So what does it mean when solar power generation starts to become cheaper than fossil fuel power? Via, Juan Cole, looks like we’re about to find out:

In a note this week in advance of the disruption report, Citi’s Jason Channell said that in many cases, renewables are already at cost parity with established forms of electricity sources.

The biggest surprise in recent years has been the speed at which the price of solar panels has reduced, resulting in cost parity being achieved in certain areas much more quickly than was ever expected; the key point about the future is that these fast ‘learning rates’ are likely to continue, meaning that the technology just keeps getting cheaper.

Below is a chart showing where “socket” or grid parity has already been achieved. (Grid parity is when a source of power becomes cost competitive with other sources.) The lines represent the pattern of expanding solar power in a given year — so at peak solar exposure, parts of the southwest U.S. are now already capable of meeting their electricity needs via solar panels.

Check out the graphs at both of those links. Cole also notes that important new research shows that hybrid power plants that have both solar and wind turbines dramatically increase efficiency and help with integration into the electrical grid. So while TV viewers have been distracted by herrings like Solyndra, utilities and leaders in other countries have been racing this technology to market. This is the dull edge of being led by a media-politico complex beholden to corporate paymasters, of having a nation that thinks of themselves as consumers instead of citizens. We have debates on the causes of global warming that are completely beside the point. Our giant corporations aren’t even acting like good capitalists, but rather fearful protectors of dying industries – maybe that’s the same thing. But they’re perfectly willing to string along as much of the public as possible for as long as they can, by sowing as much doubt as is possible about changing the ways we light up the night, drive to the store and cool our heels. Meanwhile, in other parts of the world: lower bills, lower carbon emissions, now types of manufacturing and careers… But not here – not just yet. And all just to wring every last bit out of the old ways of doing business. It’s beyond pathetic.

But this is what we have handed over to America, Inc. This is their leadership, and instead of innovation, we will begin to are hearing about how we need to protect fossil utilities when demand from their product collapses. Not kidding. They see renewable energy as a threat. so as this happens, the expected reaction of the fossil power industry resembles some version of the 5 stages of mourning.

So can we get on with the anger and bargaining, please?

Via Juan Cole, the budget deal from yesterday also included re-upping the tax credit for wind power:

The tax credit, which has been a major driver for wind development across the U.S. over the past two decades, is worth 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour of energy produced by new wind installations for their first 10 years of operation.

A White House news release confirmed that the production tax credit extension is included in the Senate package that the House also passed. According to industry insiders, it would allow any project that begins construction in 2013 to claim the credit, even if it goes online in 2014. The tax credit that expired on Monday could only be claimed for projects that went online in 2012.

“Just simply, 30 percent of the value of a project is derived from the tax credit,” said Florian Zerhusen, CEO of WKN USA, a San Diego-based wind developer who flipped the switch on two new 3-megawatt turbines in the San Gorgonio Pass on Dec. 21, just days before the credit expired on Monday.

The nascent wind industry needs this, and so do we. If you want to get nationalistic about it, other countries like Germany are eating our lunch and sending us the bill on renewables. Maybe a little healthy competition among advanced nations is good – if we would just choose to act like one. It’s a new year so let’s get with it, and not just on wind. Check out that map. There’s no wind in the South, sure. But there’s a lot of sun, even today.

Image: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The government of France is thinking post-nuclear energy and developing off-shore wind farms in the North Atlantic:

Long reliant on nuclear as its chief source of energy, France is having to think long and hard about its energy strategy in the face of increasing public questioning about the safety of nuclear after the Fukushima disaster and greater evidence about the potential future high financial costs of the technology. The decision by the French government late last week to award tenders to build offshore wind farms to produce 2 GW of energy suggests that wind power is high up the Elysée’s list of alternatives to nuclear.

French energy minister Eric Besson said the decision would create up to 10,000 new jobs and “position France among the leaders of the offshore industry,” when making the announcement that a consortium led by energy giant EDF and engineering firm Alstom had won a bid to build three wind farms off the coast of northern France. Spanish energy firm Iberdrola and French engineering giant Areva secured the rights to build a fourth farm, he said. The two consortia are expected to invest around €7 billion to install 2GW of offshore wind energy capacity, according to Besson.

I’m sure all kinds of batailles are raging there about whether climate change is real, too.

Via Juan Cole.

