First, f*ck Tom Friedman and the T. Boone Pickens that he rode in on.
I had been planning on writing a similar post when I read and commented on Gob's post yesterday about alternative energy. Paul had a comment that I wanted to talk about because I think it frames the issue in a way that isn't helpful to understanding what is happening or what is going to happen. Namely, looking in political terms at energy and the new push by energy companies and their surrogates into alt.energy is just buying into their '$hell' game (so to speak).
I will concede that this post is remarkably free of linky goodness. But this is my interpretation of some commonly agreed facts, and I think my interpretation is bolstered by my experience. I'm in basically in this industry and if projections continue, we will have worked on approximately 1000 wind turbine locations by the end of this year. As perspective, we are only a very, very minor player, but I'm highly interested and motivated to learn about this topic, so bear with me.
Paul brought up the following frame:
"There are three separate issues here…
1) our need to find sources of ’cleaner’ energy
2) our need to find sources of ’affordable’ energy
3) our need to be energy independent"
Yes, these political and geopolitical thingees are very shiny and interesting, but you have to keep your eye on what's under these "$hells". I'll cut to the chase, keep your eye on #2 if you can (although I don't agree it is "our need" so much as "the energy corporations need" and therein lies the rub).
I think most here agree American imperialism and militarism is driven by our supposed 'need' for cheap commodities (Walmart nation, car culture). Although we are basically self-sufficient in most commodities, agriculutural products, steel, etc., we aren't self-supporting in everything, and the biggies are cheap labor (Japan, then Singapore, Taiwan, Mexico, now China) and oil. You can't easily fight wars for access to cheap labor or markets (anymore) but extractive commodities like minerals and oil have ALWAYS and STILL ARE being fought over militarily. Cleaner? Hah! Self-sufficiency? Double hah! You think corporations cares about the environment or what is in the country's interest? You don't think our government is primarily run for the benefit of corporations (as the most powerful "persons" in the land)? Corporations are looking out for their own best interest, if they didn't, they would actually be in violation of their responsiblity to their investors.
But just because they are supposedly looking out for their investors doesn't mean they are perfect in their actions or are long term solvent, just ask Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. All "clean" energy means to the corporate energy producers (and all of our energy is produced by corporations) is less litigation and less regulation. All that energy 'independence' means to them is a decrease in the cost and political uncertainty of military securement of (ding, ding, ding) affordable energy. What is important to the corporate energy producers is not the shells they are moving around, it's the pea hidden underneath. That "pea" stands for "Profits".
The energy corporations (GE, Exxon, etc.) and their surrogates (Halliburton, T. Boone Pickens, pipeline companies, etc.) have built their corporate cultures, business model and physical infrastructure around securing and providing extractive commodities (oil, coal, natural gas) to a wide customer base. The equations in that business model are pretty easy to grasp: the price you can sell commodity minus the cost to buy, extract, produce said commodity equals profit. To increase profit you both increase the former (mess with demand, value-added products, increase uses of your product, i.e. plastics, road-building, building materials etc.) and decrease the later (more efficient and/or inexpensive production, political manipulation/collusion/bribery/intimidation of producing countries, pushing military interventions to secure supply at desired costs). Does this sound familiar? Wonder why alt energy sources like biofuels were the first to gain political traction? The reason is biofuels fit nicely into the extractive/commodity business structure as well as supply chain infrastructure. Biofuels are tailor-made to fit into the existing energy company model described above.
So then, why the sudden push by energy companies into alternative energy like wind/solar, etc.? Watch T. Boone Pickens ads and you can suss it out: the old extractive business model is doomed, except in the meantime, drill, drill, drill, and do it for another commodity, natural gas too while you are at it. They have milked that cash cow for all it was worth and now it is time to send it to the slaughterhouse. Even the corporations now see that they have no tools left to control the costs to extract, produce, deliver extractive energy commodities. They see the costs becoming more unpredictable, but ultimately just escalating, and escalating past the price they believe they can jigger. Go back to the simple equation above price-cost=profit. Bingo.
