All Discussions Tagged 'solar' - GoMarcellusShale.com2024-03-29T10:00:31Zhttps://gomarcellusshale.com/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=solar&feed=yes&xn_auth=noSolar Lease Offer?tag:gomarcellusshale.com,2022-10-11:2274639:Topic:9125462022-10-11T13:41:47.973ZAnniehttps://gomarcellusshale.com/profile/Annie710
<p>Hi all! I have been approached to sign a Solar Lease on my property in Jefferson County, OH. I have no idea what is fair / going rate for such a thing? Has anyone else received offers like this lately? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>Hi all! I have been approached to sign a Solar Lease on my property in Jefferson County, OH. I have no idea what is fair / going rate for such a thing? Has anyone else received offers like this lately? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!</p> solar+batteries starting to beat gastag:gomarcellusshale.com,2019-05-05:2274639:Topic:7988262019-05-05T15:42:38.745ZPaul Heckberthttps://gomarcellusshale.com/profile/PaulHeckbert
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Climate Changed</span><br></br><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Batteries and Gas: Frenemies of the Power World Face Off</strong></span></p>
<p>"It was only three years ago that natural gas overtook coal to become king of America’s power mix, and its throne is already being challenged -- by batteries.</p>
<p>As battery costs fall, solar farms are increasingly installing storage systems, allowing them to sock away cheap electricity by day and pump it onto…</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Climate Changed</span><br/><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Batteries and Gas: Frenemies of the Power World Face Off</strong></span></p>
<p>"It was only three years ago that natural gas overtook coal to become king of America’s power mix, and its throne is already being challenged -- by batteries.</p>
<p>As battery costs fall, solar farms are increasingly installing storage systems, allowing them to sock away cheap electricity by day and pump it onto grids at night. Solar-storage projects are already cheaper than gas plants to build in the U.S. Southwest. And that’s bound to spread, some analysts and executives said Tuesday at the BNEF summit in New York."</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-26/can-batteries-kill-gas-executives-sound-off-at-the-bnef-summit">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-26/can-batteries-kill-gas-executives-sound-off-at-the-bnef-summit</a></p> growth of solar powertag:gomarcellusshale.com,2017-09-13:2274639:Topic:7621002017-09-13T00:42:09.568ZPaul Heckberthttps://gomarcellusshale.com/profile/PaulHeckbert
<p>audio story:</p>
<p>"Tanner Lee Swiger graduated from high school in Wayne County, West Virginia this spring. His father and grandfather both worked in West Virginia’s coal industry. But not Swiger, or any of his high school classmates. Nobody from his graduating class is working in coal, says Swiger. “[They’re] honestly working in fast food, or not working at all.”</p>
<p>Not Swiger. He has a job installing rooftop solar panels. He says his family is delighted with it.</p>
<p>"They’re…</p>
<p>audio story:</p>
<p>"Tanner Lee Swiger graduated from high school in Wayne County, West Virginia this spring. His father and grandfather both worked in West Virginia’s coal industry. But not Swiger, or any of his high school classmates. Nobody from his graduating class is working in coal, says Swiger. “[They’re] honestly working in fast food, or not working at all.”</p>
<p>Not Swiger. He has a job installing rooftop solar panels. He says his family is delighted with it.</p>
<p>"They’re excited that I’m actually doing something different,” says Swiger. “A lot of people ain’t doing this in West Virginia, a lot of people are against it actually. A lot of people want to go back to coal.</p>
<p>“I ain’t against it, I love solar. It’s way better than coal, I think.”</p>
<p>Solar panels can save people money on their electricity bills and cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, which fuel climate change. With battery storage, found in some home set-ups, solar can also allow people to continue to power their homes off the grid during power outages. ..."</p>
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<div>Retraining former coal workers in solar or other fields is supported by the Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal program set up by presidents Kennedy and Johnson. President Reagan tried to defund it, and President Trump wants to defund it, but for now, Congress has kept its funding intact.</div>
<p><a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-09-12/after-generations-working-coal-young-west-virginians-are-finding-jobs-solar" target="_blank">https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-09-12/after-generations-working-coal-young-west-virginians-are-finding-jobs-solar</a></p> The dropping price of wind powertag:gomarcellusshale.com,2017-06-28:2274639:Topic:7582702017-06-28T19:01:53.484ZPaul Heckberthttps://gomarcellusshale.com/profile/PaulHeckbert
<p>Carl Pope, the former Executive Director of the Sierra Club, and Michael Bloomberg, former New York City Mayor, are leading an effort to combat global warming even without leadership from Trump or Congress.</p>
<p>"I don't think the coal is coming back either, and Mr. Trump could talk about it but the reality is in a state like Texas producing a kilowatt hour of electricity with coal costs about six cents and producing a kilowatt hour of electricity with natural gas or with wind or with…</p>
<p>Carl Pope, the former Executive Director of the Sierra Club, and Michael Bloomberg, former New York City Mayor, are leading an effort to combat global warming even without leadership from Trump or Congress.</p>
<p>"I don't think the coal is coming back either, and Mr. Trump could talk about it but the reality is in a state like Texas producing a kilowatt hour of electricity with coal costs about six cents and producing a kilowatt hour of electricity with natural gas or with wind or with solar costs about three cents."</p>