This post on the Vélib program in Paris brings up a couple of interesting points. First:

While far behind cities like Amsterdam (who isn’t?), Paris is trying to hold its own in the green sweepstakes. To date, one of its most important projects has been a short-term bicycle rental system. Vélib, which started in 2007, is today fully integrated into the fabric of the city, counting millions of passenger trips each year. In proposing my Autolib article, I explained that the city was seeking to build on that “‘hugely successful’’ model.
My characterization of the bike program as ‘‘hugely successful’’ led to a lively debate among my editors, a number of whom argued that Vélib was not in fact successful because it had failed to reduce traffic and so many of the bicycles are damaged, vandalized or stolen that the program was probably running at a loss.

Then:

Programs like Autolib and Vélib have little impact on local air pollution and noise, and whatever effect they do have could probably be achieved at lower cost, he said.
All the same, they can be effective ‘‘in setting a first step towards a transition in transport, energy and the environment — a transition that probably is needed in the next decades,’’ Mr. van Wee said.

Touché. That’s the whole point – there are limits to looking merely at the costs and benefits and calling it analysis. We could be doing all kinds of things by implementing these programs, of which making bikes available for rent is just one. By the same, very same, token, it is possible to look at the cost of say, a bike program, and compare it to the costs of a personal automobile program. We have an abiding belief that the costs of roads, bridges, cars themselves (payments and maintenance), insurance, not to mention the gasoline and not to even hint at the wars that are necessary from time to time to maintain access to that gasoline, are relatively acceptable or low-cost in some aspect, or somehow a natural part of the world. But the costs of driving are none of these things. They are excessive. And would be unthinkable if considered in their totality.

Only then, when we have an idea of such a sum, such costs, should we compare that number and the bits of flesh that will eternally decorate it to the cost of a bike program, or a wind farm, or outfitting every man, woman, child, dog, cat and long-eared galoot with a personal solar chapeau and matching lawn darts set. Then we might know which might be worth it, and which might be just another receptor for our rage.

Speaking of which, see also this.

So… it’s probably important to note how alternative energy antagonists fund misinformation and disseminate it into the public sphere.

In 2010, New Jersey passed the Offshore Wind Economic Development Act. This act “require[s] that a percentage of electricity sold in the State be from offshore wind energy” and will be financed through $100M in taxpayer subsidies. But is this a good deal for ratepayers? Americans for prosperity commissioned the Beacon Hill Institute to find out – and the results are devastating.

What’s devastating is how utterly easy it is for people with deep pockets to spread misinformation. Whether it’s taxes or creationism. All you need to do is syphon a few of your millions toward some pliant writers or scientists and suddenly you have bogus evidence! to pass around. Michael Conathan at TP:

• The study dramatically underestimates the economic savings realized from the environmental benefits by assuming a static price for the valuation of reduction of greenhouse gasses - which will inevitably rise over time - and by applying an absurdly high discount rate of 10 percent to the benefits when most economic studies use rates of 3-5 percent.  The discount rate mistake alone could lead to underestimating the benefits of offshore wind by as much as 50 percent. (This Bloomberg article contains a concise description of how an excessively high discount rate dramatically undervalues future benefits.)

• It also artificially inflates the costs of the project compared to fossil fuel generation by failing to account for the reality that as costs go up, people will reduce their consumption thereby partially offsetting the price increase. Furthermore, the study estimates the cost of natural gas and coal based on historical prices rather than based on forecasts of future market conditions. While natural gas prices are difficult to predict, experts believe coal prices will rise in the future.

And this isn’t some game for the vast majority, or even for the lucky few believe it is. The consequences of this kind suffused idiocy becoming dominant in our so-called culture provide all kinds of new growth opportunities, though not the good kind. When journalists get to be more coy about serious matters, politicians can be more craven on behalf of corporations that support them. Apparently, less 40% of Americans now believe in evolution. Ask yourself how that is even possible.

So the Obama Administration, in a bold display of having other work to do, is set to announce new fuel efficiency minimums today, though it might be an out for car makers.

At issue is a “technology re-opener” that allows auto manufacturers to fight the standards after 2021 in the hopes that they can re-negotiate rules with a future administration that may be more lenient on the industry. The re-opener potentially gives auto companies an incentive not to develop technologies immediately so they can argue down the road that the standard can’t be met.

And researchers at Caltech are engaged in extreme, Onionesque crazy talk about increasing the power output of some new, vertical-axis wind turbines.

simply by optimizing the placement of vertical wind turbines on a given plot of land.

…

The experimental wind-farm houses two-dozen 1.2-meter-wide vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs). Vertical turbines that have rotors and look like eggbeaters sticking out of the ground. Each turbine is 10 meters tall.