Alt energy sources like wind and solar are a completely different kettle of fish. They do not fit the above business model. The price can't be jiggered, the cost is predictable and stable, and it discards much of the energy producing companies installed infrastructure. A wind farm or solar panel project has fixed initial price x, it has a fixed life-span and predictable maintenance costs, you borrow the money to build it so you likely need to presell the predicted generated electricity. That means the profit is fixed. Fixed costs, fixed profits and a tangible asset (the facility or equipment itself) as collateral against the construction loan makes banks happy. But even though this isn't what sends a thrill up high-flying energy company exec legs, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. Nobody wants to be Fujifilm. So the energy companies are taking their windfall profits and investing them in wind and solar projects (and lobbying hard for tax credits, which I support because we need to promote good behavior even by bad people and for the wrong reasons). This year, the Bush admin was also kind enough to give them DOUBLE DEPRECIATION CREDITS on capital equipment purchases. Supposedly to jump-start the economy, but actually this is a great way to hide your profits by simply increasing the value of your company in tangible assets, and sequeing your profits in a dying industry (oil production) in the successor to that industry. Special double pony bonus, by gaining a dominant position in the successor to your industry, you set the terms for (and who gets screwed by) the transition.
Nice work if you can get it!
So T. Boone Pickens ads (and I'm not going to give a link to his vanity site for you to see his positions although they are easily available) are about two things. First, stirring up political sentiment for massive tax breaks for wind projects that he is investing in. I support him in this goal. And then I hope he gets run over by a tanker truck, because although that is the lead, what he really wants is transition costs to increase his profit in his other investment, natural gas production and transition of vehicles to compressed natural gas. All of the energy companies share a similar two-tiered approach depending on what their other tier is. Help us continue to keep our costs down (and profits up) on the extractive commodity end (whichever commodity we are most invested in, be it offshore, natural gas, domestic, ANWR, etc.), while we leisurely transfer our profits into fixed asset capital energy investments, with the help of tax breaks and accelerated capital depreciation (both of which I support).
Nice work if you can get it.
Beyond that, I'm not sure where things are going just yet, but I disagree with many of the Kunstler types on one point, energy costs in the future will spike, yes, but they won't be wildly unpredictable, they will plateau, that is because replacement energy costs are based on fixed capital investments with predictable construction costs, predictable operating costs and predictable asset value, and hence predictable profits.
What I would like to see is somebody with the intestinal fortitude to say "screw supporting drilling, that is not the future, we will install a 100% of windfall tax on all oil profits NOT put into wind, solar and battery technology investment". That would be a change I could believe in!
What are your thoughts?
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I think you've hit the nail on the head
I'm no expert, but all of this sounds right to me and in line with some of my own rather more inchoate thoughts on the subject.
Two things strike me, one that you've glanced on more by implication, another you didn't address.
The first is that wind and solar can put the generation of energy in the hands of not just small communities or individual companies, but individual households. That by itself has the potential to ultimately break the backs of the oil companies.
The current cost of individual solar or wind power installation is completely beyond me, and anybody below a certain level of affluence, but I've taken the one step that is within my financial resources, which is to switch from oil to wood heat. So now I'm relying on my neighbors' carefully managed woodlots for maybe half or more of my energy consumption.
(Advantage: It's much, much, much cheaper. Disadvantage: It's a lot of heavy physical work, even if you have your wood cut, split and delivered. Pellet stoves are a good compromise for now, though the pellet industry is still so small, it's hard to forecast how it's going to evolve. I stuck with cordwood because I'd rather be dependent on a neighbor for fuel, not a manufacturer.)
The thing you didn't touch on directly is vehicles. The switch to solar and wind is a switch to electricity over fossil fuels, which means electric-powered vehicles, better and especially longer-range ones than we have yet. I have faith that the automobile companies will be able to step up on electric-powered automobiles because they'll have to. Electric-powered trucks, farm and construction machinery are more problematic.
I don't know how much electricity it takes to recharge one of today's electric autos from your home system, but I wonder whether, for instance, individual power generation through solar and/or wind can ever be sufficient to both one's household needs and personal vehicles. If not, we're all still going to have to be connected to a grid.
I have lots more thoughts on the practical implications of all this (including the sort of surprising fact that rural areas are going to be in the forefront, since that's where there's room to put windmills and get enough unobstructed sun for solar, just as it's rural areas that can and are making a rush back to the wood heat they gave up decades ago when we had cheap oil), so I hope this discussion gets some attention here. I'm eager to hear more of your thoughts and those of other people.