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<p>map shows cheapest electric power source, by county, as of 2016. green is wind. orange is natural gas. purple is solar.</p>
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<p>(I was surprised to see that Wind wins in most of Pennsylvania)</p>
<p><span><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/97619110?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/97619110?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span>Sources:</span></p>
<p><span>radio interview with Pope:<a href="http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=17-P13-00025&segmentID=1" target="_blank">http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=17-P13-00025&segmentID=1</a></span></p>
<p><span>map from: </span><a href="https://cleantechnica.com/2016/12/22/low-can-solar-wind-go/" target="_blank">https://cleantechnica.com/2016/12/22/low-can-solar-wind-go/</a></p>
<p><span>and </span><a href="http://calculators.energy.utexas.edu/lcoe_map/#/county/tech" target="_blank">http://calculators.energy.utexas.edu/lcoe_map/#/county/tech</a></p> The new land rush in rural New York: solar farmstag:gomarcellusshale.com,2016-09-19:2274639:Topic:7500902016-09-19T19:35:08.665ZNYPAShalehttps://gomarcellusshale.com/profile/NYPAShale
<p><a href="http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/development/the-new-land-rush-in-rural-new-york-solar-farms-20160917" target="_blank">The new land rush in rural New York: solar farms</a></p>
<p></p>
<p>Excerpt</p>
<p></p>
<p>"The solar land rush now underway is less controversial and less free-wheeling than the natural gas leasing frenzy, but it still offers landowners a steady stream of income if their land is turned into a solar farm. A typical contract offers landowners annual lease…</p>
<p><a href="http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/development/the-new-land-rush-in-rural-new-york-solar-farms-20160917" target="_blank">The new land rush in rural New York: solar farms</a></p>
<p></p>
<p>Excerpt</p>
<p></p>
<p>"The solar land rush now underway is less controversial and less free-wheeling than the natural gas leasing frenzy, but it still offers landowners a steady stream of income if their land is turned into a solar farm. A typical contract offers landowners annual lease payments in the range of $1,500 per acre over a 20-year period – terms that could generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in income for farmers whose land is turned into a solar farm."</p>
<p>This is happening in NY, not sure if these companies are working in PA or OH (or other shale states). But, if you feel like you missed out on the shale rush and have 20 acres or so available for solar panels, it might be something to look into. A couple catches, though - you have to be close to a solid power supply, and the leasing company actually has to move forward with turning the property into a solar farm in order for the property owner to receive payment. So, no guarantees, but still interesting.</p> Enemies of the Suntag:gomarcellusshale.com,2015-10-06:2274639:Topic:6999752015-10-06T15:33:36.509ZPaul Heckberthttps://gomarcellusshale.com/profile/PaulHeckbert
<p class="story-body-text story-content" id="story-continues-1">Does anyone remember the Cheney energy task force? Early in the George W. Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney released a <a href="http://www.wtrg.com/EnergyReport/National-Energy-Policy.pdf" title="the report">report</a> that was widely derided as a document written by and for Big Energy — because it was. The administration fought tooth and nail to keep the process by which the report was produced secret, but the list…</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" id="story-continues-1">Does anyone remember the Cheney energy task force? Early in the George W. Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney released a <a title="the report" href="http://www.wtrg.com/EnergyReport/National-Energy-Policy.pdf">report</a> that was widely derided as a document written by and for Big Energy — because it was. The administration fought tooth and nail to keep the process by which the report was produced secret, but the list of <a title="Washington Post article" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/17/AR2007071701987_pf.html">people the task force met</a> was eventually leaked, and it was exactly what you’d expect: a who’s who of energy industry executives, with environmental groups getting a chance to make their case only after the work was essentially done.</p>
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<div class="nocontent robots-nocontent"></div>
<br />
<p></p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content">But here’s the thing: by the standards of today’s Republican Party, the Cheney report was enlightened, even left-leaning. One whole chapter was devoted to conservation, another to renewable energy. By contrast, recent speeches by Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio — still the most likely Republican presidential <a title="PredictIt site" href="https://www.predictit.org/Market/1233/Who-will-win-the-2016-Republican-presidential-nomination">nominees </a>— barely address either topic. When it comes to energy policy, the G.O.P. has become fossilized. That is, it’s fossil fuels, and only fossil fuels, all the way.</p>
