Renewable Energy and Net Metering Laws

Have you ever wondered what net metering was? Net metering is the law in 42 states and DC. What is means is when connected to the energy grid, you have a two way meter. As you produce your own solar and wind energy, any unused portion of that energy is sent back to the grid, which is measured by the meter. The electric company must compensate you for any energy you "sell" back to them. Compensation varies from state to state. You could receive actual cash reimbursement or energy credits for times when you don't produce enough of your own power. As you can imagine, net metering is an excellent incentive for people who are considering the green alternative to their home energy consumption. However, if you are still unconvinced...

Have you done your taxes yet for 2008? Since the Energy Policy Act of 2005, a homeowner can claim 30% of qualified costs of solar panel installation up to a maximum of $2000.00 and a separate credit for investing in a solar water heating system (as long as it isn't to heat a pool or hot tub). There has never been a more judicious time to start thinking about solar, wind and other eco-friendly renewable energy sources for the homeowner.

President Obama's recent signing of the Economic Stimulus Plan bodes well for the future of residential green energy. Although a lot of corporate concessions toward energy conservation and green production are included in the bill, there are some notable provisions for individuals as well. Future tax credits have been secured for those choosing to utilize solar and wind energy improvements to their homes.

All of the above advances in recognizing the significance of "going green" are exceptional, even if they are inevitable. After all, we can't carry on consuming fossil fuels at the present rate. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will reduce carbon emissions by a substantial 200 million metric tons. If that doesn't bring a smile to your face, then what will?

Judy Collins

http://www.projectearthnow.com

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Is Biomass Really a Clean Energy Resource?

As we strive to find alternative energy resources, many possible solutions are on the table. Biomass energy is one such solution or is it?

Biomass energy like biodiesel or ethanol is unique in that it has existed in primitive forms since the early days of mankind. Burning wood in a cave is a form of biomass energy, which is simply the conversion of an organic material in a manner that produces heat. For example, a fire converts the organic wood into heat. Therein, however, lays the problem.

Global warming is a much debated issue with everyone having a strong opinion and no one seemingly willing to listen to the other side. Whatever your view on this subject, what is clear is we are producing an absolute ton of carbon-based gases in our modern civilization. This is a key issue since the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is a key factor in climate regulation on our planet.

To understand the problems of biomass as an energy form, one has to understand the biomass cycle that occurs on the planet. Simplified, the biomass cycle regulates the amount of carbon in our atmosphere. The biomass, primarily in the form of plants, uses carbon to grow and the biosphere effectively acts as a sponge for carbon. This sponge effect, however, has limits. As with a sponge in your kitchen, the biomass can only suck up so much carbon at one time. When there is too much carbon in the atmosphere or we shrink our “sponge” with deforestation and such, we run the risk of overwhelming the atmosphere with carbon gases. If our atmosphere has excessive carbon, heat is trapped and all hell begins to break loose. From a practical standpoint, this means our relatively mild climate on Earth will start becoming more chaotic. After the most recent hurricane season, that definitely is not a good thing.

Taking the biomass cycle into consideration, the negatives of all biomass energy production are that they create more carbon gases. A caveman sitting next to a fire in a cave is using biomass energy to produce heat, but the black smoke is a very nasty carbon pollutant. In modern terms, biomass energy doesn’t really resolve the amount of carbon we are putting into the atmosphere. Yet, there is an argument on the other side of the biomass coin.

Proponents of biomass argue it is a better energy source than fossil fuels. The basis of this argument is that plants [biomass] have taken in much smaller amounts of carbon gases over a shorter period of time than fossil fuels. Thus, burning them is a carbon neutral situation. The problem, of course, is that even if this concept is correct, we are not cutting down our carbon emissions. At this point in time, we need to be reducing carbon gasses, not maintaining our current output.

It is indisputable biomass has its problems. It is a better alternative than fossil fuels, but how much so?

Rick Chapo is with SolarCompanies.com, a directory of solar energy companies. Visit us to read more articles on solar power and renewable energy.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_Chapo

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What Is The Outlook For The Availability Of Fossil Fuels?

I think this article is comparable to the people who slow down on the highway to look at an automobile accident. You are not involved in the accident, yet you surely are curious about what is happening. At the present time we can sense the presence of a disaster, but we do not have enough information to feel that we can get involved. My push to adopt renewable energies is based on our continued polluting of the environment with the burning of fossil fuels. We know that we must slow down this pollution so that our quality of life will not be severely degraded. There is another piece of information needed to prod us into action, and that is how long do we have before we run out of fossil fuels? As a current member of the earth, I am concerned that we leave future generation's sufficient energy to bridge the gap from fossil to renewable fuels. This, to me, is looking at the car wreck. How long do we have until we are the ones involved in the wreck?