Storing energy
The problem is storage. Energy produced from nearly all alt sources is either electricity (wind, hydro, solar, biomass) or heat (geothermal, biomass). I mentioned batteries but more generically energy storage period is the key to more widespread use of alt energy. But that still won't enable us to live in the same way we do now, with high transportation/energy costs. On that, I totally agree with the Kunstler types. If you live in a suburban cul de sac, 5 miles from the grocery store, or in a McMansion, sell now.
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
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I'm not such a bad guy once you get to know me.
McMansions
There will always be rich people who can afford the energy for them, and those that are on the edge should have sold out long ago, IMO.
Living 5 miles from the grocery store I honestly don't think is such a big deal, since there are increasing options for low-energy-consumption vehicles, and a little planning plus a good freezer makes the frequent trips most suburbanites are used to unnecessary.
The real problem is living 20, 30, even 60 miles from your place of employment.
No, the problem is thinking -- and a lack thereof.
You can store electrical energy in a battery. That's expensive and difficult.
Or you can use the heat of the sun directly, to warm (heat) water and drive turbines off the convection.
Or you can do something completely different. What's wanted isn't more of the reiteration of the "can't do that" or "can't afford that" argument.
What's wanted is a solution -- proposed, experimented with, proven; or if proven impracticable, either improved or discarded.
What was it Edison said? I haven't failed XXXX times to make a light bulb; I've learned XXXX ways not to make a light bulb.
We must refuse to let "you can't" be the imperative that drives our response. We must refuse to accept "won't work" or "can't afford."
We simply have to.
We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
Parabolic whatsis
Wow! That's really neat-- even if I only understand half of it, at best.
I think the "you can't" or "it won't work," or at least the wholly false ones, will be driven out by the increasing urgency of the need to find solutions, and already seems to be happening.
One of the high schools here in Vermont several years ago presciently decided to spend the money to convert its heating system to wood-burning, despite many cries of "it won't work." (Please note this is pretty good modern wood-burning technology that doesn't dump vast quantities of smoke and particulates into the atmosphere, and this technology, too, is improving rapidly.)
There's also manure-power, which is well under way here in dairy country and solves a whole raft of problems at once. The conversion costs money most farmers can't afford, but the state has been helping with low-interest loans and grants, and a still fairly small but encouraging number of farmers are turning their manure piles into electricty to power their farms, with enough excess to sell to the grid.
The resulting completely composted manure is much, much better for the environment when used on farm fields than raw manure, and the excess of that, too, can be sold to individual consumers in the way raw manure really can't.
Turns out there really are a gazillion ways of generating power other than fossil fuels. Their cost will come down with wider adoption, and as the cost of fossil fuels continues to rise, there will come a point in the not too distant future when they'll meet, at which point the alternative methods should really begin to make major headway.
Energy is one area I'm actually reasonably optimistic about, although I'm unlikely to live on past what's sure to be a lengthy and extremely wrenching transition period myself.
gyrfalcon -- telecommuting?
or maybe breaking the place of employment down from one huge enterprise 60 miles away to several small but networked enterprises where you could live closer to your job?
much of what's happened in the country since 1980 has been detrimental to the interests of everyone who wasn't a corporate plutocrat, not in just political terms, but in how we've slanted our location of places of employment and residence IMNVHO.
We gave up on under-30-mile round-trips too easily and too soon!
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
Telecommuting
You bet, although only an option for certain kinds of white-collar jobs.
I telecommute, sort of, myself, which is why I can live out in the middle of nowhere a big 15 miles from the nearest supermarket (4 from the general store) and not have gasoline prices threaten to ruin me. (Yet...)
I agree wholeheartedly that it's not just energy per se that will have to be rethought, but the whole way much of business, and therefore employment, is organized. Sort of akin to rethinking education from stand-up-and-lecture to work groups, special projects and individual attention in the classroom. Having the whole company in one building is simply the easiest for management.
