More Awareness, not Ignorance, Will Lead to a More Rapid Solution
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
I try and read my local paper everyday. I'm aware of the slant of the Union Tribune and it doesn't bother me one bit. I'm intelligent enough to take that into account while absorbing facts. Anyway, a funny thing happens when you read the same paper over and over again each day. You notice trends both alarming and encouraging. And no, I'm not talking about Michael Jackson either. I'm talking about the news of the world. Events and occurrences that effect and shape our everyday existence, whether we are cognizant of them or not.
Take for example this article on our oil dependence, buried deep within the front section and easy to overlook.
________________
War game dramatizes huge dependence on oil -- U.S. could do little if supply is cut off
By John Mintz
THE WASHINGTON POST
June 24, 2005
WASHINGTON – The United States would be all but powerless to protect the American economy in the face of a catastrophic disruption of oil markets, high-level participants in a war game concluded yesterday.
The exercise, called "Oil Shockwave" and played out in a Washington hotel ballroom, had real-life former top U.S. officials taking on the role of members of the president's Cabinet convening to respond to escalating energy crises, culminating in $5.32-a-gallon gasoline and a world wobbling into recession.
"The American people are going to pay a terrible price for not having had an energy strategy," said former CIA Director Robert Gates, who took the role of national security adviser.
Stepping out of character, he added that the scenarios portrayed "were absolutely not alarmist; they're realistic."
The exercise began with ethnic unrest in Nigeria, leading to the collapse of the oil industry in that west African nation. Then al-Qaeda launched crippling attacks on key energy facilities in Valdez, Alaska, and Saudi Arabia.
But the war game's participants – including former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, former Marine Corps Commandant Gen. P.X. Kelley and former EPA Administrator Carol Browner – soon realized the U.S. government had few options in the short term to prevent an economic crash in this country and worldwide.
When the exercise's planners first met last year, oil was in the $40-a-barrel range.
As they fantasized where oil prices would be for the war game's start in an imagined late 2005, they said, they set them at $58 but worried they were being absurdly pessimistic. Yesterday, the closing price for a barrel of oil was $59.42.
The war game players also referred several times to other real-life events of today.
A major feature was how China's voracious appetite for oil is driving up world prices, and only Wednesday it was announced that the Beijing government, in a bold and unprecedented act, is bidding to buy the U.S. oil company Unocal.
The exercise was organized by two nonprofit groups that focus on the national security implications of U.S. dependence on foreign oil: the National Commission on Energy Policy, and Securing America's Future Energy, or SAFE.
The scenarios were dreamed up by a team of former oil industry executives and government officials, including Rand Beers, a White House counterterrorism official who quit in 2003 to protest the Iraq war.
The underlying situation dramatized in the exercise – and accepted by most energy analysts – is that tolerances are so tight between supply and demand that even small disruptions in the delivery of oil and natural gas can cause cascades of unpleasant developments.
The war game contemplated that when oil prices spiked and the Cabinet met to consider its options, it realized it had almost no clout to influence events.
The standard response, drawing on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, was symbolic at best.
Within weeks, the game had conditions worsening – the Valdez oil terminal was on fire, as was a major Saudi oil port, and Western technicians were being killed there.
Foreign oil firms soon pulled tens of thousands of workers out of Saudi Arabia. Suddenly lacking technical expertise, Saudi facilities could no longer play their decades-long role of guaranteed "swing" provider of oil in response to disruptions elsewhere.
As the global recession deepened, there was no "central banker" of oil to smooth temporary dislocations.
The participants concluded that President Bush should invest quickly in promising technologies to reduce dependence on overseas oil, such as hybrid cars and vehicles that run on fuels derived from prairie grasses, animal waste and other products.
They agreed that these projects would take years to yield any benefit but should not wait for the kind of crisis they were dramatizing.
__________________________
A bit scary and not something people like to think about really. Gas at $5.50 a gallon and global unrest is a bit hard to swallow over morning coffee.
The next day however, there was this article on the front bottom page, below the fold, of the business section on a "little" local company, Kyocera, and their intelligent use of solar parking lot structures for multiple purposes (vehicle protection from the sun, utilization of it for energy, and preservation of it to light the area during the dark hours).
__________________________
Parking lot's 'solar trees' offer shade, provide power
By Craig D. Rose
June 25, 2005
Kyocera yesterday unveiled a demonstration project it hopes will help take parking lots to new places by including stylized solar arrays that shade cars while cleanly producing electricity.
Kyocera yesterday unveiled its so-called Solar Grove, a parking lot with stylized stanchions supporting photovoltaic panels that provide electricity and covered parking.The company's so-called Solar Grove is an array of modernistic stanchions – "solar trees" in Kyocera's lingo – supporting about 1,600 photovoltaic modules over an employee parking lot adjacent to its North American headquarters at Balboa Avenue and state Route 163.
Beyond providing 186 covered parking places and a small fraction of the energy the company uses at its headquarters, Kyocera is marketing Solar Groves as a part of an effort to double revenue this year from its solar energy products.
