Susan Kraemer

Home > Archives for Susan Kraemer

Posts by Author

Website: http://climatefriendlysolutions.blogspot.com/

Profile: Susan Kraemer is a transplanted Kiwi retired from three design businesses she started from humble beginnings in N.Y.C. and California, who now lives in the Bay Area. She enjoys living and writing in a gorgeous house her husband designed and built years ago overlooking the San Francisco Bay in the East Bay Hills. She is thrilled to have just eliminated her electric bill through SunRun which makes it free to go solar, and she thinks you should look into getting $0 down solar too (in CA, AZ, CO, MA, PA, and NJ) She works to publicize the many great solutions to climate change we can find if we just put our minds to it.

Senator Kyl Cries Crocodile Tears for Arizona Solar Water Usage

Posted on 24. Aug, 2010 by Susan Kraemer.

Recent hearings for a proposed 340-MW Hualapai Valley Solar Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) project in western Arizona has brought up water yet again, in a report from Energy Prospects.

Arizona’s Republican Senator Kyl has stepped in to battle against using Arizona’s sun potential for solar CSP. (He was recently famous for saying publicly that we should extend the two trillion dollar tax cuts for the rich rather than extend the unemployment benefits, during the worst recession since the depression).

Senator Kyl claims that solar CSP uses too much water. The plant he opposes would use 800 gallons per MWh, the same as a Palo Verde nuclear plant. Yet he supports the nuclear plant, and even wants Renewable Energy Standards changed so nuclear power qualifies as “renewable”. [...]

Continue Reading

90 Degree River Shuts Down Southern Nuclear Plant

Posted on 24. Aug, 2010 by Susan Kraemer.

As a result of the record high temperatures engulfing the South (and much of the planet) the Tennessee Valley Authority has had to shut down its largest nuclear power plant for the 40th day since July 8th, the TimesFreePress reports. The Tennessee River in Alabama is just much too hot.

The river water rose to a record 90 degrees Fahrenheit during the heat wave that hit the East Coast this August. This violates the permit TVA has with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

Any possible non-nuclear-effluent cause for 90 degree river water near nuclear reactors was not within the scope of the original licensing and permitting. [...]

Continue Reading

Sea Level Rise Threatens Drinking Water of 15 Million Americans

Posted on 09. Aug, 2010 by Susan Kraemer.

Fresh water that now is flowing to the sea in the Delaware estuary is threatened by future sea-level rise resulting from rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gas emissions, a new study finds. As sea levels rise, salt water will move inland up the estuary. Drinking water for over 15 million people will be endangered.

The Partnership for the Delaware Estuary studied impacts on drinking water, tidal wetlands and shellfish like the local oysters and freshwater mussels in “Climate Change and the Delaware Estuary.” and how people can adapt to help protect the threatened resources.

Drinking water, tidal wetlands and shellfish are key resources for the estuary; and all three are vulnerable to effects of climate change, including warmer temperatures, higher sea levels and saltier water. Oysters alone brought about $19.2 million into the state in 2009. [...]

Continue Reading

Atlantic States Move to Develop Their 330 GW Off-Shore Wind Potential

Posted on 18. Jun, 2010 by Susan Kraemer.

Interior Secretary Salazar has joined with the governors of ten states to develop the staggering potential for offshore wind on the US Outer Continental Shelf, through a new Atlantic Offshore Wind Energy Consortium.

Last year, thorough polling of residents in five Atlantic states revealed a tremendous groundswell of support for clean offshore wind energy development in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. They have now been joined by five more neighboring states: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and North Carolina, to make ten states in the group. [...]

Continue Reading

Waterboxx Could Save California Winery 145,000 Gallons a Year

Posted on 10. Jun, 2010 by Susan Kraemer.

A test of an ingenious water saving device invented by Lily grower Pieter Hoff, is being undertaken at Robert Mondavi’s vineyard in California’s Napa Valley, and is expected to save the winery 145,000 gallons of California’s precious water every year. The idea for the Popular Science Invention Award-winning Groasis Waterboxx developed from the way seeds are nurtured naturally in less drought-stressed environments.

Because of climate change, California growers have to plan for a future climate that is moving about a quarter of a mile North every year. If this recreation of Napa’s old climate works, the winery won’t have to move with it. [...]