And do think (she said delightedly) about the way managers and supervisors will have to actually step up and manage/supervise when they're not sitting right on top of their employees. The whole idea scares the pants off of managers, which is why the strenuous resistance to telecommuting all these years. That'll have to go. Poor incompetent babies.
golf carts are now being used in some towns/areas --
Golf carts are becoming a more common sight on Indiana's streets and roads, but state police say they fail to meet the safety and equipment standards for motor vehicles to be driven on public streets. -- http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-a...
and i just posted on new mini-turbines, but they're still way way too expensive -- http://www.correntewire.com/drilling_for...
it's *all* extractive and commoditized
everything that humans can manufacture involves some kind of extraction from the earth. windmills? metal ores gotta be dug up out of the ground and smelted, or trees grown and harvested. batteries? more metal ores dug up out f the ground and smelted, and what are we gonna make the casings out of? plastics, baby! [which can be manufactured from either fossil fuels or from the starches in corn, for example]. hydro? dams are made of concrete, which is for all practical purposes cooked dirt that has been remixed with water.
wind and sunshine are essentially unlimited sources of energy [water is a bit more problematic] and free to all, but the means to harness that energy all involve finite [and in some cases, very limited] resources that can and will be commoditized by the t boone pickenses of the world. as you point out, some of them have already started on that.
lifestyles changes, they're a-comin' no matter what energy sources we turn to. i have to admit though, i've become awfully fond of many of the things that cheap, available energy has brought into my life, so of course i want us to pursue all these other energy alternatives.
we need to promote good behavior even by bad people and for the wrong reasons
double plus pony bingo for you, because you are 100% correct on how corporations work. and yes do need to tax the living daylights out of their windfall profits.
I'm not saying "can't"
I was describing the current economics of the alternative energy implimentation. Trust me it is being implimented. Not only is that "we can", it's better, finally "we ARE".
I'm all for localized power generation, for increased efficiency, for alternate fuels, etc.. Those are only accelerated by the increased cost of commodity-based energy. But nothing is free, well, that's not true, reducing how much energy you consume usually is free.
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
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I'm not such a bad guy once you get to know me.
wind is great for those of us in coastal cities
--there are millions of us very close to where turbines could ideally be located off all the coasts.
maybe giant floating solar things offshore too, someday?
Our infrastructure is not good enough now to transport electricity from the southwest deserts or mountaintops or those remote extra-sunny places to where most people are, but places like Vegas and Phoenix and LA and in FL, etc, should totally be solar, too.
and aren't car adapter kits cheap-ish already?
more and more they show pieces on tv about people who only paid 1000 bucks to make their cars run on grease or whatever.
That's a perfect clearinghouse issue...
Because I bet there are all sorts of licensing issues.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Pretty much what gyrfalcon said in the first comment . . .
wind and solar can put the generation of energy in the hands of not just small communities or individual companies, but individual households. That by itself has the potential to ultimately break the backs of the oil companies.
Wanted to add that at least as far as individual homes in the American Southwest are concerned, the storage problem appears either not to exist or not exist on anything vaguely resembling the level ascribed to it.
Without getting into arguments about the tech (partly cause I don't have adequate knowledge to debate the people who have this down, and partly because I don't have adequate knowledge to be entirely sure when someone is full of it unless they're waaaay off, i.e. "what about when it gets dark?", I can say with assurance that one of my best friends out here lives in an entirely solar powered trailer not connected to any power lines and he manages to keep the electricity running even at night in rainy periods during the middle of winter, complete w/heavy computer usage and staying warm. (in those periods he does have to be somewhat easier on the power usage, for which reason he is adding a small wind turbine before next winter)
Tonight, the rest of us on the mesa where I live were without power from midafternoon until nearly 10; he had plenty and didn't even realize the power was out until I called him.
I've also seen a couple of *large* houses go up for sale that are, at least according to their ad, fully solar and wind powered, one of which specifically mentioned that it wasn't connected to the official power grid. So unless both these adds and an issue of Scientific American I perused earlier this year are completely full of it, it doesn't have to be small trailers--even people who want the big houses can be environmentally friendly if they are designed right.
& what herb says about biofuels meeting the traditional exploitation of consumers criteria also applies to nuclear, which is a big reason (though hardly the only) that I'm not thrilled about either of the candidates' supposedly progressive energy policies this year. (and getting a bit into what minimal tech knowledge I think I have, it would be really difficult to stop small competing companies from going at it on solar or wind installation for individual homes--not impossible, but difficult, probably requiring some bizarre regulatory requirements--and competing against the large companies; whereas I don't see how anything not-huge is going to be running a nuclear power plant)
Finally, re: what hipparchia said about extraction principles still applying even to green energy -- certainly, there are going to be huge fights over how the power gets from place X to place Y where this sort of thing is invoked; my area is in the middle of one of those right now, see these links for differing views:
http://www.stopgreenpath.com/first.html
http://www.mbconservation.org/energy.html
http://www.hidesertstar.com/articles/200...
