The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, but a Florida utilities company, the FPL Group, is trying a new experiment to get more out of renewable energy: The world’s largest natural gas power plant if building the world’s second largest solar power plant right on its back. If the experiment works, it should provide Floridians with more power on the hottest days of the year, reduce the amount of natural gas used and thus emissions expelled, lower the cost of expensive solar energy, and give solar a more reliable backup on cloudy days. That’s not just win-win, that’s win-win-win-win.

The New York Times reports:

The solar array is being grafted onto the back of the nation’s largest fossil-fuel power plant, fired by natural gas. It is an experiment in whether conventional power generation can be married with renewable power in a way that lowers costs and spares the environment.

This project is among a handful of innovative hybrid designs meant to use the sun’s power as an adjunct to coal or gas in producing electricity. While other solar projects already use small gas-fired turbines to provide backup power for cloudy days or at night, this is the first time that a conventional plant is being retrofitted with the latest solar technology on such an industrial scale…

The plant also serves as a real-life test on how to reduce the cost of solar power, which remains much more expensive than most other forms of electrical generation. FPL Group, the parent company of Florida Power and Light, expects to cut costs by about 20 percent compared with a stand-alone solar facility, since it does not have to build a new steam turbine or new high-power transmission lines…

Mark Brownstein, an energy and grid specialist at the Environmental Defense Fund, praised FPL’s innovative thinking. “When we talk about getting to a low-carbon, clean-energy economy,” he said, “we know there is not going to be a single technology that is going to transform the industry.”

This is the type of innovation that, if successful, could be the key to making renewable work. The Times says it will cut natural gas use by 1.3 billion cubic feet per year, or 2.75 million tons of carbon over 30 years. If my math is right, that’s only about 3% of the plant’s total natural gas use, but a 3% cut on top of the plant’s other benefits ain't nothin'. If this type of natural gas retrofitting is tied to the elimination of coal, the expansion of nuclear energy, and a Midwestern focus on wind, we might just see a different kind of sun come out. It’s certainly the type of innovation one hopes new federal policies will encourage. Very cool.

     It is becoming more apparent with each passing day that the American lifestyle as it currently exist is unsustainable. For more than three decades we have accepted the false narrative that we can live beyond our means and there will be no cost for the extravagance. Not only has our government accepted and promoted this falsehood, but we as a nation have accepted it as well. It has become so engrained into our national psyche that anyone who dares to point out its inherent flaws is immediately ridiculed by politicians, the media, and their fellow citizens. You see rather than looking at the real culprits of our failed domestic and foreign policies we want to create these "bogeymen" who want to destroy our sacred way of life. The truth is that it is always easier to blame others for our shortsightedness and faults.

There's more...

In Youngstown, OH, Barack Obama, (presumptive) Democratic nominee for president, today stated:  "...for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, we must end the age of oil in our time."  Breaking our oil addiction is one of the greatest challenges our country will ever face.  Democrats can lead on this issue.  Success for doing so will depend on our committment to the cause.

"After Obama noted local gas prices,... (are) two and a half times what it cost when President Bush took office" - a member of the audience yelled out: "They had a plan!"
"They had a plan," agreed Obama. "Problem was it was the oil company plan. It was the gas company plan. We need a people plan! And that's why I'm running for president."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/ story?id=5518237&page=1

Change We Can Believe In!

There's more...

In today's Times of Trenton, Josh Zeitz published a powerful op-ed piece on the crisis of energy prices facing American families this summer. Josh is the Democratic candidate for the House in New Jersey's 4th district, and is challenging long-time Republican incumbent Chris Smith.

Josh rightly calls out Rep. Smith for a series of votes that have contributed to ridiculously high gas prices, in particular his vote to create the Enron loophole in 2000 and, even worse, against closing the loophole earlier this year.

More after the jump.

There's more...

One of my favorite Disney movies as a child was Beauty and the Beast. From a child who was born with a thrill for taking ugly, mean things and making them beautiful (I was really into painting old furniture), you could see the appeal: a stubborn and self-serving beast was transformed into a sweet, giving prince through the healing power of love. Oh, if only real life was this idyllic.

Unfortunately, in the real world, wealth and power don't magically yield to justice and conscience, even if it's presented as such on the surface. Take oil tycoon and bill-footer of last election's Swift Boat crusade T. Boone Pickens. Pickens has been on a $58 million publicity tour to promote his plan to erect wind turbines in the Midwest.

There's more...