Now is simply not the time to suggest these nugget-sized simplistic solutions to the overwhelmingly complex issues facing the world today. What we need are cautious yet controversial, half-baked propositions that allow leaders, as well as ordinary citizens, to pick an arbitrary side and battle to a standstill. Unrest at a loggerheads. No decision. A dead-end into which to channel our hostilities, to let our economic and ecological problems convulse into something much more magnificently horrific than we can now imagine. In a word, or two: more freedom. There’s just no reason to let these so called easy answers peek through and scare people. Bikes. Walking. Cooking your own food. Handholding. Making out…. these were of another time. Let’s calm down and argue about things that matter: like iPhone vs. Blackberry. Now there’s an argument that’s built to last, that means something. Where do you stand?

A new national 10-year plan from Brazil shows that the country will triple its use of renewable energy by 2020 and that a lot of that energy will be wind energy.

Going from 9 GW of wind, biomass and small hydropower in 2010, the country intends to hit 27 GW by 2020. It wants to have 16% of its electricity supply coming from renewables in 10 years.

On wind energy, the country hit the 1 GW milestone in May but plans to get to 12 GW by 2020. Last year’s 10-year plan only had the country getting 6 GW from wind by 2019, so you can see that the country is really stepping up its wind energy goals.

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/12CMD)

Stanford University researchers are on the job, making the case for producing all the world’s energy needs from renewable resources in 20-40 years, using only what we know today:

The world they envision would run largely on electricity. Their plan calls for using wind, water and solar energy to generate power, with wind and solar power contributing 90 percent of the needed energy.

Geothermal and hydroelectric sources would each contribute about 4 percent in their plan (70 percent of the hydroelectric is already in place), with the remaining 2 percent from wave and tidal power.

Vehicles, ships and trains would be powered by electricity and hydrogen fuel cells. Aircraft would run on liquid hydrogen. Homes would be cooled and warmed with electric heaters – no more natural gas or coal – and water would be preheated by the sun.

They point out the obvious – that there are no technical barriers to converting the entire world to clean energy production. Only a lack of will. That, and a refusal to count the entirety of actual costs of relying on fossil fuels, which facilitates the lack of will.

One of the benefits of the plan is that it results in a 30 percent reduction in world energy demand since it involves converting combustion processes to electrical or hydrogen fuel cell processes. Electricity is much more efficient than combustion.

That reduction in the amount of power needed, along with the millions of lives saved by the reduction in air pollution from elimination of fossil fuels, would help keep the costs of the conversion down.

So back off, Kochs. Everybody else, wise up; we’re getting punked on energy and how impossible it is to change. Don’t wait for the commercials. Believe in clean energy now and start expecting it.

Sure, Republican presidential contenders are going to roll out the DADT/Abortion carpet all over Iowa in their quest to be the Rightest of the Wrong. It’s what they do. It’s all they do. And Democrats might welcome their inclination to secure the 27-percenters.

But as this keeps happening over and over again, it might occur to us that the culture war idea is in need of expansion. After all, if the Kochs are going to fund movements and candidates to secure their right to pollute, they’re probably happy to keep people focused on these supposedly ‘values-oriented’ issues – that motivate the base of one side, and use up limited resources on the other – instead of fighting back in the green ground game.

Do you believe global warming is real? Do you support wind and solar energy projects? Should we incentive utilities and reward them for getting us to use less electricity? These are questions worth sparring over. And developing this ‘culture of life’ will probably be funner.

We’re playing catch- up on refocusing the big questions. Abortion? Or stabilizing atmospheric carbon levels? Culture of Life?

Just sayin’.

AFP – Getty Images

The whole idea of renewable energy sources – wind, solar, tidal, pedal – has only been in our viewfinder for a short while. This is because fossil fuels have become increasing problematic – not only in terms of long-term ecological catastrophe, but also human error-plagued bottom line-oriented short cutting and, not to be left out, geopolitical events that compromise our ability to secure said fuels. On top of this and not unrelated to the last point, the physical infrastructure, economy and energy policy of the United States were all developed when the country was a net exporter of fossil fuels.

Needless to say, nothing has changed and we continue to do things the same way, perhaps not even yet expecting different results, as one way of hanging to the last vestiges of any semblance of sanity.

And yet an expectation of different results is very much needed. As the above plus the nuclear meltdowns as a result of the devastating earthquakes in Japan attest, the need to pick up the pace in advancing toward a renewable energy present will not wait. The low-info dead-enders rising political stars waste capital and human resources debating settled issues at our collective peril and should be considered armed clueless and dangerous.

To repeat an unpopular refrain: these things are connected.