Tag: Geothermal

Poor People Of Color Subsidize Rich White People – Musk’s Business Plan

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Poor People of Color Subsidize Rich White People – Musk’s Business Plan

Do amazing cars and the promise of cleaner energy justify lower socio-economic classes, particularly of color, subsidizing a white billionaire’s business plan?

Really. I’ve driven the Tesla Model S and there is no question I’d love to drive one daily. My day to day car is more of an electric car for the people, a 2015 Ford Focus Electric. Not my favorite four wheeled vehicle I’ve ever owned, but it does well in stop and go city traffic, plus I have the personal experience for discussion in media. But the whole electric car and solar subsidy business bothers me and it should bother you too.

Recently Elon Musk masterminded Tesla Motors acquiring sister company Solar City and rolling them into one, Tesla. I discussed Elon Musk’s Master Plan Part Deux here.

But an article in the Los Angeles Times, “Solar System: Can Tesla go from sexy car company to clean energy empire?” rubbed me in all the wrong ways. I don’t like this setup for three key reasons: there is no longer a car for the masses, wealthy and upper-middle class (mostly white people) receive the subsidies, and photovoltaic solar isn’t the way to save the world.

No affordable family car

First, Elon Musk’s main goal in his original master plan was to build expensive, high-end cars to fund his empire so he could build “affordably priced family cars.” In Part Deux, he now wants the masses to ride his bus instead of driving a car, since few consider $40,000 (The Model 3) affordable for the average American family when the average annual family income is $53,700. Wealthy people still get to drive a car, but lower income people are required to take mass transit like today, just in one made by Tesla. So his original promise of a car for the people, a volkswagen if you will, is no longer in the works. Is this part of the plan? Shouldn’t lower income people have the choice of taking time consuming mass or the faster individual car?

Subsidies for the wealthy and mostly white

Second, the subsidies go to wealthy and upper-class mostly white people. This is self-evident in Elon Musk himself, on the brink of bankruptcy both personal and business, he received investments from Mercedes but most importantly from you and me. Initially it was a $465 million loan from the Department of Energy from the infamous Solyndra fund. Yes, it was paid back early, but you and I funded Tesla Motors. Then we have the on-going federal ($7,500) and state ($2,500) subsidies for Tesla’s luxury vehicles. After that we have the carbon trading scheme in California in which Tesla sells carbon credits and has made roughly $130 million and Musk is now kvetching that other automakers are taking some of that money.

Here is where it gets worse. The former SolarCity (the combined entity is just called Tesla) is subsidized on the photovoltaic solar panels through tax rebates and through ratepayer subsidies. The problem is all of those rooftop solar subsidies go to commercial building owners and homeowners. According to Trulia’s post “From Own To Rent: Who Lost The American Dream?” wealthy and upper-middle class mostly white people are homeowners. That’s right you have to own a home to get these subsidies, not renters, and homeownership among the wealthy is above 80%, compared to less than 50% for poorer households. And by ethnicity whites receive the greatest subsidy because blacks (61%), Hispanics (66%), and multi-racial (56%) rent far more than whites (34%). Oh, and let’s add in ageism. Young people are over 71% renters and older people are only 24% renters. So young, non-white ethnicities are providing billions of dollars in subsidies to older, mostly white people.

Rooftop solar won’t save the world

Third, photovoltaic solar will not save the world. It is complicated and doesn’t work when the sun sets and works in a diminished capacity when it is cloudy, yet you always want electricity for your refrigerator, lights, air conditioning, electric car charging, and Internet. The Tesla PowerWall violates the Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) principle, because you’ve complicated something with a device in-between. We already have a simple answer for clean, renewable, base-load and peak generating power in the form of Geothermal Energy. According to Google and SMU we have such massive potential in the newer generation geothermal plants that we could produce nearly all of our energy simply using the heat already produced inside our planet. But rooftop solar has become a massive and popular jobs program in California under the guise of saving the planet, so you don’t know about that. I have much more on this topic in chapter three of my book Liars & Whores: How Big Government and Big Business Are Working to Save Their Own Assets, Not Yours.

So, are you one of those people who says that saving the world is a priority? Then rooftop photovoltaic solar is not the best answer, but crony capitalism geared toward wealthy mostly white people is trying to convince you one way, and I am telling you there are better solutions like geothermal.

Tune in to The Ethan Bearman Show on KGO 810 weekdays from noon to 2pm Pacific Time – www.kgoradio.com

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You are being lied to about wind and solar energy!

