Summary & principles of this rational approach to living in harmony on earth

Website for the Economy for the Common Good is www.ecogood.org

Economy for the Common Good (ECG) is a global social movement that advocates an alternative economic model, which is beneficial to people, the planet and future generations.

The common good economy puts the common good, cooperation and community in the foreground. Human dignity, solidarity, ecological sustainability, social justice and democratic participation are also described as values of the common good economy.

The movement behind the model started off in Austria, Bavaria and South Tyrol in 2010 and quickly spread to many countries throughout the EU. It now has active groups in Africa, Latin America, North America and Asia. As of 2021, the movement consists of over 11,000 supporters, 180 local chapters and 35 associations.

Christian Felber coined the term “Gemeinwohl-Ökonomie” (Economy for the Common Good) in a best-selling book, published in 2010. According to Felber, it makes much more sense for companies to create a so-called “common good balance sheet” than a financial balance sheet. The common good balance sheet is a value-based measurement tool and reporting method for businesses, individuals, communities, and institutions, which shows the extent to which a company abides by values like human dignity, solidarity and economic sustainability.

More than 2,000 organizations, mainly companies, but also schools, universities, municipalities, and cities, support the concept of the Economy for the Common Good. A few hundred have used the Common Good Balance sheet as a means to do their “non-financial” reporting. These include Sparda-Bank Munich, the Rhomberg Group and Vaude Outdoor. Worldwide nearly 60 municipalities are actively involved in spreading the idea.

The ECG movement sees itself in a historical tradition from Aristotle to Adam Smith and refers to the fundamental values of democratic constitutions.

Overview ~ The model has five underlying goals:

1. Reuniting the economy with the fundamental values guiding society in general. Encouraging business decisions that promote human rights, justice, and sustainability.

2. Transitioning to an economic system that defines serving the “common good” as its principal goal. The business community and all other economic actors should live up to the universal values set down in constitutions across the globe. These include dignity, social justice, sustainability, and democracy. These do not include profit maximization and market domination.

3. Shifting to a business system that measures success according to the values outlined above. A business is successful and reaps the benefits of its success not when it makes more and more profits, but when it does its best to serve the public good.

4. Setting the cornerstones of the legal framework for the economy democratically, in processes which result in concrete recommendations for reforming and reevaluating national constitutions and international treaties.

5. Closing the gaps between feeling and thinking, technology and nature, economy and ethics, science and spirituality.

The Economy for the Common Good calls for reevaluating economic relations by, for example, putting limits on financial speculation and encouraging companies to produce socially-responsible products.

{The above description is from Wikipedia, which deserves your support at $3.00 per month or $36.00 per year. DGN}

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YOUTUBE VIDEO of CHRISTIAN FELBER’s TEDx TALK on “ECG”

VIDEO ~ https://youtu.be/dsO-b0_r-5Y

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

From the Report of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Executive Summary~ This report, the 2021 U.S. Geothermal Power Production and District Heating Market Report, was developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Geothermal Rising (previously the Geothermal Resources Council, or GRC), with funding support from the Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

The report presents analysis of the current state of the U.S. geothermal market and industry for both the power production and district heating sectors, with consideration of developing power projects.

Geothermal heat pumps, although a key technology in the wider use of geothermal resources, are outside the scope of this report.

U.S. Geothermal Power Generation — Key Findings

>> Current U.S. geothermal power generation nameplate capacity is 3,673 MW from 93 power plants. Of this capacity, 1,300 MW are located on public lands.

>> California and Nevada contribute more than 90% of the current U.S. geothermal power generation, with additional contributions from plants in Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, New Mexico, Oregon, and Utah.

>> From the end of 2015 through the end of 2019, the United States brought seven new geothermal power plants online in Nevada, California, and New Mexico, adding 186 MW of nameplate capacity. In the same time period, 11 plants were retired or classified as non- operational, subtracting 103 MW of nameplate capacity. The remaining difference in capacity from 2015 to 2019 can be attributed to the reduction of nameplate capacity at individual plants.

>> After the data for this report were collected, Ormat brought the Steamboat Hills expansion in Nevada online, increasing its generating capacity by 19 MW. In addition, in late 2020, the Puna geothermal plant was brought back online, which should increase geothermal net-generation numbers in 2021.

>> Geothermal companies operating in the United States have a combined 58 active developing projects and prospects across nine states, with a majority located in Nevada.

