How to Use this Web Log

1. Browse through articles by clicking on "Older Posts" below each article in the center column.
2. Search through the Blog Archive at the lower right-hand column.

3. Read Editor's articles to the right.
4. Get Technical help in the lower left hand column.
5. Efficiency and low-waste strategies in the lower right column.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Help Me to Save the Planet

Help me to save the planet. I know that sounds like an extreme statement, but the climate problems we are now confronting everywhere in the world call for bold action.

We do not have to self-destruct in an endless cycle of the pollution of land, air and water. What can be done? What can you do?

At this moment, everywhere in the world where electricity costs more than 22 cents/kWh, like California and many other states as well as Germany and Japan, it is already cheaper to install integrated solar PV systems with batteries for your electricity needs. I know, because this is my work. Now, I am looking for finance to manufacture and deploy SunPax, a micro integrated PV module with all power control electronics, 20+ year batteries and a micro-computer to monitor and control all functions. The costs of these components already allows a profitable product to be built and distributed. Please look at a synopsis of SunPax at http://lightontheearth.blogspot.com/p/shedding-light-on-solar.html

I have been living off the grid for most of the past 30 years, as I am now. I have never had a power outage. I have discovered the solution that can save our planet from climate catastrophe while also providing affordable electricity and user-friendliness. I have been working with an eminent scientist to do all the analysis and to make sure I have not overlooked any hidden factors. Well, the word is in - SunPax is the solution. I am not some inventor claiming some kind of "free-energy" device. I have a Masters Degree in Business and have been designing, building, installing and using such integrated solar energy systems for 30 years. But now is the time to take the next step - micro-integration of all the components.

However, I have thus far been unable to make contact with visionary investors capable of providing the relatively mid-range business investment required to bring this product to market. So if we want to save the world, it is going to be up to us.

It is calculated that there are only six people that separate us from each and every person in the world, if we only knew the way to connect the dots. I need to find my way to people who have financial resources and care about the fate of the world. You can help by forwarding this message to all the people you know who want this energy madness to stop.

Please go to my web log post listed above and you will see that I am a very serious person. I can be contacted at the email address at the bottom of the SunPax description. Anyone with any ideas is welcome to submit them to me. I also have detailed technical analysis and business projections to demonstrate this is not some flight of fancy. Please help if you can!


Jonathan Cole - Founder - Light on the Earth Systems

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Saving the World from Climate Catastrophe

Clean Energy Least Costly to Power America's Electricity Needs

Sep. 17, 2013 — Findings show carbon pollution from power plants can be cut cost-effectively by using wind, solar and natural gas
It's less costly to get electricity from wind turbines and solar panels than coal-fired power plants when climate change costs and other health impacts are factored in, according to a new study published in Springer's Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences.
In fact -- using the official U.S. government estimates of health and environmental costs from burning fossil fuels -- the study shows it's cheaper to replace a typical existing coal-fired power plant with a wind turbine than to keep the old plant running. And new electricity generation from wind could be more economically efficient than natural gas.
The findings show the nation can cut carbon pollution from power plants in a cost-effective way, by replacing coal-fired generation with cleaner options like wind, solar, and natural gas.
"Burning coal is a very costly way to make electricity. There are more efficient and sustainable ways to get power," said Dr. Laurie Johnson, chief economist in the Climate and Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "We can reduce health and climate change costs while reducing the dangerous carbon pollution driving global warming."
Johnson co-authored the study, "The Social Cost of Carbon: Implications for Modernizing our Electricity System," with Chris Hope of the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge; and Starla Yeh in NRDC's Center for Market Innovation. Power plants are the nation's single largest source of such pollution, accounting for 40 percent of our national carbon footprint.
"And yet, there are no federal limits on the amount of carbon pollution our power plants may release," said Johnson. "That's wrong. It doesn't make sense. It's putting our future at risk. We limit the amount of mercury, arsenic, soot, and other harmful pollution from these plants. It's time to cut this carbon pollution."
President Obama has vowed to do that, using his authority under the Clean Air Act to set the first federal limits on the amount of carbon pollution power plants may release. Critics claim that could raise costs. But, in fact, it can reduce the total cost of electricity generation, the new study finds.
Carbon pollution imposes economic costs by damaging public health and driving destructive climate change. Working together, the White House Office of Management and Budget, the Treasury Department, the Department of Energy and eight other federal agencies put a dollar value on those damages, in an official figure called the "social cost of carbon" (SCC).
The SCC is used to calculate the benefits (i.e., avoided climate damages) of carbon pollution reduction. The administration puts the best estimate at $33 per ton of carbon pollution emitted in 2010.
The study also included government damage estimates from sulfur dioxide, a pollutant released simultaneously with carbon. Every year, sulfur dioxide causes thousands of premature deaths, respiratory ailments, heart disease and a host of ecosystem damages.
"Already, climate change is contributing to record heat waves, floods, drought, wildfires and severe storms," Johnson said. Such extreme weather caused more than $140 billion in damages in 2012. American taxpayers picked up nearly $100 billion of those costs, according to an NRDC report released in May, 2013.
"These damages are only likely to increase if nothing is done to reduce carbon pollution," concluded Johnson.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130917124817.htm