Energy

Installing solar panels on you roof sounds pretty cool until you start looking into how to go about it and consider what it's going to cost. The process is time consuming, frustrating and there are many issues to consider. You may be tempted to pick up the phone and call a local company. Unless money is not important, we think a better approach might be to use a Solar Calculator provided courtesy of Solar City, a company that has partnered with Google. After that you'l be able to decide if it's worth persuing.

If you are like me you have observed that goverment is divided into unique agencies and departments that individually deal with energy and environmental policies and issues. Far to common is each agency or department doing its own thing at the expense of other agencies and the American taxpayer. We actually wrote about this years ago in a separate post.

Hydropower generators are having terrific year. Extraordinary high water from rainfall and snow melt is producing high levels of electricity at the Bonneville Power Administration's hydropower facilities. There is so much cheap hydroelectric energy that the price on the Intercontinental Exchange dropped to minus 93¢/MWh in trading on May 10, and the Pacific Northwest region has seen negative off-peak prices nearly every day since then.

Canada predicts a 42 percent drop in gas exports to United States. Canada’s National Energy Board forecast on May 12 that natural gas exports to the Lower 48 will decline to 2.8 Bcfd in 2013 from 4.8 Bcfd in 2010 as production drops and Canada's domestic demand increases.