>> Of these projects, five are in Phase IV, the phase immediately preceding project completion. Three are located in Nevada, and two are in California.

>> From November 2019 through September 2020, nine new geothermal Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) have been signed across four states. Included in these agreements are plans for the first two geothermal power plants to be built in California in a decade—Hell’s Kitchen and Casa Diablo IV.

>> Geothermal power provides several non-cost advantages, including supplying continuous baseload power, ancillary grid services, resilience, environmental benefits, and a small land footprint compared to other renewable energy technologies.

>> Twenty-eight states have renewable portfolio standards (RPS) that count geothermal power as an eligible resource, seven of which include direct use. RPSs support geothermal development by requiring a certain amount of electricity sold by utilities to come from renewable energy sources.

U.S. Geothermal District Heating — Key Findings

• Currently, there are 23 geothermal district heating (GDH) systems in the United States, with a capacity totaling more than 75 MW of thermal energy (MWth). The systems range in size from 0.1 MWth to over 20 MWth.

• Of these 23 commercial projects, 10 received DOE loan and grant support. Federal, state, and local funding support have proven critical to develop a majority of the existing GDH projects in the United States.

• The oldest GDH installation dates from 1892 in Boise, Idaho, and the most recent installation was completed in 2017 in Alturas, California. The remaining systems are located in California, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, and South Dakota.

• The majority of the GDH systems in the United States are more than 30 years old.

• The average U.S. levelized cost of heat (LCOH) value for GDH systems is $54/MWh, slightly lower than the average European LCOH value of $69/MWh. However, this LCOH is slightly higher than the 2019 average U.S. residential natural gas LCOH. Estimated LCOH for existing U.S. systems ranges from $15 to $105/MWh, a range that is consistent with the range of LCOH for existing European GDH systems.

• U.S. GDH systems tend to be smaller in size (average of 4 MWth) than European GDH systems (continent-wide average of ~17 MWth), and orders of magnitude smaller than the average GDH system in China (~1,000 MWth).

• U.S. GDH systems run at 23% capacity, on average. This low utilization factor is due to frequent operation at less than full capacity and the seasonality of heating needs (i.e., the system is not needed for satisfying heating demands year-round).

• As of 2020, few policy mechanisms intended to support GDH development are in place in the United States.

Conclusions ~ This report is intended to provide policymakers, regulators, developers, researchers, engineers, financiers, and other stakeholders with up-to-date information and data reflecting the 2019 geothermal power production and district heating markets, technologies, and trends in the United States. Geothermal Rising collected U.S. geothermal power production data via a questionnaire sent to all known U.S. geothermal operators and developers. This questionnaire requested information about both existing power production capacity and developing projects, which was then added to an existing GEA database and shared with NREL. For GDH systems, an NREL geothermal direct-use database
was updated with information obtained from news articles, publications, and interviews conducted in 2020 with project owners, operators, and other stakeholders.

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Geothermal Energy Development in West Virginia ~ Here is a link to the House Bill 4098 that passed in WV on March 12, 2022, the last day of the Legislative Session for this year. It remains for the approval of the Governor, which is expected.

https://www.wvlegislature.gov/Bill_Text_HTML/2022_SESSIONS/RS/bills/HB4098%20SUB.pdf

Congresswoman Kathy Castor visits the National Renewable Energy Laboratory

CURWOOD: Now, tell me first, what’s the status of your committee? Initially, it was set up by the the House leadership, by Nancy Pelosi, as a Select Committee, which means it doesn’t go on forever. And you were supposed to have a report by about this time of year; but of course, things have changed, huh?
CASTOR: Yes, unfortunately, we’re dealing with a life and death situation, the COVID-19 pandemic. Our Select Committee on the Climate Crisis framework for congressional climate action was actually due out last week, so we were bringing it in for a landing. But if anything has given me hope, when it comes to climate, it’s this massive mobilization across the planet to tackle this pandemic, this coronavirus, and that gives me hope that we will be able to attack the other, more slow-moving crisis, that’s the climate crisis.