(I dunno how to do the tinyurl thing; hope that last link isn't too long)
Infrastructure versus energy source
It also seems to me, ignorant layperson though I am on this whole subject, that profits from infrastucture are limited compared to the ongoing cash cow of controllling the source of the energy. If I choose wisely, I only have to pay for my solar panels once (hey, anybody know the effective lifetime of these things and how often they need to be replaced?) and some occasional replacement parts. Same with a windmill or geothermal.
gyrfalcon, solar panels vary on their lifetimes...
20, 30, 40 years. You have to check. Also, check how people define "lifetime." A panel that may have reached the end of its lifetime may be a panel that only performs to 90% of its rating. If that works for you, you can get it cheaper than new.
A lot of wind turbines, especially the new designs, don't have enough testing to really know how long they last. But there are tons of designs out there---I mean, tons.
">Real Goods has some info, though they're trying to sell you stuff. Disclaimer: we invested in this company. But there are lots of sources---your state probably has a solar/wind/hydro local group with good info specific to your location. Check your local utility company---the PUD here has been a major supplier of information regarding these systems and a major supporter of people installing these systems themselves.
There's also all of the other parts if you want to store the energy created by the solar panel, wind turbine, or small hydro system (batteries), use that DC power to run AC devices (inverters), or feedback to the grid (intertie). And you have to have a place to locate this stuff---a roof that's strong enough, a powerhouse for battery storage and pumps, etc.
FTR, I like geothermal---a lot. But it's expensive and we chose not to go that route because it was overkill. But it's very, very efficient. Last year I heard that builders in Alberta were drilling the hole for the geothermal loops vertically beneath new houses and using the compressor of the geothermal system to push heat energy from the house in the summer into the water or earth the geothermal loops run in. I haven't researched it, so I don't know how well this works.
I also know a guy here in WA state who dumped tons and tons of rock into a trough he had dug besides a clients' house in Eastern Washington. He had placed something like geothermal loops in the trough as well and that idea was similar----run the compressor in the summer to extract heat from the house and release it in the earth and rock for later use. He said it worked, but had no data to backup his claim.
There's a lot of that with this stuff. Lots of claims. No data.
OTOH, a windmill (vs. a wind turbine) will pump for you right now without converting it's mechanical energy into electrical or chemical energy. Handy if you're doing rainwater catchment and you want to move the water across a pasture or yard. Same thing with DC-creating energy systems---they'll run DC devices like attic fans and so on.
But if you want light when it's dark and heat when it's cold, these other systems like batteries and interties come into play. Storage will always be the weak link.
You can do it, though. We are. It's actually pretty interesting and taking charge (heh) of your electrical system is empowering (heh). I wills top without yielding to the temptation to make a grounding joke.
That would be shocking.
Heh.
Links and Tinyurl
Mojave_Wolf, as you've seen, the links shorten themselves automatically with this software, so no need to worry about them being too long.
For other purposes, though, Tinyurl is helpful, and it couldn't be easier to do. Just copy the long URL you want a Tiny version of, then go to www.tinyurl.com, paste it into the box and click "Make tinyurl" and it gives you the Tiny version, which you can then cut and paste into whatever you're working with.
it's about solar/wind that is 100s or 1000s of miles from
the users, i've read--not the personal stuff people have hooked up directly to their homes or bldgs.
That our nationwide grid isn't good enough to take electricity from sunny desert land to NYC or from the Atlantic to Kansas...remember the giant blackout we had a few years ago, with the cascading failures?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/busine... -- "... The grid today, according to experts, is a system conceived 100 years ago to let utilities prop each other up, reducing blackouts and sharing power in small regions. It resembles a network of streets, avenues and country roads.
“We need an interstate transmission superhighway system,” said Suedeen G. Kelly, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
While the United States today gets barely 1 percent of its electricity from wind turbines, many experts are starting to think that figure could hit 20 percent.
Achieving that would require moving large amounts of power over long distances, from the windy, lightly populated plains in the middle of the country to the coasts where many people live. Builders are also contemplating immense solar-power stations in the nation’s deserts that would pose the same transmission problems. ...
