesey Skerries project in Wales. For both projects, applications for leases from The Crown Estate have already been approved. The UK Government’s recent ROCs Banding announcement (October 20) will support these projects with 5 ROCs per megawatt hour proposed for tidal energy.
In addition, MCT is planning to deploy a tidal system into the FORCE facility in Canada’s Bay of Fundy and has an approval for a lease from The Crown Estate to deploy a 100 MW tidal farm off Brough Ness, on the southern most tip of the Orkney Islands in Scotland.
MCT has already successfully implemented its first commercial scale demonstrator project SeaGen in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough. Since November 2008, SeaGen’s two axial turbines, with a combined capacity of 1.2MW, have been feeding power into the grid to supply the equivalent of around 1500 homes. SeaGen has to date generated over 2.7GWh of electricity to the grid, the largest amount of electricity in the whole of the ocean power sector.
Marine current turbines generate electricity by utilizing tidal current flows. The SeaGen turbine is fixed on a structure and is driven by the flow of the tides with a key advantage that the generated power is precisely predictable in the tidal cycle. This technology effectively is similar to that of a wind turbine with the rotor blades driven not by wind power but by tidal currents. Water has an energy density of more than 800 times that of wind. Twin rotors rotate with the movement of the tidal flow and pitch through 180 degrees to optimally track tidal current direction and speed.
Marine current turbines are part of Siemens’ Environmental Portfolio. In fiscal 2010, revenue from the Portfolio totaled about EUR28 billion, making Siemens the world’s largest supplier of ecofriendly technologies. In the same period, Siemens’ products and solutions enabled customers to reduce their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 270 million tons, an amount equal to the total annual CO2 emissions of Hong Kong, London, New York, Tokyo, Delhi and Singapore.
Related articles
- UK: Rolls-Royce Hits 100MWh Milestone with Tidal Technology (mb50.wordpress.com)
- Wave and tidal power almost ready for mass consumption, says Alex Salmond (guardian.co.uk)
- More funding for wave and tidal (bbc.co.uk)
UK: Rolls-Royce Hits 100MWh Milestone with Tidal Technology
Rolls-Royce, the global power systems company, has achieved a significant milestone in the deployment of tidal energy technology with confirmation that its prototype tidal turbine, located subsea off the Orkney Islands, Scotland, has successfully generated and fed over 100 megawatt hours (MWh) of electrical power into the national grid.
Harnessing the reliable and predictable energy of tidal streams, the 500 kilowatt (kW) tidal turbine prototype was designed and built by Rolls-Royce wholly owned subsidiary Tidal Generation Limited.
Robert Stevenson, Rolls-Royce, Vice-President – Power Ventures said: “Rolls-Royce has injected its world-class engineering expertise and incubation processes to deliver this innovative renewable energy project. Reaching the 100 megawatt hours milestone highlights the significant potential of cleaner, greener tidal power as part of a diversified UK energy mix. Having proven the capability of tidal energy, Rolls-Royce is well placed to meet any future demand with larger, more efficient technology on a commercial scale.”
As a reliable and predictable energy source, deep water tidal stream power generation could make a valuable contribution to meeting the electricity demands and carbon emissions reduction objectives of many industrialised nations, including the UK, Canada, Australia and the U.S.A. For example, Rolls-Royce tidal technology could generate up to 30TWh (terawatt-hours) of UK electricity, equivalent to around 7.5 per cent of existing UK electricity needs or enough to power 3 million homes.
Harnessing the Energy of Tidal Streams
Installed as part of the Deep-Gen III project, co-funded by the UK government-backed Technology Strategy Board, the Rolls-Royce prototype tidal turbine is currently deployed at the European Marine Energy Centre’s (EMEC) offshore test site off the Orkney Islands, Scotland. It is the first EMEC located project to both receive Renewable Obligation Certificates and to reach 100 MWh of supply to the grid.
The tidal unit’s three-bladed turbine is attached by a tripod to the seabed and can operate, fully submerged at water depth of 40 meters. Its innovative design allows the turbine to continually rotate to face the incoming tide at an optimal angle. In addition, the turbine unit is semi-buoyant and can be easily towed to and from the point of operation, minimising installation and maintenance costs by avoiding the need for specialist vessels.
Neil Morgan, Head of Energy at the Technology Strategy Board said: “This is a significant milestone for the UK marine renewables industry. The UK is well-placed to exploit tidal stream energy resources and, if commercialised on a large scale, this technology could be an important part of the renewable energy mix we’ll need in the future, and could create jobs and exports for the UK.”
As part of the Energy Technologies Institute funded ReDAPT (Reliable Data Acquisition Platform for Tidal) consortium project, Rolls-Royce is currently building a 1MW tidal turbine demonstration unit that will be deployed in mid-2012 at EMEC in Orkney. The project will deliver detailed environmental and performance information never before achieved at this scale in real sea conditions. Rolls-Royce is also working with a number of developers in advancing demonstration arrays, systematic arrangements of turbines, which will lead to large scale commercial deployment.
Dr David Clarke, ETI, Chief Executive said: “The U.K. is already a world-leader in this exciting renewable sector. However, the long-term viability of tidal technology depends on it becoming competitive with other renewable energy sources. Continued investment and new partners are urgently needed to maintain momentum and bring the technology to scale.”
Related articles
- Orkney Islands: glimpse of a renewable future (guardian.co.uk)
- More funding for wave and tidal (bbc.co.uk)
- Wave and tidal power almost ready for mass consumption (climateinsight.wordpress.com)
- Scotland Plugs Tidal Power into Electricity Grid (forbes.com)
- Wave and tidal power almost ready for mass consumption, says Alex Salmond (guardian.co.uk)
Continents of the World
Mb50's "Liquid Mud" Rant 