While we are all concerned with what calendar will be gracing our walls for the next year, Europe is concerned with much bigger things. Earlier this month Europe announced plans to construct an enormous North Sea electricity grid in 2010. The blueprints for the grid will be released soon following the agreement signed by nine European nations just last month.

A super-grid of such scale could provide, or at least aid in establishing, long-term energy independence for the Europe. This enormous project serves as a vital step towards greater consolidation and integration of this continent’s energy grid. If all goes well the super grid will ideally connect the mass of offshore wind farms in northern Europe to the solar panels in the south. Such a convenience would allow nations to pass along any surplus of energy along to grid to those who need it.

One of the major caveats of renewable technology has been their inability to produce energy around the clock, making it a somewhat unreliable, and unpredictable as the natural elements they rely on. Connecting these to the super-grid, however, will eliminate or at least minimize the shortcomings of inconsistent energy production. Thanks to newly developed cable technology the energy in these distant renewable energy farms can now be allocated to the areas with the greatest need.

Consolidating power makes sense for the consumer as well allowing for overall cheaper utilities since the energy is readily available regardless of location. As a result of this project, renewable energy would be more widely promoted eventually allowing Europe to reach its goal of cutting greenhouse gases by 20 percent by the year 2020. The scope of this project even allows a goal of cutting greenhouse gases by 30 percent realistic.

John Hofmeister

Former Shell gas man John Hofmeister has a new gig, and it’s not trying to sell you gasoline at $5 a gallon. Besides touring the country on a speaking tour, Hofmeister has created a non-profit organization called Citizens for Affordable Energy. (http://www.citizensforaffordableenergy.org)

While it may seem ironic, that a man who has worked for General Electric and an executive for Shell Oil would find affordable energy important, Hofmeister has been trying to get a grassroots effort started to force the politicians in Washington to make serious energy decisions. During the fast rise of the price of gasoline in the not so distant past, Hofmeister was the head of Shell Oil. This raises the question, why does a man who was a part of the gas price hike want affordable energy?

The answer is a bit more complicated than one might originally think. While oil and gas is certainly an important part of daily life, Hofmeister is more concerned about the general state of the U.S. ability to produce energy. According to Hofmeister, “Energy time is not the same as political time. Energy time happens in periods of tens of years, while political time happens in a matter of at most 6 years.” This quite clearly creates a problem, one that has not been checked, or solved. If the ability to produce and create new energy exists on a time frame that relies on research, and production that takes decades to produce, there is a problem rising that has not yet hit Washington but soon will in a huge way. Politicians are for the most part unwilling to think in terms of decades, as they need to consider their re-election campaigns. For the most part, the country runs on a 2 year political system, as that is the amount of time a member of the house is granted until they need to be re-elected. With this 2 year perspective, it is hard to see ten years down the road for the changes that need to be made today that will help ensure the future. It is for this reason that Hofmeister thinks that an “energy abyss” may happen in the United States, where blackouts and brownouts are an everyday occurrence.

Citizens for Affordable Energy has been founded to ensure that citizens of the United States are sold affordable energy, plain and simple. Due to a tarnished history involving energy crises and scares, there is a desire for cheap and affordable power. Recently the renewable energy conversation has begun to have an effect on the way that people think about power. In terms of amounts of renewable energy that feeds the grid, the numbers are very small. Nearly all the power in the United States still comes from brown-energy burning power plants. These include coal, gas and nuclear. With the threat of global warming, and the moral need for greener energy, many of plants and the refineries that feed them are being shut down. The question now is, will green energy be enough to power all of America when the brown-energy stops?

The rest of the U.S. took notice of California’s’ problem, and took matters into their own hands. Except that instead of having consumers pay their utility company for electricity and gas, it is now the utility companies that are beginning to pay the consumer. In several Atlantic states, the abundance of energy has caused prices of electricity to drop into the negative. This means that the utility company actually pays their consumers to use their product.

This is thanks due in part to a lack of serious technological breakthrough, and the advent of renewable energy, green energy. There has not yet been a device which can correctly store electricity in large amounts, besides batteries which are expensive to maintain and eventually harmful to the environment. Due to this, there is no way to store excess energy that is created by power plants. Usually there is a downtime in electrical use, mainly during the night hours. However, several green power sources such as wind power and those that utilize power from the movement of water continue to function during those hours. Thus, while there is less demand there is still a considerable amount of energy being generated which is not used, and is consequently sold in the negative.

In states without large populations, this has certainly been a gift to those who use utilities. For the especially tech-savvy, they can plug in their electric cars during the time when the power is paid for by their utility provider and not pay a dime to get around the next day.

In states like California, with its ever increasing population and changing demographics, this would be a blessing and certainly create a flourish of activity in the electric motor marketplace. The addition of solar/wind/water power to the California grid would create considerably less strain on the grid, as well as greatly reduce carbon emissions due to the burning of oil and coal at power stations.

Vinod Khosla

According to Reuters, “Khosla Ventures said on Tuesday it had raised more than $1 billion for renewable energy and clean technology funds, a sign that skittish investors are hot for climate-change-related projects.

The news marked the largest clean technology-dedicated raise by a single venture capital firm since 2007 and was also the first time Khosla Ventures, founded in 2004 by Sun Microsystems Inc founder Vinod Khosla, has raised funds from outside investors.

Previously the venture capital firm had invested hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of its partners, including Khosla himself, who was not available for comment.

Menlo Park, California-based Khosla Ventures is among the most active early stage investors in renewables and other alternative energy technologies. Khosla himself was an early backer of biofuels.”

Reuters