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Ethan exposes toxic climate change myths, discusses the true causes for excess carbon dioxide, and addresses the lies we are all being told about renewable energy.

Read Ethan’s articles on the only valid renewable energy source that is also a base load source for the grid, geothermal power. HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE

Don’t be the last to know. Click the links at the end of the video or right here and don’t forget to subscribe to this page so you never miss a beat!

Thank you to TeknoAXE for supplying the ending music:

How to Cut Carbon Emissions and Not the Economy

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Photo Credit – Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri

President Obama has directed the EPA to issue new rules to the 600 coal burning power plants in the United States. This fiat move under the Clean Air Act is intended to reduce carbon emissions 30% and allow the U.S. to meet United Nations negotiated carbon emissions from 2009.

Needless to say, coal states have cried foul and the Chamber of Commerce says this will negatively impact our economy to the tune of $50 billion per year.

Keep in mind that the U.S. has already reduced carbon emissions from the 2005 benchmark of 6 billion metric tons of CO2 to 5.29 billion metric tons of CO2 in 2012 (source: USDOE), mostly through the switch to cheap natural gas.

I want clean air and clean water for me and my children as much as anyone.

Coal is a dirty fuel source. It creates pollution during mining, pollution during transport, pollution during the energy production, and pollution in the waste storage.

Coal is the number one source of toxic mercury pollution. Mercury is an acute neurotoxin that builds up in the environment and builds up in your body over time. Coal is also a major source of sulfur dioxide pollution.

But is this the right move? Are we focusing on the right issues? Is carbon a greater threat to my children’s health or is mercury and sulfur?

Toxic Pollution

I care more about the immediate effects of toxic pollution like mercury and sulfur, more than the debatable topic of carbon pollution.

Shockingly, nearly 30% of coal power plants have no controls for toxic air pollution which we can quickly fix in a way that is economically sound. The coal power plant pollution chain can readily be cleaned up.

For example, Constellation Energy has a very large, 1,300 megawatt coal power plant just outside Baltimore called the Brandon Shores plant. They quickly built a scrubber to meet new Maryland rules, breaking ground in June 2007 and completing the work in September, 2009. There were up to 1,385 construction workers building this upgrade, at a cost $875 million, and the power plant remains profitable.

The scrubber – a large chemical plant next to the plant – cuts 95 percent of the sulfur dioxide and 90 percent of the mercury. 

So why did the President leave out cleaning up toxic pollution? Why not talk about carbon capture and storage (CCS) or geothermal power?

Sadly, neither is likely to get the attention they deserve in this heated debate.

Carbon Capture and Storage

CCS is, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), “where carbon dioxide is captured at its source (e.g., power plants, industrial processes) and subsequently stored in non-atmospheric reservoirs (e.g., depleted oil and gas reservoirs, unmineable coal seams, deep saline formations, deep ocean).”

There are numerous CCS projects in the works, but it has been a secondary approach to carbon emissions. A properly functioning CCS power plant produces fewer carbon emissions than even a natural gas plant. Should this technology mature, retrofits to existing coal plants would become viable.

Geothermal Energy

The holy grail of reducing any energy production pollution that has been in use, and widely ignored, for over 50 years is geothermal energy.

Geothermal, simply put, uses the heat in the earth a couple of kilometers down (shallower than some oil wells) to heat water, which makes steam, which turns turbines, producing electricity. Take a look HERE for a video and description.

Any environmentalist who actually cares about what they claim, should be pushing geothermal far before wind or solar. Made in the USA, reliable (even more than a coal plant), doesn’t require any exotic materials or technology, and produces little to no pollution, geothermal is really the greatest answer to our energy needs.

Why isn’t the President talking about geothermal? Money. Too many of his donors have vested interests in the false promise of solar and wind technologies (which are perfectly fine for off-grid uses). There simply isn’t enough money to be made by his donors producing reliable, clean geothermal power.

If this administration or those in the environmental movement really want to reduce emissions of any pollutants, they need to look at how the economy will function in a manner that supports many aspects of our country and actually admit what is the truth in their goals.

Geothermal Power: Clean, Renewable, Baseload Energy

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Geothermal Power
The Leathers geothermal power plant in Calipatria, CA. Courtesy U.S.D.O.E.

Why shouldn’t we have clean, renewable, base load power from a domestic source? It isn’t solar (made in China and doesn’t work when the sun isn’t shining) or wind (kills golden eagles and doesn’t work when the wind isn’t blowing hard enough), it is geothermal!