The basic problem is that many transmission lines, and the connections between them, are simply too small for the amount of power companies would like to squeeze through them. The difficulty is most acute for long-distance transmission, but shows up at times even over distances of a few hundred miles.
..."
we need a nationwide TVA for high-voltage
transmission.
amberglow, my friend, I disagree with this
Decentralized power generation is the way to go. There's a lot less energy lost in the transmission and a lot less dependence on huge organizations to provide what can be provided locally.
Utilities continue managing the systems we already have, match their high volatge systems to lower the inefficiency (quite high), and can offer design, installation, and repair services in conjunction with for-profit companies. Hells bells, they already work with for-profit companies so nothing new here. They can even offer maintenance for small-scale power generation facilities.
I'll admit that there may be places where large-scale systems may require large organizations. For example, the plains of North and South Dakota, or tidal power on the coasts and I've wondered if the railroads don't already offer a means of access for transmission. But this expansive and expensive infrastructure isn't necessary everywhere.
Regardless, I think you can see the advantages of having decentralized power both at home, mall, and neighborhood level: Less wasted energy. Faster deployment of technologies. Less money. More appropriate technology based on geography and need. Localized power based on what that location can deliver.
The Skeptical Inquirer did an excellent article about this very issue.
but decentralized isn't helping those millions of us
who need more power and don't have it -- most energy is needed on the coasts, and our infrastructure on the East Coast is ancient and we always have to buy from Canada every summer because we don't generate enough.
It's like the railroads--we need high-capacity trunk lines all over the place so that we can easily transmit power everywhere, i'd say.
(i'm reminded of when i got dsl--i had to wait ages until my local phone substation could be upgraded before i could get it)
and it's like water--an absolute necessity
for everything--our economy, all homes and businesses, etc
Decentralized = ...
.... capital to invest by me.
Don't have it; and so we go hand to mouth...
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
i don't see any way to switch from carbon-based
stuff without a national infrastructure investment--like with highways and TVA and all sorts of other things...
and at the same time, fiber data lines
could piggyback on the pipes, i bet...
(or something else that would make it more attractive or sellable)
and look at AK-we're paying for that gas pipeline,
and the already existing pipelines there--and for the caspian sea ones too, no? (whether directly or indirectly)
It's too soon to say "it isn't" helping us.
Sure, decentralized power generation (what's the right phrase here? "energy production" grates on my nerves as a physicist's child) isn't helping many people now, especially us city dwellers. But building those enormous capacity power transmission lines isn't going to happen overnight either. There are social, technical, and financing hurdles to overcome. Upstate New York, for one, is not exactly pleased at the idea of sacrificing its peace and beauty for the sake of power in NYC.
That brings up a difficulty with large-scale industrial solutions (not just to this problem, but in general). With production geographically separated from use, the bad effects of the production technology ("externalities"?) such as pollution, noise, ugliness, etc. etc. are not suffered by the users. So for us in the city, high-voltage power transmission lines are pure benefit (as long as we don't want to vacation in beautiful Hamilton, NY). For the inhabitants of the countryside where the lines are built, it's nearly pure loss.
Seems to me that the aggressive pursuit of decentralized technology is good for lots of reasons. It's not much more, if any, "blue-sky" than the big industrial technologies. It puts the benefits and costs together in one place where economic and social processes can measure them properly. It's robust in terms of risk, with no single points of failure that affect large numbers of people.
I want a wind turbine on my roof!
Policy not party!
Policy not party!
I totally want wind turbines---amberglow, you want one, too
You know you do. You could wear it on a beanie and that way we'd know it was you.
Solar PV panels have been fitted to standard 3-tab shingles and they're getting more efficient as time goes on. Heat capture devised that sit on the drain pipe of your shower are another---will it ever work out? Well, it's not a bad idea to capture heat energy that would otherwise go down the drain, literally, especially in something like an apartment complex.
The key isn't for me or T. Boone Pickens to look around and tell you how to solve this for yourself. The key is for you to look around and see it for yourself. Wind turbines on buildings? Solar shingles? Rainwater catchment? Downspout hydro? Small PV? Bike generators? Solar hot water?