The diversified manufacturer of electronic components sought to enhance the appearance of the arrays by emphasizing a tree-like aspect, with each solar canopy supported by a single stanchion but shading six vehicles.
Kyocera declined to specify the cost of the new solar array, noting that the facility is a prototype. But the company said about 40 percent of the cost was covered by California rebates for solar projects and that it would benefit from federal and state tax credits.
All told, the company believes Solar Groves will prove attractive in the burgeoning solar market.
"The economic viability of PV systems like this represents a milestone for businesses throughout California," said Steve Hill, president of Kyocera Solar Inc.
By avoiding the need to burn natural gas or other fossil fuels for the power it produces, Kyocera said the array will avoid the annual release of nearly 340,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, a suspected contributor to global warming, as well as hundreds of pounds of pollutants.
The new photovoltaic arrays are tilted slightly to maximize solar exposure and have a capacity of about 235 kilowatts, enough to power about 68 typical local homes. The company last year began manufacturing solar panels at a facility in Tijuana and hopes to double production this year.
According to the San Diego Regional Energy Office, the Kyocera solar array is the largest privately owned such installation in the county and the third largest overall, behind solar arrays at the Del Mar Fairgrounds and one built for the Navy on North Island.
Irene Stillings, executive director of the energy office, said the $5 million in solar rebates the office had for San Diego this year has already been exhausted.
"Activity (in solar) is enormous," Stillings said. The rebate funding available, she said, "is not enough."
The City of San Diego has also set a goal of 50 megawatts of renewable energy capacity – from solar and other sources – by 2013. For context, peak summertime demand for SDG&E hovers around 4,000 megawatts. (A megawatt equals 1,000 kilowatts.)
The county overall has about 12 megawatts of solar capacity now – enough to power about 12,000 homes – and another 8 megawatts in the pipeline. But Stillings noted that solar construction could soon run into a key limit, namely a cap on electricity that San Diego Gas & Electric is required to buy back from owners of solar arrays.
The buybacks are a key component in making solar power viable because photovoltaics produce surplus power during the hottest periods when power is most in demand by the local utility.
State Sen. Chris Kehoe, who attended yesterday's ribbon cutting at the Kyocera facility, is sponsoring a bill to raise the cap on buybacks.
Kyocera's Kearny Mesa facility manufactures ceramic packages for computer chips and is among the larger electricity consumers in the region.
To protect its manufacturing process, the company made the headquarters energy self-sufficient in the late 1980s, with the bulk of its power provided by a natural gas-fired generator supplemented by solar power, which provides about 2 percent of its electricity.
The new Solar Grove has allowed Kyocera to retire a smaller rooftop photovoltaic system, which was donated to a hospital in Mexico, according to a company spokesman.
___________________________
My point is, you can get scared and think about the worst case scenario, or you can do something about it.
Bravo to Kyocera for doing the latter.
Take for example this article on our oil dependence, buried deep within the front section and easy to overlook.
________________
War game dramatizes huge dependence on oil -- U.S. could do little if supply is cut off
By John Mintz
THE WASHINGTON POST
June 24, 2005
WASHINGTON – The United States would be all but powerless to protect the American economy in the face of a catastrophic disruption of oil markets, high-level participants in a war game concluded yesterday.
The exercise, called "Oil Shockwave" and played out in a Washington hotel ballroom, had real-life former top U.S. officials taking on the role of members of the president's Cabinet convening to respond to escalating energy crises, culminating in $5.32-a-gallon gasoline and a world wobbling into recession.
"The American people are going to pay a terrible price for not having had an energy strategy," said former CIA Director Robert Gates, who took the role of national security adviser.
Stepping out of character, he added that the scenarios portrayed "were absolutely not alarmist; they're realistic."
The exercise began with ethnic unrest in Nigeria, leading to the collapse of the oil industry in that west African nation. Then al-Qaeda launched crippling attacks on key energy facilities in Valdez, Alaska, and Saudi Arabia.
But the war game's participants – including former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, former Marine Corps Commandant Gen. P.X. Kelley and former EPA Administrator Carol Browner – soon realized the U.S. government had few options in the short term to prevent an economic crash in this country and worldwide.
When the exercise's planners first met last year, oil was in the $40-a-barrel range.
As they fantasized where oil prices would be for the war game's start in an imagined late 2005, they said, they set them at $58 but worried they were being absurdly pessimistic. Yesterday, the closing price for a barrel of oil was $59.42.
The war game players also referred several times to other real-life events of today.
A major feature was how China's voracious appetite for oil is driving up world prices, and only Wednesday it was announced that the Beijing government, in a bold and unprecedented act, is bidding to buy the U.S. oil company Unocal.
The exercise was organized by two nonprofit groups that focus on the national security implications of U.S. dependence on foreign oil: the National Commission on Energy Policy, and Securing America's Future Energy, or SAFE.
The scenarios were dreamed up by a team of former oil industry executives and government officials, including Rand Beers, a White House counterterrorism official who quit in 2003 to protest the Iraq war.
The underlying situation dramatized in the exercise – and accepted by most energy analysts – is that tolerances are so tight between supply and demand that even small disruptions in the delivery of oil and natural gas can cause cascades of unpleasant developments.
