NATO & Renewable Energy

NATO is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which is an intergovernmental military alliance. The organization works by using collective defense, crisis-management and cooperative security. A recent article I saw by Russia Today was titled "Green War Games: NATO to Test Renewable Energy For Battlefield, Humanitarian Ops." The article talked about how NATO is testing renewable energy(mainly solar and wind) for battlefields and humanitarian operations. In Hungary in the month of June 1,000 NATO soldiers will spend a week and a half testing renewable energy.  U.S, French, Austria, and German companies are helping to support the project. Some of the projects they are going to focus on are small flower solar plants, battery chargers powered by the sun, and insulated tents.

A big problem for U.S soldiers is transporting non-renewable sources mainly oil. "According to NATO, the test comes after 3,000 US soldiers were killed or wounded in attacks on water and fuel convoys in Afghanistan and Iraq." For transporting solar cells they do not explode if shot at. Over the week and a half NATO is going to test the renewable equipment through war-game scenarios like power outages and floods.The US. Army is planning other projects for using clean energy. In Afghanistan alone NATO spends 5 gallons of fuel to deliver one gallon.
I think it is really strange how the military is using renewable energy. We were fighting over oil a lot in the Middle East, but now it is weird we are fighting using clean energy. This is actually a really good idea because bombs and other weaponry can cause a lot of pollution into the air, so this helps fight that. But I feel like they are trying to make warfare sound better. Warfare is still killing innocent people and I really hate wars. But maybe this new technology can help us win the wars faster. I feel like the world should be moving towards renewable energy, so I think it is a good plan.

Geothermal Energy

08 April 2015
It is a start of a new year, and there is one energy I want to talk about that dramatically increased in 2014. It is called geothermal energy and it increased 5% last year. Geothermal energy is just heat coming from the Earth. Starting in the 1970s different countries started using it for energy. Most geothermal systems go 10,000 meters into the ground. The temperature underground for most of it is 65-75 degrees. There are many pros of geothermal like how it is green because it releases barely any emissions, zero carbon, does not take much land, and can be used mostly everywhere. But of course there are negatives to every energy. Geothermal energy usually are faraway from people, long transmission, water usage, and high construction costs. I do like how geothermal is one of the cleaner type of energies, but I think it definitely needs improvement. It seems really dangerous digging into the ground because I feel like it could lead to water pollution. I also do not like how it usually has to be away from people because you lose so much electricity and money that way. Most people are familiar with Yellowstone National Park's geysers. but those are not used for electricity.

The U.S. is the biggest produce of geothermal energy and we generate 15 billion kilowatt hours of geothermal power per year which is 0.41% of  U.S. energy. There was an article I read called "The Dream Becomes Real: Touring the Newberry Enhanced Geothermal Site" by Renewable Energy World. I really liked this article because it talked about how they are determined to get the plant up and running, but with everything there are some complications. In Bend, Oregon they are building the Newberry geothermal project. It has 5 GW of potential. The U.S. has a potential of 345,100 more MW of power, which could help the environment by moving away from coal. Most geothermal plants use existing reservoirs, but this project is creating its own by drilling into dry rock and injecting liquid to make the reservoir. This project's opening has been postponed two years now because there was a leak which released 10 million gallons of water! This could have been very dangerous because it could have caused an earthquake. It should be ready in spring of this year and reach almost 10,000 feet.
I think this project is amazing. I love how they figured out new ways to get the energy. It is not really damaging the landscape and it provides a lot of clean energy. We should really try to do more projects like this in the future, so that we could move away from. We still need to improve our technology because it has been delayed so much time, and we waste so much water getting the heat. I hope that when they do start running the project, that nothing will go wrong like polluting the water supply. But this project is great news to the environmental community!

The Growth of Renewable Energy

I was going through Washington Post articles and one caught my eye. It is called "Renewable Energy is Growing Very, Very Fast. It's Just Still Not Fast Enough." It says how renewable energy production increased by a big amount from last year. The worldwide investment in renewables in 2014 was $270.2 billion which was a 17% increase from 2013. There were many solar projects in Japan and China and offshore wind farms in Europe. Surprisingly half of the investment was in developing countries.Solar and wind were the two many sources for the new energy; taking 92% of the investment. About $150 million investment was in solar and $100 million in wind. Since countries are investing more in renewables, the price of solar and other technologies has gone down. The new technologies are more energy-efficient which means we are investing more in renewable energy, but are now making a lot more money on it. China was the biggest investor with $83 billion than the U.S. with $38 billion and then Japan with $35.7 billion. Renewable energy is now 9.1% of the world's energy consumption which is a 0.6% increase.