CURWOOD: At this point, though, the nation is in the midst of this crisis, this pandemic crisis. Why is it is a good time to be thinking about climate change policy?
The $2 trillion stimulus package known as the CARES Act includes up to $16 billion to replenish the nation’s depleted stockpile of ventilators, medicines, and personal protective equipment, or PPE, shown here as members of the Florida National Guard assist hospital staff.
CASTOR: You know, I was born and raised in the State of Florida and it reminds me of a hurricane, and when a hurricane sweeps through and it destroys your community, it destroys your home, you build back on a stronger foundation. And that’s what we, we have to do going forward. The climate crisis is a public health crisis and our climate action plan that was going to be released last week, and will be released down the road, had some very strong recommendations for public health policy and how to keep our families safe and healthy, and then it spanned this entire spectrum. And I think folks will be very interested and focused on those solutions down the road. But first and foremost, it’s about helping our neighbors right now and those frontline heroes in hospitals and making sure we get the the personal protective equipment to deal with the here and now.

CURWOOD: What about support and the deadline extension for the clean energy tax credits, or aviation carbon limits that Democrats had sought in exchange for bailing out the airline industry? I mean, that didn’t make it into this most recent package that was passed.
CASTOR: No, but we’re gonna press to have it included in future packages. And a lot of those provisions related to aviation, yes, we could have done better. And they, in fact, a lot of the airline companies were in agreement on better aviation fuels and decarbonizing our airports. So I’m, I’m confident we’ll get there. But the first priority: making sure that those workers and all of those folks that work at airports get the lifeline that they need to make it through the stay at home orders.

CURWOOD: Now in terms of jobs and green energy jobs, both the solar folks and the wind folks are saying without the tax credits, they’re gonna be in trouble. What do you think Democrats are going to do about that?
CASTOR: Well, we’ve pressed hard, along with a lot of the Democratic senators to have those provisions included. I think if the Republicans and the administration had pressed forward on a bailout for oil and gas companies, or for refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, then the clean energy tax credits would have traveled along with them. So we have an opportunity now to start from a clean slate, and to make the case on building that strong foundation for how we want the economy to work in the future. It has to be more sustainable. We’ve got to be smarter with our public dollar investments, and that means in clean energy, in more resilient communities.

CURWOOD: So give us a preview, if you’re comfortable with that, of what’s going to be in this major report from the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. What are the main goal posts in your report, do you think?
CASTOR: I’m not going to get into too many details on it because we are, this gives us an opportunity to polish it. But clearly we’re charting a course for a clean energy future, one that provides an emphasis on what climate means for the health of your kids and your grandkids. I’m excited about the agriculture section, because going into this, I didn’t anticipate that the agriculture community and our food producers would be so engaged. But you know, the climate’s hurting them, desperately. Their, they can’t grow the same crops, their livestock is suffering. There are torrential floods that are flooding out their crop lands. So they want to be part of the solution. That means sequestering carbon, that means assistance from USDA and all those great agriculture extension offices, our universities. They want to figure out how they can grow their crops to be more sustainable, how they cover their crops to make them more productive. So I’m excited about that piece. I’m excited about our investment in science and research. I was able to travel to a number of clean energy labs, like the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, with the committee in a bipartisan way, and saw the, you know, you get a peek of what the future will be with how we build our buildings with solar, not just solar panels, but solar products that will go alongside buildings of the future. There are innovators that understand that our building materials have to change, that’s going to be a source of jobs of the future. Those are a few things I’d, I’d highlight, but, but stay tuned. We’re eager to get it out. But the health of the nation comes first. And that’s what we’re focused on now.

CURWOOD: So which of the climate policies that you’ve studied have proven to be the most controversial, or politically difficult as you’ve been working on your report?
CASTOR: Fortunately, there has been a lot of bipartisan ground that we’ve covered. But it’s still, the kicker still is the carbon pollution reduction that comes from fossil fuels. You know, there are a lot of members of Congress who are tied to the fossil fuel industry. And what will be interesting now is the oil and gas companies are under tremendous pressure because they were overextended financially, and their workers are out of work. Do, do a lot of the members there look for a new and stronger foundation in manufacturing in the clean energy economy? And those are the kind of bridges we’re going to attempt to build in the future.

