New Mexico seeks energy savings in state building upgrades | Local News | santafenewmexican.com

New Mexico seeks energy savings in state building upgrades | Local News | santafenewmexican.com:

New Mexico is pushing forward with multimillion-dollar, energy-saving upgrades to its portfolio of agency buildings in the state capital, as part of an emerging climate-change strategy from Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.

The General Services Department which oversees more than 800 buildings plans to invest $32 million on projects to improve the energy efficiency of state buildings in Santa Fe and generate on-site renewable electricity with photovoltaic solar panels.

The state government’s first battery storage for solar energy is part of the project.

State legislation approved this year provides $20 million in direct spending on the energy upgrades at state buildings.

The contractor hired to implement building improvements in Santa Fe has guaranteed energy-related savings of $1.1 million a year... The state expects actual annual savings of about $1.4 million.

Separately, General Services said it has received $1 million in state funds to purchase electric vehicles for use by state workers. Another $1.5 million is going toward the creation of vehicle charging stations at state facilities within Santa Fe County.

It's very encouraging to see all of this. Thank you, Governor Lujan Grisham.

Power without Accountability

Former Mozilla CTO was detained at US border and told he had no right to a lawyer / Boing Boing.

North Carolina Orders Duke Energy to Excavate All Coal Ash - The New York Times

Michael Shellenberger has observed that, of all current types of electricity generation, only nuclear has the cost of waste management included in its price. Now some of that cost is being rolled, almost retroactively, into the cost of electricity from coal. North Carolina Orders Duke Energy to Excavate All Coal Ash - The New York Times.

Is Nuclear Power the Key to Finally Reducing the CO2 Footprint?

NB: These are essentially the same points Michael Shellenberger makes, but they come from a different source. Is Nuclear Power the Key to Finally Reducing the CO2 Footprint?:

In about 20 years, at a cost of at least two hundred billion dollars, it has added about 80 gigawatts of wind and solar generating capacity—enough in principle to cover its winter peak—to its energy mix, an amazing feat in itself.

the International Energy Agency shows that the amount of CO2 generated per kWh of electricity in Germany is still about 480 grams, despite their large investment in wind and solar technology. The reason is that the country still relies on coal and natural gas for about half of its electricity, as its wind and solar fleet lay idle most of the time. In the meantime, France—which relies on nuclear power for 75 percent of its electricity—generated only about 70 grams of CO2 per kWh. When France decided to go nuclear after the first oil shock in 1973, it derived about two thirds of its power from coal and oil-fired power plants and emitted 500 grams of CO2 per kWh. Twenty five years later, its power sector was almost carbon-free.

Because of its reliance on nuclear power, France currently has one of the lowest rates of CO2 emissions per kWh in Europe. Every year, the French power sector emits approximately 260 million fewer tonne (metric ton) of CO2 than its German counterpart, despite similar productions (respectively 560 billion kWh and 630 billion kWh). This is equivalent to taking 175 million cars off the road (assuming an average emission of 0.15 kg-CO2 per car and per km and 10,000 km per car and per year)—about 75 percent of the whole European fleet of personal vehicles.

Delays in implementation caused by legal and regulatory issues—in particular those associated with long-term liability—are likely when it comes to choosing the sites that will have to permanently host billions of tonnes of CO2. Such delays have been happening for the geological disposal of used nuclear fuel. However, unlike used nuclear fuel, which can be safely stored at reactor sites while waiting for a final disposal solution, CO2 is currently released to the atmosphere until a final solution emerges—which could take a while.

After more than two decades spent analyzing available data, experts from institutions such as the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Program, concluded that 43 people died of causes directly attributable to the Chernobyl accident. They also indicate a potential 3 percent increase in cancer mortality in the 600,000 most exposed people. In such a large population, unfortunately, more than 120,000 lethal cancers are expected to occur spontaneously—independently of any radiation exposure—and the Chernobyl accident may add 4,000 cases to this macabre toll. However, a long standing issue associated with this predicted increase is that it cannot be verified with certainty because it is much smaller than—and mostly undistinguishable from—the background of spontaneous cancers.

Finally, whereas most of the general public will very likely point at the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents as the worst modern science and engineering failures, only very few will remember the 1975 collapse of the Banqiao dam (China) where approximately 26,000 people died from flooding and another 145,000 died because of epidemics and famine. Another dam, Machchu-2, in India also failed a few years later (1979) killing at least 2,000 people. Experience shows that nuclear power does not entail more risk than other industries.

Assuming a typical consumption of 7,000 kWh per year, a person living in San Francisco would be responsible for the production of about 6.2 cubic centimeters of used nuclear fuel per year weighing 18 grams if the electricity came only from a nuclear power plant. It would take about 55 years for this person to fill the equivalent of a can of soda with used nuclear fuel. So, yes, these used fuel assemblies contain very dangerous materials—standing next to one, unprotected, would kill you in a few minutes—but there is very little of it. If the same electricity had come only from a gas—natural or bio—power plant during the same 55 years, that person would have been responsible for the emission of about 190 tonnes of CO2—900,000 cans of soda or one every half-hour—and twice that amount if it had come from a coal power plant.

In New Mexico, renewables don't always mean clean energy | Local News | santafenewmexican.com

2008 brought plans to erect wind turbines across the Taos plateau. Last year long-distance transmission lines were ready to carry wind power across the bird migration routes near the Bosque del Apache. And now this: a geothermal plant may be harming an aquifer in New Mexico's Animas Valley. This is an interesting read from the Santa Fe New Mexican, about roses, tilapia, politics and energy politics: In New Mexico, renewables don't always mean clean energy | Local News | santafenewmexican.com:

Riding his horse through cattle pasture of brush and brittle mesquite, Randy Walter spotted a 10-foot geyser spewing from a well that had been capped and padlocked for 12 years.

The dark side of renewable energy is that every form of production carries its own environmental baggage.

During the 2012 legislative session, Southern New Mexico Democrats Sen. John Arthur Smith and Rep. Rudy Martinez co-sponsored a bill that took jurisdiction over 250-plus-degree water from the Office of the State Engineer and placed it in the hands of the Oil Conservation Division.

In other words, the hot water was no longer considered water, but energy. The agency historically tasked with managing water in New Mexico was stripped of its authority over the project.

One of the people unafraid to speak out is Meira Gault, a 69-year-old cattle rancher who once served in intelligence in the Israeli Army and has been a Hidalgo conservation district official for 11 years.

Gault said she views the well blowout as the surest sign that the geothermal water simply isn’t going where Cyrq promised it would go.