Comments Aklemm has made

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One of the panelists at the Solar conference is an advocate of a renewable energy X-prize.

$1B prize for the first PV manufacturer & system integrator to deliver levelized kWh costs comparable to utility rates.

$500M prize for the 2nd PV firm

$300M prize for the 3rd PV firm, etc.

In my mind, that is an elegant incentive structure that would be certain, effective and not create an industry dependent on incentives.On In which I come to the defense of Shellenberger and Nordhaus -- sort of, anyway posted 2 years, 1 month ago 4 Responses

Teddy Roosevelt said it...

"It is not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause. Who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."

If you couldn't guess, I agree with David Roberts.  

McDonough tells a funny story about Krupp being the cause of much of McDonough's materials work with a warning after the architectural contract was awarded to the Croxton Collaborative for EDF's HQ.  

Krupp said, "If any of my people get sick from this building, we are going to sue you."

McDonough then has a story about negligence and where negligence begins.

Krupp was instrumental in kicking off the public phase of McDonough's sustainability practice.

That alone should count for something amongst the green fundamentalists.On Krupped up posted 2 years, 1 month ago 2 Responses

GHG reductions vs intensity

Actual GHG reductions will require sacrifice/pain.

GHG intensity reductions are imminently doable with minimal pain, but they won't protect the climate.

Future technology will make consistent incremental improvements but that will be insufficient to produce actual GHG reductions.

California's much vaunted and technology advancing energy efficiency programs have simply been able to keep energy use per capita (an intensity measure) flat over a long period of time.

Public policy to reduce energy use per capita (actual reductions in emissions) will require sacrifice and pain.

Voluntary powering down of human society has never happened painlessly.

Dingell can be a dingbat but he certainly has a point that the newly green pollyannas don't want to confront.  

So on that note, Dingell is doing everybody a service in calling out the elephant in the living room.

If the newly minted greens don't engage with him it will be a historic opportunity lost.On Dingell gets off a zinger in a testy interview posted 2 years, 2 months ago 7 Responses

Solar Conference Long Beach

Hey, that was me on the PPA panel!

PPA's, if done well, can reflect the best parts of the debt securitization markets.

Each party gets what they want with a minimum of baggage.

I-Banks get debt securitization work.

The whole solar food chain gets work.

The utilities get decreased distribution congestion.

And the host gets solar installed on-site without any of their own scarce capital.

It works for now, let's hope it doesn't get broken.On Increasingly popular solar power conference mirrors growth in the industry posted 2 years, 2 months ago 3 Responses

Great topic

I just wanted to chime in, grist is FINALLY tickling around the edges of the housing bubble (my pet issue).

Inflation in the things you need and deflation in the things you want, sums up recent inflation choices.

However, a couple of quibbles.  

The mortgage debacle isn't limited to sub-prime paper.  It includes all grades of mortgages and probably most notably Alt-A (neg am, stated income, stated asset, NINJA and option ARMs).

The question boils down to is Bernanke in the mold of Volcker or Greenspan.

My hope is he is a Volcker clone.

However, before gristies go shedding tears for the foreclosed upon, remember the vast majority got no down payment mortgages and really aren't losing anything (other than FICO score) by going into foreclosure.

As a matter of fact, most of them, when they go back to renting will have more money for
essentials since they have shed the wildly over-priced and depreciating asset that they were stealthfully speculating on.
On Why small may be more beautiful than ever posted 2 years, 2 months ago 2 Responses

Housing Affordability & Credit Bubble

Talk about missing the forest because all of these darn trees.

The reason housing affordability has suffered is due to the credit bubble that manifested itself in a housing mania.  

There is no other way asset prices can increase faster than underlying wages sustainably.

Haven't you heard of NINJA loans, Neg Am, Option Arm, Stated (Liar) income & asset loans.

Hint, these are the loans that New Century, Countrywide, Bear Stearns, BNP, Citi, German Banks and others are choking on this very minute.

The housing bubble has just begun to unwind and will be many years will the market clears out the mal-investment.

For the environmental gristy tie in, the housing bubble created lots of environmental and social damage.

More and larger homes
Divorces, Bankruptcies and Foreclosures
Excess Granite Quarries
Felled Forests for wood flooring
CO2 emissions from excess concrete and tile manufacture
CO2 emissions from energy to heat, cool and power the excess buildings.

I would like to see Grist take a look at the environmental, social and economic costs of the housing bubble.On It's a mistake to view the economy as an abstraction posted 2 years, 2 months ago 10 Responses

RECs

Adam:

RECs are perfectly appropriate and accepted in regulatory frameworks for offsetting only electricity use.

RECs being used to offset other impacts is inappropriate and not acceptable under California's GHG law.

Selling disembodied RECs to offset mobile combustion is laughable, unless they are driving a plug in hybrid.On On how electric utilities should become carbon neutral posted 2 years, 2 months ago 5 Responses

Solar-Thermal Projects

The issue with Solar Thermal projects is the land area required and the subsequent need for transmission and distribution of the power.

Solar Thermal is significantly more difficult to do as a distributed combined heat & power application for a couple of reasons.

Land area required
Super-heated steam requires a union pipe fitter to be onsiste & monitor the system while it is pressurized.
Transmission & Distribution/interconnection issues.

Otherwise a great technology that should make a comeback in the sunbelt.On Solar thermal power deserves more attention, due to its lower cost and relative ease of storage posted 2 years, 3 months ago 35 Responses