From the United States Department of Energy:

What are the benefits of using geothermal energy?

Answer: Several attributes make it a good source of energy.

  • First, it’s clean. Energy can be extracted without burning a fossil fuel such as coal, gas, or oil. Geothermal fields produce only about one-sixth of the carbon dioxide that a relatively clean natural-gas-fueled power plant produces, and very little if any, of the nitrous oxide or sulfur-bearing gases. Binary plants, which are closed cycle operations, release essentially no emissions.
  • Geothermal energy is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Geothermal power plants have average availabilities of 90% or higher, compared to about 75% for coal plants.
  • Geothermal power is homegrown, reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

Why is geothermal energy a renewable resource?

Answer: Because its source is the almost unlimited amount of heat generated by the Earth’s core. Even in geothermal areas dependent on a reservoir of hot water, the volume taken out can be reinjected, making it a sustainable energy source.

What are the environmental impacts of using geothermal energy?

Answer: Geothermal technologies offer many environmental advantages over conventional power generation:

  • Emissions are low. Only excess steam is emitted by geothermal flash plants. No air emissions or liquids are discharged by binary geothermal plants, which are projected to become the dominant technology in the near future.
  • Salts and dissolved minerals contained in geothermal fluids are usually reinjected with excess water back into the reservoir at a depth well below groundwater aquifers. This recycles the geothermal water and replenishes the reservoir. The City of Santa Rosa, California, pipes the city’s treated wastewater up to The Geysers power plants to be used for reinjection fluid. This system will prolong the life of the reservoir as it recycles the treated wastewater.
  • Some geothermal plants do produce some solid materials, or sludges, that require disposal in approved sites. Some of these solids are now being extracted for sale (zinc, silica, and sulfur, for example), making the resource even more valuable and environmentally friendly.

What is the visual impact of geothermal technologies?

Answer: District heating systems and geothermal heat pumps are easily integrated into communities with almost no visual impact. Geothermal power plants use relatively small acreages, and don’t require storage, transportation, or combustion of fuels. Either no emissions or just steam are visible. These qualities reduce the overall visual impact of power plants in scenic regions.

Is it possible to deplete geothermal reservoirs?

Answer: The long-term sustainability of geothermal energy production has been demonstrated at the Lardarello field in Italy since 1913, at the Wairakei field in New Zealand since 1958, and at The Geysers field in California since 1960. Pressure and production declines have been experienced at some plants, and operators have begun reinjecting water to maintain reservoir pressure. The City of Santa Rosa, California, pipes its treated wastewater up to The Geysers to be used as reinjection fluid, thereby prolonging the life of the reservoir while recycling the treated wastewater.

How much does geothermal energy cost per kilowatt-hour (kWh)?

Answer: At The Geysers, power is sold at $0.03 to $0.035 per kWh. A power plant built today would probably require about $0.05 per kWh. Some plants can charge more during peak demand periods.

What does it cost to develop a geothermal power plant?

Answer: Costs of a geothermal plant are heavily weighted toward early expenses, rather than fuel to keep them running. Well drilling and pipeline construction occur first, followed by resource analysis of the drilling information. Next is design of the actual plant. Power plant construction is usually completed concurrent with final field development. The initial cost for the field and power plant is around $2500 per installed kW in the U.S., probably $3000 to $5000/kWe for a small (<1Mwe) power plant. Operating and maintenance costs range from $0.01 to $0.03 per kWh. Most geothermal power plants can run at greater than 90% availability (i.e., producing more than 90% of the time), but running at 97% or 98% can increase maintenance costs. Higher-priced electricity justifies running the plant 98% of the time because the resulting higher maintenance costs are recovered.

How Geothermal Energy Works

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You’ve heard Ethan many times speak and write of geothermal energy as the only clean, renewable, baseload power source. This is an excellent video demonstrating the concepts.

Transcript of the video:

Geothermal energy gives us a steady supply of electrical power, with minimal environmental impact!

Here is the basic process.

Water, in underground reservoirs, is heated to high temperatures by magma.

Production wells, drilled up to 10,000 feet below the earth’s surface, tap into this hot fluid.

Under its own pressure, the fluid flows through these wells toward the surface.

As it travels, the pressure lessens, causing a small amount to become steam.

Together, the hot fluid and steam move through a surface pipeline to a wellhead separator where the pressure is reduced.

