2010 may well become known in the renewable and environmental community as the year of the solar battles. Battle is definitely brewing in California, with the main focus at the moment on Brightsource. Just before the new year, Senator Feinstein introduced a new bill that she hopes will help balance preservation of the Mojave desert with recreation and renewable energy development.

Chicago tonight recently ran a report on Canadian oil sands created by Elizabeth Brackett whom we met in Canada last month. She interviewed me too, but I did not make it in. Too bad! Perhaps in the PBS version of this story to be broadcast later this month, but despite the lack of any Dutch accents, this is a nice piece.

A bit of controversy about the numbers. Environmental group interviewed mentions a factor of 3 over conventional oil. This is for extraction and upgrading only. In a wells-to-wheels analysis (so total emissions from production to car driving) it is around 10%.

Good op-ed by David MacKay, Cambridge University

This is part II of Tony Kovscek’s discussion of heavy oil.

The world is not running out of oil any time soon, at least not the easier to get to, lighter kind. It is estimated that there are of the order of a trillion barrels of heavy oil in the world that can be produced at the current oil price. Is this good news? Not necessarily. These heavy oils, like the tar sands in Alberta or the shale oil in the Rockies, are currently being produced with techniques that are not environmentally friendly.