Electrek green energy brief: Amazon going big solar, 3 million advanced energy jobs, Military continuing its green march, more

Two reason I like sharing articles about the US Military doing green related technologies – 1. If the military is greening it will help the CO2 situation as the US Military might be the single largest energy user on the planet. Yes, I know many in the military are only greening because it makes them a more efficient killing machine, but I’ll take what I can get. And 2. The US Military is pushing the politicians and voters who care about military positions. These groups tend to not be as environmentally minded day to day, and – again – I’ll take what I can get.

Amazon to install 50 solar power systems, 15 in 2017 – Corporate America needs to save money and clean up their emissions. Solar power offers unique opportunities to box retailers and warehouse companies – a sq foot of rooftop can generate (not cost) $1-4/year and cover the investment cost in as few as 12 months. Buildings today are built considering integrating solar power from the first moment – this is something that didn’t happen significantly even five years ago. The Amazon facility being built nearby me in Fall River, MA was talking solar power long before a shovel broke the ground.

Georgia utilities offer solar power at 1¢/kWh premium – Would you sign up? I would. Polls in the past have shown Americans willing to pay up to $200/year for renewable energy. I remember about 10,000 Floridians signing up to give FPL an extra $10/month to invest in solar. Average household uses about 11,000 kWh/year – meaning this would increase an electricity bill by, on average, $110/year. You still willing to sign up?

It wasn’t so long ago that a 20MW project hit the headlines at the largest globally – and 20MW is still considered big, but now we’re going to see 20MW batches get deployed many times. In this case, in a few systems distributed across Texas to compliment wind farms. In England last year we saw a collection of projects between 10-40MW that bid as low as £0.07/kWh for Enhanced Frequency Response.

3 million jobs in advanced energy – From a PR standpoint, ‘Advanced Energy’ I think is a great term. It talks about renewables, biofuels, energy storage, etc – bringing more people under the tent increases the influence of the industry, and reality today is that influence comes from annual revenue plus jobs. In reference to the 3 million jobs –

• Nearly 2 million workers making buildings, appliances and other products more energy efficient
• More than 650,000 workers involved with advanced electric power generation
• 100,000 workers in advanced grid technologies, including energy storage, and another 100,000 workers in biofuels.
• 250,000 jobs in advanced transportation, including hybrid, electric, natural gas, and fuel cell vehicles.

If your goal is to lower your CO2 output, and that really is the only goal these days – shutting down nuclear power, without having large growth ready from storage and renewables, leads more CO2. I get that you fear where we are going to store waste – but so far – nuclear waste storage hasn’t been an issue to the species. That clear stuff that you cannot smell, taste or see – CO2 – that’s what is killing people today. This article is just talking about nuclear refueling for the summer – however – you should use the insight gained here to broadly understand what will happen in New York and Massachusetts as they lose nuclear reactors in the next half a decade.

Amazing how many times I’ve been told Germany would plunge into darkness…longer read on what’s really going on in Germany with their renewables push. Amazing that their lights are still on…don’t they have any engineers in Germany? Oh…yeah.

And a poem –

Here's another #solarlimerick for your hump day! pic.twitter.com/7XOPJuXmfI

— Aurora Solar (@aurorasolarinc) March 2, 2017

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