Here, most of the fluid vaporizes and “flashes” into high-pressure steam.

Any fluid not flashed into steam moves to a standard-pressure crystallizer – to produce standard-pressure steam.

Remaining fluid is then flashed at a lower pressure to create low-pressure steam.

All steam created in the plant is sent to a turbine on site.

The force of the steam spins the turbine’s blades – which turns a shaft connected to an electrical generator.

An electrical charge is created, and directed to a transformer where the voltage is increased and sent down power lines.

Any fluids not flashed into steam return to the underground reservoir where, in time, they will be reheated and re-used.

Geothermal energy. A simple, clean and renewable energy source!

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Enough Of The Fukushima Radiation Scaremongering Already

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Shutterstock image nuclear power
Shutterstock image nuclear power
NOT a picture of Fukushima Daiichi

“The West Coast Is Being Absolutely Fried With Nuclear Radiation” “The Pacific Ocean is Destroyed”

You’ve seen this posted across social media sites and emails. False. Untrue. Balderdash.

The radiation headlines are the most off-base. If you take a minute to check either the EPA Rad-Net or the community based Radiation Network, you will see that radiation levels are actually quite low on the West Coast and have been this whole time since the massive earthquake, resulting tsunami, and major damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility suffered catastrophic damage and failure from the massive Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 resulting in meltdown beginning the next day as cooling equipment failed and poor human response made the meltdown worse. Massive explosions occurred sending radioactive material into the air which did circle the world in minute amounts. Since the facility was located on the coast, with a high water table underneath. thousands of tons of water containing cesium 137 and cesium 134 have been and continue to be released into the Pacific Ocean.

To the issue of the Pacific Ocean and cesium 134 and cesium 137 contamination, a kernel of truth exists there. Radioactive cesium-137 is produced when uranium and plutonium absorb neutrons and undergo fission and has a half-life of 30 years, while cesium 134 has a half life of two years. Scientists monitoring around the Pacific Ocean have detected NO increase in these cesium isotopes. But tuna, a migrating fish species, have measured a very small uptick in cesium.

The reason why there isn’t a problem on the West Coast is because the Pacific Ocean contains 70 million cubic miles of water or 187,189,915,062,857,142,857 gallons, (187 quintillion gallons or 187,189,915,062 billion gallons). Even a million gallons of contaminated water is an immeasurably small amount. And remember that the radioactive materials are already diluted in the water spilling. Please remember the concepts of diffusion (watch this animation) and dispersion where material is distributed.

Really this is the kicker, regarding the bluefin tuna from Professor Nicholas Fisher a distinguished professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) at Stony Brook University: “In estimating human doses of the Fukushima-derived radioactive cesium in Bluefin tuna, we found that heavy seafood consumers – those who ingest 124 kg/year, or 273 lbs., which is five times the US national average – even if they ate nothing but the Cs-contaminated bluefin tuna off California, would receive radiation doses approximately equivalent to that from one dental x-ray and about half that received by the average person over the course of a normal day from a variety of natural and human sources. The resulting increased incidence of cancers would be expected to be essentially undetectable.”

Would I eat fish caught off the East coast of Japan? No. Would I eat fish caught off Hawaii, Alaska, or California? Yes. Why? Because the data shows I don’t have to be afraid of eating these delicious fish, and because of mercury and heavy metal pollution (unrelated to Fukushima) I already limit my fish intake to approximately once per week.

Why the scaremongering? Money. There is money to be collected in donations for environmental groups, there is economic war between the traditional power source providers like coal, oil, and nuclear versus the new solar and wind companies.

So let’s stay focused on finding a clean, renewable, base load power source like geothermal energy, instead of constantly scaring people.

EDIT October 30, 2013 0326 PDT –  The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a health risk assessment on the disaster, and unless you live in Fukushima prefecture, there is basically no risk. 

From the report: “Outside of the geographical areas most affected by radiation, even in locations within Fukushima prefecture, the predicted risks remain low and no observable increases in cancer above natural variation in baseline rates are anticipated.”

Radiation Netowkr
Radiation Network

Alternative Energy in California

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Ethan Bearman, talk show host, discussing alternative energy in California and the lack of direction for geothermal as a the only renewable, non-pollution, base load power source available today.

Article referred to from the Los Angeles Times “California’s alternative-energy program under scrutiny”

Here is an article on Clean Energy and the issues facing the transition CLICK HERE

Inconsistencies Regarding Clean Energy

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Watch the video above. It was presented to me as a great David versus Goliath story of “green” energy triumphing over Xcel Energy in Boulder, Colorado.

