[GWSG] Insurance difficulties; Greenland's stability; Trump's evil schemes; solar repaying debt; solar, community and not

[Tilley, Al]

1.  ". . .[S]ince the 1950s, the frequency of weather-related catastrophes has increased sixfold" globally.  The role of the insurance industry as general risk managers is threatened by the gap between protected and unprotected risk, and by the instability of the fossil fuel industry in which the insurers are invested.  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/07/climate-change-threatens-ability-insurers-manage-risk



2.  Greenland spent at least 280,000 of the last 1.4 million years without its ice sheet (at least toward the center), indicating that it is less stable than we had supposed.  http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2016/12/005.html  Another study in the same issue of Nature found that the easternmost coastal ice sheet has been stable for 7.5 million years.  The studies indicate a complex past, and future, for the ice sheet.  http://www.ecowatch.com/greenland-ice-sheet-melt-2135544058.html?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=43a0f35bc3-MailChimp+Email+Blast&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-43a0f35bc3-85965093



3.  A memo from Thomas Pyle, head of energy issues for Trump's transition team, outlines the new administration's plans to attack the energy transition to renewables and to restore fossil fuels to their former flushness.  https://cleantechnica.com/2016/12/08/leaked-transition-team-memo-outlines-trumps-catastrophic-energy-agenda/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IM-cleantechnica+%28CleanTechnica%29   Stories abound on the difficulty Trump will have in resurrecting coal (expensive, dirty) or deflecting interest in renewables which have become cheaper and more stabilizing than fossil fuel alternatives.  Not to mention climate, which is of course the main point of the transition.  I'm going to hold off on more stories on this issue until we begin to hear of the results and lack of such as the policies are enacted and attempt to grab hold.  I notice that the NY Times is looking to Pyle's Institute Energy Research for comments on, for example, Google's commitment to 100% renewable energy next year.  I am going to avoid passing on such propaganda so far as I am able.  So should the Times.



4.  Because solar panels have been manufactured using energy from fossil fuels, they have carried a carbon cost.  As they become the source of the energy themselves they repay that debt.  Using the worst case figures, In 2017-18 we will pass the point at which the global emissions savings of solar energy repays the debt entirely.  However, the debt was probably repaid in 2011.  https://cleantechnica.com/2016/12/08/solar-panels-soon-complete-repayment-energy-debt/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IM-cleantechnica+%28CleanTechnica%29



5.   Arcadia Power now offers a community solar arrangement of five year leases on solar panels in solar-friendly areas.  The proceeds are applied to your electric bill, and your utility's dirty fossil power is offset.  The net effect is that you have responsibility for adding clean power to the grid, obviating generation by fossil fuels.  http://www.arcadiapower.com/solar  Unfortunately, my utility is not yet cooperating in the program.  I intend to join when they come around.  (My roof is shaded by neighbors' trees, so I can't install my own panels.) I think the community solar approach has some advantages in any case-including its lower cost.  The National Renewable Energy Laboratory projects that community solar could account for half of the solar market by 2020.  The article also says that at current rates of $2-3.50 per watt, solar power is a money saver and appropriate for about everyone, whether on their own roof or as part of a community project.  http://energy.gov/eere/articles/new-analysis-shows-national-potential-solar-power-low-income-communities   The Berkeley Lab has made its report on the cost of solar nationally available to the public.  https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/tracking-sun-ix-installed-price  ?

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