Green energy projects still getting government support

[Fledermaus]

This week, the Department of Energy finalized a $1.6 billion loan guarantee for Oakland, Calif.,-based BrightSource Energy to launch a 392-megawatt solar thermal project. (This is the project also funded by Google.) The next day another loan guarantee was announced, this time for SunPower Corp, which got $1.18 billion in federal loan guarantees for the financing of a 250-megawatt photovoltaic solar project in Central California that is expected to power 100,000 homes.

In total, the DOE says it has issued nearly $19 billion in federal loan guarantees for 21 clean energy projects around the United States, according to Reuters.

So how did this happen when other programs like a wild lands designation for millions of acres in the West and clean water programs ended up on the cutting room floor? The answer is jobs. In February, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives tried to eliminate the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program for green energy projects. But a Reuters report points out that those Republicans failed to gain support for their bill because of jobs. “The alternative energy industry, in response, argued that the program would create tens of thousands of jobs and generate billions of dollars in investment.” After surviving the first attempt to cut the program in February, the program apparently escaped cuts during the April budget debate.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/politics/blogs/green-energy-projects-still-getting-government-support

[XemaSab]

1. Because fuck the Carizzo Plain

x(

[Fledermaus]

2. I don't think there will be any new nuclear jobs any time soon.

Renewable energy is clean energy and if you treat it nicely, it lasts forever.

When it rains, the solar dishes could harvest rainwater and provide water for the local wild life.

Wildlife needs water, too. If creeks are dry or a well water is not available, simple rainwater collectors can provide water to deer, javelina, rabbits, turkeys, quail and songbirds. This collector can capture 60 gallons of water from a single 1-inch rainfall
http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2010/jul/07/hg_paul_mary_meredith_070810_102636/

[XemaSab]

3. The patronizing is strong with this one

n/t

[Fledermaus]

5. Jojoba: A Promising New Crop – Part 1 of 3.....rainfall is as sparse as 3 inches

Jojoba is native to a triangle of the Sonoran Desert whose corners are roughly Los Angeles (California), Phoenix (Arizona), and the southern tip of Baja California (Mexico). This area encompasses some of the earth’s most inhospitable land: in some places rainfall is as sparse as 3 inches (8 cm) a year, and temperatures soar as high as 130°F (54°C). Few crops could survive this blistering environment, but among the rocks, gravel, and sand, jojoba endures.

The severity of its native habitat endows the plant with a rugged, robust nature. Some of the most northerly jojoba plants get snowed on in winter. Some westerly ones grow in sand dunes, often exposed to ocean spray, which few other species can survive. The easterly ones are in dry deserts where some years rain refuses to come at all............

No other plant is known to produce liquids of this type (In recent years, loose claims that meadowfoam produces this kind of oil have been reported. However, it produces a glyceride oil much like rapeseed oil; to convert it into a jojobalike oil takes a series of chemical transformations). Jojoba apparently evolved unique enzymes and biosynthetic pathways to produce and metabolize (during seed germination) its unusual lipid. The chemical structure of the oil does not vary appreciably with plant type, growing location, soil type, rainfall, or altitude. For instance, plants throughout California and Arizona produce oil of virtually the same composition.

Most seeds contain between 45 and 55 percent oil, and average about 50 percent – more than twice the amount found in soybeans and somewhat more than in most oilseed crops. Extracting the oil is a straightforward process done with standard mechanical presses used for separating oil from peanuts, cottonseeds, soybeans, and other oilseeds. The presses extract about 76 percent of the oil in the first run and an additional 6-10 percent in a second pressing........

The jojoba industry is fast moving into the production stage, and it will have to resolve these uncertainties soon. In a year or two, yields will surpass the needs of the present cosmetics markets, and jojoba producers will have to move from providing a high-priced speciality product to providing a lower-priced industrial commodity.

Because of this transition, any recently quoted prices for jojoba oil ($40-$55 per gallon in mid-1985, the equivalent of $10-$14 per liter) are misleading for the long term.........

Until the early 1970s, sperm-whale oil was a common ingredient in high-quality lubricants. It was used notably in vehicle differentials and transmissions, in hydraulic fluids that need a low coefficient of friction, and in cutting and drawing oils. The high-pressure lubricants used worldwide – for example, those in most automobile transmissions – commonly contained 5-25 percent sperm oil. In some of these, unmodified sperm oil was used, but more often it was sulfurized; sometimes it was epoxidized, chlorinated, or phosphorylated before being added to the lubricant base stock.

The enactment of legislation to preserve the sperm whale banned all these uses. However, jojoba oil’s composition and physical properties are close enough to those of sperm oil to ensure its suitability as a substitute. In principle, it, too, could end up in most of the vehicle transmissions used around the world. Its oiliness and surface-wetting properties are particularly promising for extreme-pressure/extreme-temperature gear oils and greases. Its wetting properties mean reduced wear and its nondrying characteristics prevent gumming and tackiness.



Sulfurized jojoba oil in general lubricants. Laboratory tests have demonstrated that jojoba can match the exceptional lubricating qualities of sperm oil. (Source: H. Gisser)
http://www.agripinoy.net/farming-jojoba-promising-crop-1.html

[Confusious]

4. Renewable energy is clean energy and if you treat it nicely, it lasts forever.

Really? the metal and silcon from wind and solar will last forever?

In reality, you have to replace it every 20 years (or less)