The war game contemplated that when oil prices spiked and the Cabinet met to consider its options, it realized it had almost no clout to influence events.
The standard response, drawing on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, was symbolic at best.
Within weeks, the game had conditions worsening – the Valdez oil terminal was on fire, as was a major Saudi oil port, and Western technicians were being killed there.
Foreign oil firms soon pulled tens of thousands of workers out of Saudi Arabia. Suddenly lacking technical expertise, Saudi facilities could no longer play their decades-long role of guaranteed "swing" provider of oil in response to disruptions elsewhere.
As the global recession deepened, there was no "central banker" of oil to smooth temporary dislocations.
The participants concluded that President Bush should invest quickly in promising technologies to reduce dependence on overseas oil, such as hybrid cars and vehicles that run on fuels derived from prairie grasses, animal waste and other products.
They agreed that these projects would take years to yield any benefit but should not wait for the kind of crisis they were dramatizing.
__________________________
A bit scary and not something people like to think about really. Gas at $5.50 a gallon and global unrest is a bit hard to swallow over morning coffee.
The next day however, there was this article on the front bottom page, below the fold, of the business section on a "little" local company, Kyocera, and their intelligent use of solar parking lot structures for multiple purposes (vehicle protection from the sun, utilization of it for energy, and preservation of it to light the area during the dark hours).
__________________________
Parking lot's 'solar trees' offer shade, provide power
By Craig D. Rose
June 25, 2005
Kyocera yesterday unveiled a demonstration project it hopes will help take parking lots to new places by including stylized solar arrays that shade cars while cleanly producing electricity.
Kyocera yesterday unveiled its so-called Solar Grove, a parking lot with stylized stanchions supporting photovoltaic panels that provide electricity and covered parking.The company's so-called Solar Grove is an array of modernistic stanchions – "solar trees" in Kyocera's lingo – supporting about 1,600 photovoltaic modules over an employee parking lot adjacent to its North American headquarters at Balboa Avenue and state Route 163.
Beyond providing 186 covered parking places and a small fraction of the energy the company uses at its headquarters, Kyocera is marketing Solar Groves as a part of an effort to double revenue this year from its solar energy products.
The diversified manufacturer of electronic components sought to enhance the appearance of the arrays by emphasizing a tree-like aspect, with each solar canopy supported by a single stanchion but shading six vehicles.
Kyocera declined to specify the cost of the new solar array, noting that the facility is a prototype. But the company said about 40 percent of the cost was covered by California rebates for solar projects and that it would benefit from federal and state tax credits.
All told, the company believes Solar Groves will prove attractive in the burgeoning solar market.
"The economic viability of PV systems like this represents a milestone for businesses throughout California," said Steve Hill, president of Kyocera Solar Inc.
By avoiding the need to burn natural gas or other fossil fuels for the power it produces, Kyocera said the array will avoid the annual release of nearly 340,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, a suspected contributor to global warming, as well as hundreds of pounds of pollutants.
The new photovoltaic arrays are tilted slightly to maximize solar exposure and have a capacity of about 235 kilowatts, enough to power about 68 typical local homes. The company last year began manufacturing solar panels at a facility in Tijuana and hopes to double production this year.
According to the San Diego Regional Energy Office, the Kyocera solar array is the largest privately owned such installation in the county and the third largest overall, behind solar arrays at the Del Mar Fairgrounds and one built for the Navy on North Island.
Irene Stillings, executive director of the energy office, said the $5 million in solar rebates the office had for San Diego this year has already been exhausted.
"Activity (in solar) is enormous," Stillings said. The rebate funding available, she said, "is not enough."
The City of San Diego has also set a goal of 50 megawatts of renewable energy capacity – from solar and other sources – by 2013. For context, peak summertime demand for SDG&E hovers around 4,000 megawatts. (A megawatt equals 1,000 kilowatts.)
The county overall has about 12 megawatts of solar capacity now – enough to power about 12,000 homes – and another 8 megawatts in the pipeline. But Stillings noted that solar construction could soon run into a key limit, namely a cap on electricity that San Diego Gas & Electric is required to buy back from owners of solar arrays.
The buybacks are a key component in making solar power viable because photovoltaics produce surplus power during the hottest periods when power is most in demand by the local utility.
State Sen. Chris Kehoe, who attended yesterday's ribbon cutting at the Kyocera facility, is sponsoring a bill to raise the cap on buybacks.
Kyocera's Kearny Mesa facility manufactures ceramic packages for computer chips and is among the larger electricity consumers in the region.
To protect its manufacturing process, the company made the headquarters energy self-sufficient in the late 1980s, with the bulk of its power provided by a natural gas-fired generator supplemented by solar power, which provides about 2 percent of its electricity.
The new Solar Grove has allowed Kyocera to retire a smaller rooftop photovoltaic system, which was donated to a hospital in Mexico, according to a company spokesman.
___________________________
My point is, you can get scared and think about the worst case scenario, or you can do something about it.
Bravo to Kyocera for doing the latter.