<p></p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" id="story-continues-2">And that’s a remarkable development, because while it’s true that fracking has led to a boom in U.S. gas and oil production, we’re also living in an era of spectacular progress in wind and solar energy. Why has the right become so hostile to technologies that look more and more like the wave of the future?</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content">Before I try to answer that question, a few facts about renewable energy.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" id="story-continues-3">Wind and solar used to have a reputation as hippie-dippy stuff, not part of any serious approach to our energy future, and many people still have that perception. But it’s way out of date. The cost of wind power has dropped sharply – 30 percent in just the past five years, according to the <a title="IEA report summary" href="https://www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/MTrenew2015sum.pdf">International Energy Agency</a>.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content">And solar panels are becoming cheaper and more efficient at a startling rate, reminiscent of the progress in microchips that underlies the information technology revolution. As a result, renewables account for essentially all recent growth in electricity generation capacity in advanced countries.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content">Furthermore, renewables have become major industries in their own right, employing several hundred thousand people in the United States. Employment in the <a title="Politifact site" href="http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2014/jul/06/sheldon-whitehouse/there-are-already-more-american-jobs-solar-industr/">solar industry</a> alone now exceeds the number of coal miners, and solar is adding jobs even as coal declines.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" id="story-continues-4">So you might expect people like Mr. Rubio, who says he wants to “<a title="Business Insider site" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/marco-rubio-has-big-plans-for-oil-2015-9">unleash our energy potential</a>,” and Mr. Bush, who says he wants to “<a title="Bush campaign site" href="https://jeb2016.com/policy-energy-plan/?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=energy_medium_social_20150929_e_v1&lang=en">unleash the Energy Revolution</a>,” to embrace wind and solar as engines of jobs and growth. But they don’t. Indeed, they’re less open-minded than Dick Cheney, which is quite an accomplishment. Why?</p>
<p></p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" id="story-continues-5">Part of the answer is surely that promotion of renewable energy is linked in many people’s minds with attempts to limit climate change — and climate denial has become a key part of conservative identity. The truth is that climate impact isn’t the only cost of burning fossil fuels, that fossil-fuel-associated pollutants like <a title="American Economic Review" href="http://www.econ.yale.edu/~nordhaus/homepage/documents/EnvAccount_MMN_AER0811.pdf">particulates</a> and ozone inflict huge, measurable damage and are major reasons to support alternative energy. Furthermore, renewables are getting close to being cost-competitive even in the absence of special incentives (and don’t forget that oil and gas have long been subsidized by the tax code.) But the association with climate science evokes visceral hostility on the right.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" id="story-continues-6">Beyond that, you need to follow the money. We used to say that the G.O.P. was the party of Big Energy, but these days it would be more accurate to say that it’s the party of Old Energy. In the 2014 election cycle the <a title="Open Secrets site" href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/totals.php?ind=E01">oil and gas industry</a> gave 87 percent of its political contributions to Republicans; for <a title="Open Secrets site" href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/totals.php?ind=E1210">coal mining</a> the figure was 96, that’s right, 96 percent. Meanwhile, <a title="Open Secrets site" href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/totals.php?ind=E1500">alternative energy</a> went 56 percent for Democrats.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content" id="story-continues-7">And Old Energy is engaged in a systematic effort to blacken the image of renewable energy, one that closely resembles the way it has supported “experts” willing to help create a cloud of doubt about climate science. An example: Earlier this year Newsweek published an op-ed article purporting to show that the true cost of wind power was much higher than it seems. But it turned out that the article contained major factual errors, and its author had <a title="Politico site" href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/04/newsweek-we-didnt-vet-wind-power-op-ed-205940">failed to disclose</a> that he was the Charles W. Koch professor at Utah State, and a fellow of a Koch- and ExxonMobil-backed think tank.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content">It’s unlikely, I guess, that energy policy will play as big a role as other issues, such as tax policy, in the 2016 election. But to the extent it does, you need to know what’s really at stake.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content">While politicians on the right may talk about encouraging innovation and promoting an energy revolution, they’re actually defenders of the energy status quo, part of a movement trying to block anything that might disrupt the reign of fossil fuels.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content"></p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content">Paul Krugman</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content">2015/10/5</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/opinion/paul-krugman-enemies-of-the-sun.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/opinion/paul-krugman-enemies-of-the-sun.html</a></p> Solar Energy Hits the Energy-Water Nexustag:gomarcellusshale.com,2009-10-07:2274639:Topic:141612009-10-07T03:07:05.106ZBill Hochheiserhttps://gomarcellusshale.com/profile/BillHochheiser
NY Times article on how water issues are stopping or delaying lots of solar thermal projects in the West. There's a certain justice in this. And people complain about the water needed to frac a well!<br />
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/business/energy-environment/30water.html?_r=2&th&emc=th">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/business/energy-environment/30water.html?_r=2&th&emc=th</a>
NY Times article on how water issues are stopping or delaying lots of solar thermal projects in the West. There's a certain justice in this. And people complain about the water needed to frac a well!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/business/energy-environment/30water.html?_r=2&th&emc=th">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/business/energy-environment/30water.html?_r=2&th&emc=th</a>