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2007 saw a real gust of wind, with wind power faceplate installations increasing by 45 percent.  With 5244 megawatts (mw) of installation, US installed wind power capacity is nearing 17 gigawatts, with installations in 34 states.  In 2008, for the first time, the United States should have over 1 percent of its electricity come from wind power.  

One percent, doesn’t sound like all that much, but 45 percent growth?  If we were extend that growth rate, 45 percent per annum, out into the future, by 2020, wind power would provide 85% of today’s electricity demand with a faceplate capacity of 1,452,748 megawatts.  (That is the January 2020 figure, add in 45% growth for 2020 and that would put it above 2.1 terrawatts.)

Okay, a 45% per annum growth rate does seem extreme and the 1.45 terrawatts of wind capacity seems a bit much to expect by 2020, but wind power has been growing strong, as long as there is good government policy … can we have policy that might maximize wind’s contribution to our energy supply?

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According to the Detroit News, Congressman John Dingell plans to introduce ‘meaningful’ global warming legislation, but “Dingell didn’t think the auto industry should be the targeted in that bill, given the recent increase in fuel economy requirements. ”

“We’ve had everybody else get practically a free ride and auto industry has to come up with a 40 percent increase in fuel efficiency,” Dingell said. “We’re going to try to see that the pain is shared equally all around.”

The pain? The pain?

Creating standards that might (might!) enable American automakers to retool to foster competitiveness in the 21st century is pain?

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In my office building, when leaving late in the evening, a few minute walk, clicking a switch here, pushing a button there, and the off-hour electrical load might be cut by a few to then thousand watts. Over a three day weekend and I might have successfully conducted a carbon offset for my entire household’s monthly electricity use,  100s of kilowatt hours of avoided electrical use.

Sadly, turning off that computer is just too exhausting an act for many.  A 100 computers here, a 1000 computers there, 1 million computers somewhere, bit-by-bit it adds up to some pretty serious numbers. 

• Out of 104 million office PCs in the US, at least 31.2 million are left on all night.
• Turning off every work computer in the United States every night would save as much CO2 emissions as taking every car in the state of Marylandoff the road.
• The simple step of shutting computers down each night can save a 10,000 PC enterprise more than $165,000 a year in energy costs. Across the US, this adds up to more than $1.72 billion dollars and almost 15 million tons of CO2.

These are pretty serious numbers, not every office has someone wondering the halls switching systems off, nor does it occur every night.  That’s the human-hardware intermittent solution, is there a better path via software?

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The French rail system (SNCF) has added a calculator for travel carbon emissions, offering up the ability to compare prices and carbon loads for travel by rail, air, or personal vehicle. L’Ecocomparateur enables one to know how long the trip will take and the consequences: for the pocket and the climate for that trip.  Will you be willing to take a few hours longer in travel to save $50?  How about if that will also cut your travel emissions load by 200 lobs or more? 

The trip, Toulouse-Paris, for example comes up with these figures:

• Train:  57.90 Euros; 5 hours, 13 minutes; 9 kg CO2
• Plane: 222.20 Euros; 1 hour, 30 minutes; 180 kg CO2
• Car: 201.47 Euros; 6 hours, 46 minutes; 272 kg CO2

Time priority, this says take the plane. Money and carbon load: enjoy your train ride.

Now, the behind the scenes rule sets for the analysis are worth exploring.  (See here for the methodology for calculating emissions.)  The system actually has a bias against trains (and cars) because there is no calculating for the difficulties and hassles for traveling by plane. By experience, one can arrive at the Gare (train station) in Toulouse 2 minutes before the train and get on board (almost missed that one). The days of running through the airport like OJ Simpson, without a huge security line, are long gone. Add another hour to the flight simply for the security issues. In addition, the train leaves/arrives in center city and the car at the doorstep, the plane far out of town, requiring additional transport, additional time and money to get where you’re going.  Thus, oddly, the SNCF has given some advantage to the planes. 

Hat tip to AutoBlogGreen.

AFS Trinity, a leading company in flywheel and other power storage systems, has just announced a 150 mile per gallon plug-in-hybrid variant of a Saturn VUE.  

“Extreme Hybrids™ don’t need high priced technology and don’t require new or expensive fuels, such as hydrogen, which, according to Argonne National Labs, will cost twice as much as gasoline at the pump and require installation of an infrastructure costing half a trillion dollars. The Extreme Hybrid™ is not a concept,” [AFS Trinity CEO] Furia said, “but a practical alternative that relies on cheap electricity from America’s vast existing energy infrastructure—the electric power grid.” 

We are talking an application of technology placed on top of an existing McSUV hybrid and achievement of significant results, reportedly in a path that will be quite affordable in the mass market application.

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Of the Republican pack fighting over the scraps for the Republican nomination for President, only John McCain chose to speak about Global Warming in New Hampshire.  And, according to Time Magazine, Global Warming was one of eight keys to New Hampshire, with that being the only substantive issue.   And, it seems quite possible that hot weather (and Global Warming) was a key to John McCain’s victory in New Hampshire’s Republican primary last week.

In two days, Michigan will be voting and it looks like Global Warming might again be key. In this case, it could assure that John McCain does not come out on top in the voting.

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To be clear, there is NO Silver Bullet solution to our energy woes, to peak oil, to Global Warming.  

There are, however, approaches that, when combined together, can have a major impact on the challenges before us, that offer a path for rapidly changing our hurtling path toward catastrophic climate change, toward a prosperous, climate-friendly society.

Here are several Energy COOL developments that could, combined, foster a faster move to Energize America:

• New Plug-In Hybrid announcement coming’
• Algae biofuel advances

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As discussed at Get Energy Smart! NOW! (GESN) in Inhofian Reporting: Peerless Work, Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Exxon) certainly has staff who understand how to play the media and influence game. On the eve of the Senate recess for Christmas, out went a truthiness (disingenuous, misleading, etc) “report” about “over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming’.” While GESN (and others) provided ample material about how ridicule this report is, Mark Johnson at The Daily Green has made the effort to go through the report, “prominent scientist” by “prominent scientist” to underscore the significant (lack of) qualifications of the 413 listed in this ‘cut-and-paste’ report.

Like any conspiracy theory, the sheer magnitude of the effort lends it a first-blush air of credibility. And, like any conspiracy theory, it just doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

Well, if the Guardian can talk about people who are doing things that could help save the world, so can others …

In the under-30 crowd, Mathias Craig is the cofounder of blueEnergy, a nonprofit “harnessing the power of the wind to illuminate homes, schools and rural clinics in an impoverished region where nearly 80 percent of the population have no electricity.”

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Time for some speculation. Interesting speculation perhaps, but speculation.

Did John McCain win New Hampshire due to Republican primary voters’ Global Warming concerns?

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