CURWOOD: It’s very likely that what we’re living in right now is the greatest economic dislocation of our lifetimes. And the unemployment rolls are just exploding along with this virus. What does your Select Committee on the Climate Crisis have to offer in terms of policies that would create green jobs that would help us in the inevitable recovery that we’re gonna have to stage?
CASTOR: Well, just like the coronavirus, the climate crisis is an unprecedented threat to our public health and safety. But in the end, hopefully it’s an opportunity, to create those long-lasting, clean energy jobs for a more sustainable future for our kids and our grandkids. And I think these jobs run the gamut, yes, of course in clean energy and solar power and wind energy; but also weatherizing our buildings, the way we construct buildings and how we retrofit them, and smart grids, and smart meters. Those will be important jobs. Very important jobs in modernizing the grid across America, connecting the clean energy sources to a modern grid that will serve our businesses and serve our communities. I think the sky’s the limit and, and I know folks are feeling very anxious about this pandemic and, and I hear it from the folks I represent. But the, the coronavirus public health emergency has shown that we can mobilize the planet, we can attack these enormous problems and health emergencies. And I think this ultimately will give us hope and ambition to tackle the climate crisis. And you know, in the end, we don’t really have a choice. We must do this. And we can do this.

CURWOOD: Congresswoman Kathy Castor is Chair of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis and represents the 14th District of the State of Florida. Thank you so much, Congresswoman.

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See also: Science Denial and the Pandemic, Living on Earth, April 3, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic appears well-managed in countries like China and South Korea that moved swiftly, with the science as their guide. Countries that initially downplayed the threat, such as Italy and the United States, have seen spiking death rates as healthcare systems are overwhelmed. Harvard History of Science Professor Naomi Oreskes joins Host Steve Curwood to discuss why some governments fail to follow the science when responding to major crises like pandemics and climate change, and how acceptance of science makes governments better able to prepare and cope with these global disasters. (15:15)

Solar Cost Below $1 per Watt

Solar Is Booming … Costs Keep Falling

News Article from the Climate Reality Project, EcoWatch.com, December 2, 2016

Today, solar power is everywhere. It’s on your neighbor’s roof and in tiny portable cellphone chargers. There are even solar powered roads. And as solar power heats up, prices are going down. In fact, over the past 40 years, the cost of solar has decreased by more than 99 percent!

But how did we get here? Ready for a quick history lesson on one of the world’s fastest growing sources of energy?

You might find this hard to believe, but we can trace the idea of harnessing the power of the sun back to 1839. A bright (pun intended!) young French physicist named Edmond Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect—the creation of an electric current in a material after being exposed to light—while experimenting in his father’s laboratory. Over the following hundred-plus years, scientists continued exploring this phenomenon, creating and patenting solar cells, using them to heat water and doing extensive research to increase the efficiency of solar energy.

The 1970s brought a period of change not only in the form of political and cultural upheaval, but also saw the rise of solar as a viable way to produce electricity. The first solar-powered calculator was commercialized, the Solar Energy Research Institute (now called the National Renewable Energy Laboratory) was established, and U.S. President Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House for the first time. But it was also quite expensive, costing an average of $76 per watt in 1977.

But as advancements in the industry continued, the costs began to fall. Over the next 10 years, the price would drop sevenfold to less than $10 per watt, hitting a plateau in the late 1980s and early ’90s.

Fast-forward to a few years later and solar technology was really hitting its stride as huge cost reductions were made in recent years, causing world leaders, governments, and the private sector to get on board and moving solar from a niche technology into the mainstream. Soon, regular people in communities all over the world were installing panels on their roofs and in numerous other applications thanks to the technology’s improving economics and innovative incentives and financing models.

Which brings us to today, when solar power can cost a minuscule61 cents per watt.

In a relatively short period of time, it’s become clear that an incredible future is ahead for this renewable source of energy. And as you might expect, the more the price falls, the more attractive it becomes. Forty years ago, the total global installation of solar was around 2 megawatts. Today, total global installation is closer to 224,000 megawatts.

And as we start down the road forward after the historic Paris agreement, we’re noticing just how many countries are working to meet their carbon emissions reduction goals by going solar.

That’s why we’re hoping you will join us December 5-6 for 24 Hours of Reality: The Road Forward as we travel the world for a look at how solar power is revolutionizing access to electricity in Mexico, Malaysia and Venezuela. We’ll visit southeast Asia to meet a “solar monk” in Thailand and to South Africa, where sheep and solar live together on one solar PV farm. We’ll even hear from oil-rich countries in the Middle East that are starting to prepare for a future beyond fossil fuels—and renewables like solar are becoming more and more cost effective.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net