There are so many problems with the video, I simply cannot address them all.

Starting off, the wildfires in Colorado are presented as if there have never been worse fires. This is a complete falsehood that media outlets are perpetrating due to a lack of historical knowledge. Did you know that wildfires were actually worse before the European settlers? Native Americans intentionally burned large amounts of North America and did it regularly to alter the ecosystem. So much for tabula rasa regarding the indigenous people. Also there is significant evidence for the argument that settlers actually helped reduce forest fires and our movement toward naturalism in our forests have exacerbated the fires.

There are also two primary problems in “clean” energy: what is your definition of clean energy, and is the clean energy proposed a baseload power source. For all that video does to market what Boulder is doing, they ignore that coal plants are only being replaced by natural gas plants due to the reduced cost of natural gas for the power companies. As Michelle Kinman, Clean Energy Advocate for Environment California said on my show, no coal plant has been shut down in California with all of our clean energy mandates.

I suggest the entire environmental movement has been taken by other big money interests as there are hundreds of billions of dollars per year to be made in solar and wind. The subsidies for those industries are enormous and we still don’t have energy storage addressing when the sun isn’t shining and/or the wind isn’t blowing. Let alone the environmental damage happening in China (out of sight, out of mind anyone?) due to rare earth mineral mining, theft of the entire solar panel industry, and the massive pollution due to transportation of those Chinese-made solar panels all the way across the Pacific Ocean to our shores.

That’s right, are you going to turn off your television, computer, refrigerator, power charger, lights, microwave, and more when the sun goes behind a cloud or the wind dies down? This is the elephant in the room regarding non-baseload power sources. Thus we still need coal, oil, and nuclear power plants.

Everyone seems to ignore geothermal as the only clean, baseload power source that emits no pollution at all. And that is because there isn’t enough money to be made from geothermal, unlike solar and wind. 

Lastly, none of the above address the fundamental problem of a centralized power grid. Why not move to a neighborhood grid model where neighborhoods are in control and can choose what is best for them? For example, this solid oxide fuel cell could power a whole neighborhood. Or your development might choose solar panels on every roof, a windmill near the community pool, and a natural gas generator behind the pond, without ever connecting to the grid.

Think of the possibilities we can accomplish when relegating stale ideas to the trash bin and begin to creatively approach the problems we face. It is possible to reduce our reliance on hydrocarbons, but blind faith to a dogmatic approach should best be left to religion and not energy policy.

EDIT 09/03/2013 – I almost forgot another major problem with the Chinese stealing the solar panel business, a horrible defect rate of up to 22 percent. So now the environmentally damaging Chinese panels will possibly fail in two years instead of the promised 25 year lifespan. Don’t take my word for it, this information is from the New York Times.  Also, those giant solar plants in the desert are not only sucking up preciously scarce water resources, but killing endangered birds. Water birds are turning up dead. Stick with solar and wind for off-grid where buying the battery banks make sense. But grid-interconnect, no.

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Major Geothermal Opportunities in U.S.

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GoogleSMU

According to a news report that just came out from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, a study was completed in conjunction with Google that has measured a massive amount of geothermal energy available in the United States. So much so that ten times the amount of energy is available from geothermal than is currently produced by coal burning plants.

If you want to see what tapping geothermal on a large scale can do for a country, take a look at Iceland. Alcan, Century Aluminum, and Alcoa have actually built huge aluminum plants in Iceland simply because of the cheap energy and shipping capability.

The U.S. could benefit greatly by embracing this opportunity and becoming a leader in the world for geothermal. Plus, how could you possibly have a problem with reducing sulfur and mercury emissions?

More from the report:
Sophisticated mapping produced from the research, viewable via Google Earth at www.google.org/egs, demonstrates that vast reserves of this green, renewable source of power generated from the Earth’s heat are realistically accessible using current technology.
The results of the new research, from SMU Hamilton Professor of Geophysics David Blackwell and Geothermal Lab Coordinator Maria Richards, confirm and refine locations for resources capable of supporting large-scale commercial geothermal energy production under a wide range of geologic conditions, including significant areas in the eastern two-thirds of the United States. The estimated amounts and locations of heat stored in the Earth’s crust included in this study are based on nearly 35,000 data sites – approximately twice the number used for Blackwell and Richards’ 2004 Geothermal Map of North America, leading to improved detail and contouring at a regional level.