Solar firm with Toledo ties to install PV at 52 Walgreens across Ohio

The Toledo Blade has reported that SoCore Energy, Chicago-based but led by a Toledo native with plans to open a Glass City beachhead, has pulled together private-public funding enabling it to install solar photovoltaic systems on the flat rooftops of 52 Walgreens across Ohio, with the potential for even more to come. In the environmental coalition's intervention against Davis-Besse atomic reactor's 20 year license extension, our expert witness, Dr. Al Compaan (pictured at left), himself a solar PV inventer, argued that solar PV arrays installed on the acreage of the Davis-Besse plant itself, at a compressed air energy storage installation FirstEnergy Nuclear also owns, and on the commercial rooftops of just several Ohio cities would be enough to replace the atomic reactor's 908 Mega-Watts of dirty, dangerous, and expensive nuclear electricity.

Victory! Connecticut gives go-ahead to green bank

From the Coalition for Green Capital: "Thanks to the leadership of Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy and leaders in the state legislature, the Connecticut General Assembly passed new energy legislation that puts Connecticut at the forefront of state efforts to convert to a clean energy economy. Among other elements, this bill reconstitutes Connecticut’s existing Clean Energy Fund to form the nation’s first full-scale “Green Bank”, which will enable the state to leverage limited state resources as well as private capital to spur deployment of clean energy and energy efficiency projects."

Japanese government report calls for renewable energy to re-build after earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear catastrophe

As reported by NHK public broadcasting, a new white paper on the environment, published by the Japanese federal cabinet, has called for an expansion of renewable energy such as wind power to provide the electricity to help re-build the northeast region of the country after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami, and the now three-month-long (with no end in sight) nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima Daiichi.

How will Germany transition to renewables without using coal and imported nuclear?

How will Germany exit nuclear without using more coal?

Within four decades, one of the world’s leading economies will be powered almost entirely by wind, solar, biomass, hydro, and geothermal power. But can Germany really achieve these targets without resorting to fossil fuels? Some of these questions were recently addressed in a joint article by Arne Jungjohann, Program Director for Environment and Global Dialogue with the Heinrich Böll Foundation and Wilson Rickerson, CEO of Meister Consultants Group. Some excerpts follow: 

“The old nuclear power plants had been a bottleneck for greater investment. With the planned phase out of all nuclear power capacity, investors are lining up to put more renewable energy and high-efficiency natural gas plants in place. Overall, CO2 emissions will not rise as the energy sector has to comply with the European Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the associated emissions cap.”

Germany already had an aggressive renewable energy program in place. For example, “Germany has installed 17,000 MW of PV to date which amounts to more than half of the world’s total, including over 7,400 MW of new PV capacity in 2010 alone. . .The previous target of 30% renewable electricity by 2020 has recently been updated by Germany’s official National Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP). The NREAP reveals that the country expects to actually generate 38% of its electricity from renewables by 2020.”

Germany also sees the transition to renewable energy as the most beneficial pathway economically. “As Germany’s Minister of Environment recently stated:

It is economically nonsensical to pursue two strategies at the same time, for both a centralized and a decentralized energy supply system, since both strategies would involve enormous investment requirements. I am convinced that the investment in renewable energies is the economically more promising project. . .

“Three cornerstones will play a crucial role in Germany’s energy transition: an even stronger growth of renewables; the ramp-up of smart grids, efficiency technologies, and battery and storage technologies; and temporary more flexible natural gas.” Read the full article for more information or visit the website of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

GE: "Solar power may be cheaper than electricity generated by fossil fuels and nuclear reactors within three to five years"

Bloomberg reports that atomic reactor vendor General Electric (which designed and even built Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactors currently melting down at Fukushima Daiichi, Japan), which also has a renewable energy division, admits that thin-celled solar photovoltaic panels which it manufacturers will be cheaper than both nuclear power and fossil fuel fired electricity generation in as little three to five years.