The majority of Americans now think that climate change is a problem and that global warming is real. But there still is not a sense of urgency. Every year the US emits CO2 that equals the equivalent weight of 1.2 billion elephants (2 trillion pounds using average size elephants). It is time to stop ignoring 1.2 billion elephants in the room. It is time to implement a plan that will adopt renewable energies at a pace to stabilize the environment from CO2 pollution and then, hopefully, start to reduce the amount of pollution we must derive this plan with an eye to how long our reserves of fossil fuels will last. Once we derive this plan we then can look at future generations and inform them "Here is the plan".

The development of modern civilization has been dependent on both the availability and the advancement of energy. We have witnessed a progression from animal and steam power to the internal combustion engine and electricity generation and to the harnessing of alternative sources of energy. Because of our reliance on energy sources, it is also important to understand the impact of energy use on the environment. All aspects of energy, the way it is produced, distributed, and consumed, can affect local, regional, and global environments through land use and degradation, air pollution and global climate change via greenhouse gas emissions.

Over the foreseeable future, it is very likely that fossil fuels will remain our largest source of energy. However, fossil fuels are finite resources and there is concern not only about both domestic supply and U.S. reliance on foreign supplies but, also, with the increasing cost of these fuels. The research on the longevity of fossil fuels is an exciting adventure in itself. I will touch on some of the theories before I conclude this series of articles. Given the slack of a decade or two, the best summation of the longevity of fossil fuels is presented in "Wikipedia, Fossil fuel: Years of production left in the ground with the most optimistic reserve estimates (Oil & Gas Journal, World Oil)".

Oil: = 45 years

Gas: = 72 years

Coal: = 252 years

With the slack of plus or minus 10 years, most projections are consistent with the Wikipedia numbers. . The popular Hubert peak theory projects that for any given geographical area, from an individual oil-producing region to the planet as a whole, the rate of petroleum oil production tend to follow a bell-shaped curve. "Olduvai revisited 2008" from The Oil Drum blog is an amazing study. This theory was first laid out by Richard Duncan in1989 when he observed that world energy per capita had been declining for a decade. The Olduvai waveform for oil starts in 1950 which is consistent with the Wikipedia projections that the waveform will be completed by 2053.

The energy consumption of a nation is proportional to its Gross National Product (GNP).i.e. (The higher the GNP of a nation, then the higher its consumption.).To maintain our accustomed standard of living, we require the amount of energy that we are burning now to maintain our lifestyles. With the depletion of fossil fuels this will require renewable fuels to fill in the gap.

How do we hammer this information into a plan? A roadmap needs to be derived that utilizes the adoption of solar, wind, geothermal and biomass energies into our energy consumptions needs. Technologies such as stuffing CO2 into caves should not be adopted until they are proven. A plan that incorporates renewable energies with fossils fuels usage would be more realistic for our country to follow.

How do we proceed?

We must continue tax incentives for the renewable energy sectors to incubate their growth. Our House of Representatives in Congress has passed a bill to renew the energy tax incentives that are due to expire December 31, 2008. President Bush threatens to veto this bill because it taxes the Oil Industry $19 billion dollars from multi-billion dollar profits. The president's premise is that the oil companies require these profits to continue exploration of new oil. Politics aside, we desperately need to find new sources of renewable energy.

We need to demand that our local and national leaders produce renewable energy action plans. There are pockets of leadership like Arizona and California. This leadership needs to be at a national level to be successful for the USA. Once this is accomplished we will be well on our way for future generations.

I have a BS and MS in Metallurgical Engineering. Thirty six years spent in the development of semiconductors. Business experience in start up business plan. Currently, an oyster farmer and interested in helping the environment by deploying solar energy. Please visit my Blog http://environmentalhelp.typepad.com/ for further discussions.

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Peak Oil and the Looming Energy Crisis

The world is rapidly approaching and may even have passed peak oil production. Given the lack of serious alternative energy production facilities in place, our reliance on coal and oil may well have very immediate and significant political, social and economic consequences.

What is Peak Oil Production? This refers to the point where production of oil cannot meet demand, thereby causing a shortfall. This does not necessarily relate to the actual quantity of oil in the oil fields, but rather the rate at which it can be extracted and refined. The reality of Peak Oil is also unrelated to the origin of oil. There has been a debate running for some time as to the origin of oil. Some deposits suggest a fossil source, whereas others suggest that the oil is generated deep within the earth between the magma and the crust. This is known as the abiotic oil theory.