This article made me happy that renewable energy is growing fast, but it is still kind of slow if that makes sense. Just like the article title says it is just not fast enough. Billions of dollars are going into renewables, but renewable energy is only 9.1% of energy production. That number is so low! It is not even in double digits yet. I know renewable energy technology is expensive, but it getting cheaper now so hopefully more countries invest. Maybe if people stop buying their stupid SUVs and we can get cheaper solar panels that would help by a huge amount. In college I want to major in sustainable energy management so this information gives me confidence that I will get a job after graduation. The U.S. is the second biggest investor in renewables, but of course we are behind China like everything else in the world. Hopefully every country in the world invests in renewable energy so that the world can be a sustainable, healthy place to live.

All About the Keystone XL Pipeline

If you pay attention to the news, you have probably heard about the Keystone XL Pipeline. It was a big issue in 2014 and it has now continued into 2015. If you have not heard about it, it is a 2,000 mile pipeline that flows oil produced by tar sands in Canada and it runs all the way to Texas. Many people are for it because of the 120,000 jobs and increases the about of oil we produce domestically so oil will be cheaper. If you're an advent reader of my blog, you know I am interested in anything to help the environment, and so I wanted to see why environmentalists were fighting the Keystone XL Pipeline. An article by the Labor Network for Sustainability really had some great points.  It said that "To produce one barrel of heavy crude oil from tar sands requires strip mining the forest, extracting four tons of earth, contaminating two to four barrels of fresh water, burning large amounts of natural gas, and creating vast holding ponds of toxic sludge." Now I see why Republicans are mainly for the Keystone is because they do not care about the environment. This project is taking down trees and destroying habitats for animals. And what happens if there is an oil spill? There will be oil over 2000 miles of land! I know people need jobs, but is it worth the risk? I do not think so. People are putting jobs over our beautiful environment. Another point the article talks about are the rising greenhouse gas emissions and this project will increase them even more due to the deforestation and burning of coal.





Last week there were big news about the Keystone XL pipeline. In the article "Obama Facing Rising Pressure on Keystone Oil Pipeline" from the New York Times discussed how the House passed a bill approve the Keystone in Nebraska. The final vote was 266 to 153. The representatives who supported it said that the pipeline will bring 830,000 barrels of oil per day to the Gulf Coast, creates jobs and adds 3.4 billion to the economy, is domestic, and it does not increase greenhouse gases as much as environmentalists said it does. Another claim they have is that it will not destroy much of the environment. The Nebraska governor approved it after the pipeline company, TransCanada, changed its route to avoid the Sandhills region. Even with all these great pros I still doubt their sources and I hope the President vetoes it. We need to protect the environment and the Keystone Pipeline will destroy it. We should be moving away from oil, not try to get more of it. It would be best to invest in renewable energy, and I hope President Obama thinks the same way.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles

In my other articles I have discussed electric cars and gasoline-powered cars, but have you ever heard of a hydrogen fuel cell car? Using hydrogen as a power source is not  really a new technology-NASA has been using it for 50 years-but now Toyota is now using that fuel for cars. Hydrogen fuel cars work like this: 

I think it is so fascinating how we could just use water to power a car. It has no emissions so it is amazing for the environment. I think it is kind of weird for water to leak on the streets. I know this will be way ahead in the future, but what if everyone gets a hydrogen car, then there will be a lack of water, and cause corrosion of the streets and our sewers will get full. I read a really cool article from the magazine Bloomburg BusinessWeek called "The World's Biggest Car Company Wants to Get Rid of Gasoline." That title really got my attention, so I was excited to read it. It discussed Toyota's huge move to create the first mass-produced hydrogen car called the Toyota Mirai.

It has a driving range of 300 miles and emits only heat and water. It is on the market in Japan, but does not go on the market in the U.S. until the end of this year with a price tag of $62,000. It does not go pretty fast. The problem with hydrogen fuel cell cars-sometimes the same problem as electrics-are the lack of fueling/charge stations. There only 8,849 electric stations and 21,916 charging outlets in the U.S. And since hydrogen fuel is so new we only have 20 stations in the whole U.S., mostly in California. There are a lot of other car companies like Tesla who really question the reliability and benefits to the environment hydrogen fuel cars have. I feel like scientists should gather more evidence to settle this dispute. Another problem the article discusses is that even though they have gotten the price of hydrogen lower, making it cheaper than gasoline and electricity, hydrogen can be a very dangerous fuel. It is highly explosive which is very scary to me. Imagine if there is a gas leak on the road, there is a chance the car could explode! Toyota said they handled most of those issues, but I am still not 100% about trusting them. For me this car is so new, and nothing has come out like it, and so I do not know how it is actually going to be. Hydrogen is not easily made into fuel, and we do release emissions while changing it into a fuel. We need to reduce our emissions, global warming is upon us, and I really admire Toyota for being different and trying to help the environment, but we will just have to wait and see how successful these cars are in the long-run.


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