One group with a smile on their face during Japan's Nuclear disaster, coal industry

There is tons of anti-nuclear press and discussions given the situation in Japan.

Consider this point from Seth Godin's blog on The Triumph of Coal Marketing.

The triumph of coal marketing

Do you have an opinion about nuclear power? About the relative safety of one form of power over another? How did you come to this opinion?

Here are the stats, and here's the image. A non-exaggerated but simple version of his data:

For every person killed by nuclear power generation, 4,000 die due to coal, adjusted for the same amount of power produced... You might very well have excellent reasons to argue for one form over another. Not the point of this post. The question is: did you know about this chart? How does it resonate with you?

The coal industry like the fact that people don't think this way.  In their minds it is the opposite.

But, you go to some areas of the US and Nuclear is still a priority reports Reuters.

By Matthew Bigg

ATLANTA | Fri Mar 18, 2011 5:12pm EDT

(Reuters) - For much of the world, Japan's nuclear crisis has heightened concerns about nuclear power. But in the U.S. Southeast, where the next set of reactors are planned, the concerns are not so great.

Even environmental activists -- those with deep-seated reservations about nuclear safety who say events in Japan provide an opening to change opinions [ID:nL3E7EI251] -- do not anticipate a radical shift.

No reactors have been commissioned in the United States since the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania in which a reactor suffered a partial meltdown.

The next four are due to come online in Georgia and South Carolina between 2016 and 2019, pending regulatory approval, in a region that is one of the country's most conservative.

Oregon Wind farm has $1.2bil in subsidies for $1.9bil project

If you could get 65% of your renewable energy project subsidized would you be thinking about green energy for a data center?  Here is a project in Oregon that is controversial.

The cost of green: Huge eastern Oregon wind farm raises big questions about state, federal subsidies

Published: Saturday, March 12, 2011, 4:32 PM     Updated: Sunday, March 13, 2011, 2:54 PM

By Ted Sickinger, The Oregonian

Randy L Rasmussen/The OregonianWillow Creek Valley landowner Clyde Smith sold out to the developers of Shepherds Flat wind farm in Eastern Oregon. He calls the heavily subsidized project a taxpayer "boondoggle."

Here are more details.

Stacking federal, state and county subsidies is perfectly legal. But the result is that taxpayers who subsidize a project may bear a greater burden for development than the company that profits from it.
For Shepherds Flat, for instance, federal, state and local subsidies total more than $1.2 billion, about 65 percent of its $1.9 billion cost, according to a White House memo.
Caithness Energy, the New York-based developer of Shepherds Flat, did not respond to numerous phone calls from The Oregonian or detailed questions e-mailed to the company concerning the White House analysis and the company's state tax breaks.

Nathan Myhrvold says #1 problem is we need more power

WSJ has an interview with Nathan Myhrvold at the ECO:nomics conference.  I read the article this morning and was thinking whether to post or not, but then I ran into Nathan an hour ago and said hi.  How can I not take it as a sign to post given I hadn’t seen Nathan for???  I can’t remember how long it has been. 

Nathan makes an interesting point in the article that it is hard to argue with.

MR. MURRAY: You've done a lot of work in the energy area. Can you talk about where you're focusing your effort there?

MR. MYHRVOLD: The single biggest problem we have to focus on in this century is how to get every citizen of Earth roughly the same per-capita energy we enjoy in the developed world. China is developing. India is developing. Brazil is developing. They all want the lifestyle we have. The world's energy problem is about how we expand our energy budget by a factor of 10 or more, and short of incredible disaster or war, I don't know how we stop that.

We don't have any viable way to do it. I don't believe that problem can be solved with any combination of existing technologies.

Can you imagine a world where every citizen has roughly the same per-capita energy?  That is a tough problem.

MR. MURRAY: Do you have another idea that can reach that kind of scale?

MR. MYHRVOLD: We're trying, but don't just bet on me. The way we're going to solve this problem is the way we've solved all of the great technological problems like this in the past, which is you get a lot of people innovating.

Although the bigger news about Nathan is his new $462 cookbook.

Cook From It? First, Try Lifting It

Ryan Matthew Smith/The Cooking Lab LLC

The long-awaited “Modernist Cuisine” is a visual roller coaster through the current world of food and cooking tools. More Photos »

By MICHAEL RUHLMAN

Published: March 8, 2011

DESCENDING this week on the culinary scene like a meteor,“Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking” is the self-published six-volume masterwork from a team led by Nathan Myhrvold, the multimillionaire tech visionary who, as a friend of mine said, “decided to play Renaissance doge with food.”

Policy Makers have bad aim, not focusing on the real problem

I am at The Green Grid Technical forum event, and I had the pleasure of chatting with the keynote speaker Robert D. Atkinson, Ph.D.  His company is Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.  Robert's keynote  is titled.

Policy Makers are Focused on You, Not the Real Problem

Regulators around the world are taking aim at IT in general, and data centers in particular, in their efforts to regulate reduced energy use and carbon emissions. But at the end of the day, we need more IT and innovation, not less. Rob Atkinson will discuss why policy makers should be concentrating on spurring digital transformation – incentivizing conversion of energy intensive atoms to energy savings bits. And why spurring fundamental clean energy R&D, rather than regulating IT efficiency, is the surer path to the needed low carbon global economy.

Robert is pro ICT

Points out of the irony of travelling to the conference on a plane and how video conference.

Teleworking is the fastest growing travel segment with the a positive environmental impact.

And a case for ecommerce for eBay and Amazon.

So what we should be doing given ICT has a reduction in energy overall.  What is needed is 84% less carbon energy.  And Robert says the focus on energy efficiency is a short term focus.  We need low carbon energy.

Which reminds me what I renamed the Green Data Center Blog to Green (low carbon) Data Center Blog.  When I hear guys like Robert talk I can easily see 5 years more of writing on the Green (low carbon) Data Center topic.

What are the low carbon technologies?

What should be done?  A clean energy strategy is Robert's closing recommendation.

Looking for Renewable Energy funding? Look beyond DOE to USDA

When you discuss renewable energy projects for data centers almost everyone discusses Department of Energy (DOE) which makes a lot of sense.  But, what few consider is the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).  Why the USDA.  Consider this bit of funding news for 2012.

USDA Requests Renewable Energy Funds in FY 2012 Budget

Although President Obama's fiscal year (FY) 2012 proposed budget for the U.S. Department of Agriculture decreased to $23.9 billion from the $27 billion level in FY 2010, the budget still invests $6.5 billion to support renewable and clean energy. In particular, the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative is getting an increase of $8.2 million for a research initiative to develop high-quality, cost-effective feedstocks for biofuel production. And the Rural Business-Cooperative Services, which operates a renewable energy loan and grant program for the purchase of renewable energy systems and energy efficiency improvements, will see a combination of mandatory funding and grants for programs at about $57 million above the 2011 total.

The USDA connection is what  I learned from my friends in Missouri a big Aggie state.

The proposed USDA budget provides $6.1 billion for loans for electric programs, with $4 billion used for generation, transmission, and distribution of renewable energy. This sum is down from the estimated FY 2011 funding, but still provides Rural Utilities Services with extensive resources that can be used to purchase or construct peaking units in conjunction with an electric generating plant that produces electricity from solar, wind, or other intermittent source of energy. The loans also can support applicants seeking to switch from fossil fuels to renewable technologies.

You'll hear a lot about Solar, Wind in the press.  Who can ignore $5 billion for USDA renewable energy projects?