Global use of energy is rising exponentially with every year seeing an increasing amount of oil being consumed. The rate at which it is rising varies between countries, but developed nations have an average of about 4% increase annually. China is currently consuming far more than this and is now one of the largest oil consumer nations. This continual rise has put pressure on oil production and reserves so that there is little if any capacity for accommodating fluctuations in demand or supply. This has meant higher prices at the pump not just for motorists but for all fuels which has affected everything from food prices to the cost of air travel.

Virtually everything we consume is at least in part dependent on oil. Plastic products are the obvious example and we are now completely reliant on them. They not only form the basis of most household items like televisions, kettles, sandwich wraps and so on but are also important as insulators in electrical circuits. Even the wheelie bins we use to dispose of our waste are now made from plastic. Without oil these plastics cannot be produced as the basic unit of plastic production, called ethene, is made primarily from steam cracking of refined oil.

It is an unavoidable fact that if we continue using more and more energy we will reach a point where not only prices for fuel, food and commodities will skyrocket, but we will then be unable to meet these needs on a global scale.

In order to avoid this situation immediate action is required. We need to wean ourselves off oil. While this will no doubt require Herculean effort we cannot afford to shy away from this task. Governments and industries need to make this their top priority by becoming more energy efficient and also be investing heavily in proven renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. Individuals also need to be involved in reducing energy consumption and adding pressure to Governments to hasten the change from oil to a cleaner and sustainable energy supply.

Roger Vanderlely

Find out more about peak oil and Fossil Fuel Production and Use at http://www.green-planet-solar-energy.com/ Learn about oil and coal formation, the chemical reactions involved in burning fuel, cleaner alternatives and more.

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Are Alternative Energy Companies the New Wave in industry?

There are strong feelings among the public that alternative energy companies will dominate the future of energy creation. Right now, it appears that the oil companies are reaping all the profits.


The world has been noticing alternative energy companies over the last few years. Why, you may ask.The answer is "for many reasons."
Reason #1: Petroleum products as an energy source create pollution.
Reason #2: Alternative energy companies strive to create pollution free energy.
Reason #3: People fear the danger and instability of nuclear power.
Reason #4: Alternative energy companies strive to use the forces of nature to create energy.
Reason #5: Fossil fuels are a non-renewable source of energy.
Reason #6: Since alternative energy companies use nature to create energy, it is an endlessly renewable source.
Reason #7: The profits from conventional power is cyclicle; they may surge when supplies are short and fall when supplies are great.
Reason #8: Alternative energy companies continue to grow as new technologies are discovered.
There are strong feelings among the public that alternative energy companies will dominate the future of energy creation. Right now, it appears that the oil companies are reaping all the profits.
But the world sees that technological growth is the key to the future. Companies such as Microsoft have set the standard that advances only come through change.
Outdated, inefficient methods must be discarded and new technologies introduced. This is how technology will affect the future. And alternative energy companies will control that technology.
The public is willing to pay for cutting edge discoveries. As the costs of traditional energy continues to sky-rocket, alternative energy companies will be the ones to benefit as they supply alternate technologies to fossil fuel.
Alternative energy companies offer a chance for the world to not only survive, but to grow. For, if things remain the same, we will not be able to continue growing, or, we can grow but burn up all our energy. As we grow using fossil fuels, we are poisoning the earth.
Alternative energy companies can offer a solution that does not require a choice between survival and growth. As we look more and more to nature, we can find better methods to create energy.
Alternative energy companies will use the mechanism of capitalism to create energy through alternate sources.
If each person used nature to create energy, it would take years for the concept to grow. But alternative energy companies rally resources of many to make it happen faster. They are uniting these resources into one whole. They are not only interested in discovering alternative fuel sources, but also in promoting their use. The discovery of these alternates is meaningless if they are not used.
Alternative energy companies inform people of the benefits of alternative energy and try to convince them to use it. If they are able to make a profit in the meantime, all the better. Correct?
Alternative energy companies are striving to have the world recognize that continued use of traditional energy is wrong. They will do this by showing us the "alternate". They supply the solution to the "don't grow or grow and burnout" dilemma.
As in a storm, if you move away from the center, conditions worsen; the closer you stay focused in the center, the safer you will be.

About the Author
MJ Batta writes on various alternative energy related topics and hosts an alternative energy websites at energy.researchthisstuff.com">Alternative Energy

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