Yes, it will cost money. But you're going to be spending that money, either on increasingly more expensive fuels you're using now, or to sweeten the pot for fellows like T. Boone, because wheeler-dealers like him don't make a move unless there is money to be made, and they don't deliver the goods until they're sure they've gotten the best price.
So there's no rain or sun where you live, amberglow?
I get what you're saying---an ailing infrastructure unable to handle even the required capacity now. But maybe the problem isn't not enough power. Maybe it's too much demand.
No matter what, you're going to be spending money. Lots of money. The days of cheap energy are over. So now you have an opportunity---yes, it is an opportunity---to make yourself more reliant. I'm not saying turn into some kinda survivalist. Ick. No one looks good in camo.
I'm saying start getting in the habit of making small changes so you're ready for the big changes when they come. A solar panel to charge your laptop and cell phone. A five-gallon bucket to catch rainwater with which to flush your toilet. Once you have the habit of it, maybe making bigger changes---even leading on the bigger changes---becomes a little easier.
Or not. Look, I like thinking about this kind of stuff, so for me, this is terrifyingly exciting, meaning exciting with a big old streak of terror in it. But I can't wait for someone to bail us out because we live in the sort of place where people don't get bailed out. Maybe it's different for you.
the millions of us in big cities/apts can't do
any of those things--we're all dependent on the grids, and all the businesses here are too.
plus--we already have smaller carbon
footprints than suburban and rural people--we use public transit all the time and most of us don't drive at all, and we live in smaller places, and consume in smaller amounts than homeowners.
And yet you admit the city has to go elsewhere for power
So there's clearly something wrong, right?
You say you're already down to the bone carbon-wise and can't find anyway to generate power or conserve more. Given market constratints, you'll be paying out the ass for your energy. Unless everyone else kicks in to subsidize you, including accepting big pipeline and transmission lines across their landscape. But that's okay with you?
You won't even try asking your neighbors about getting the owner of the building to install some PV panels or a wind turbine?
Ultimately, it sounds as if you're saying you cannot do anything but wait for someone else to solve your power problems. But that can't be so---I must be misunderstanding.
If it is what you're saying, well, I think that's not a wise course of action, but the last time I lived in a city was London, where we had rainwater catchment on a gravity-fed system and used it for toilets and bathtubs.
Is it time to agree to disagree?
what's wrong is that we don't have enough generation
locally, so we have to buy what we need.
Legally, tenants are actually not at all allowed to do what homeowners can do.
There's nothing wrong with our lives--and most of it is absolutely right, resourcewise and usewise. Telling any of us to just go it alone in the midst of millions with the exact same needs is absurd.
We have govt and society for a reason--this is one of them.
So, it's impossible for you to charge your cellphone using
a single solar panel? Absolutely impossible? And there's no way you can set a bucket outside anywhere to collect rainwater? And you can't lock a heat capture unit on a shower drain?
Really?
So there's no way the owner of the apartment buuolding could install any power generating stuff on the building?
Kinda hard to believe.
You obviously
Have never lived in an apartment.
All this stuff that you do is wonderful, ohio, but to expect urban dwellers to do the same is ridiculous.
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
- Sir William Drummond
Easier in the country
Absolutely. It may be worth a try, but I can just envision the response of the owner of the big city apt. building -- that is, if you can even figure out who/what it is -- to a bunch of tenants petitioning for solar panels or wind turbines on the roof.
The apt owner has no problem. Energy costs go up, he just raises the rents, and replaces poorer long-term tenants with shiny new more affluent ones, which he'd like to do anyway.
But seems to me all is not lost. If we in the country who can do these things do them by the hundreds of thousands and even millions, the demand for what the oil companies and the electrical grid supply will drop noticeably and give the rest of you a bit of a break while the infrastructure catches up to the new energy sources.
You guys in the apartments just do what you can, and when you can't do anymore, don't worry about it. Just keep your eye open for opportunities.
And btw, I'm not convinced your carbon footprint there is all that much lower than mine, with my acres of green growing stuff, my ability to feed myself almost entirely from local sources including my own garden and my neighbor's chickens, my lower gasoline consumption from driving on fast roads rather than congested city streets, even in a bus, not to mention the ability of the vehicles to last many years longer before having to be replaced, and I'll even throw in my use of wood heat instead of oil for free.
About that heat capture unit?
The one you lock on a shower drain? Do you have a link? The only ones I'm finding are pretty expensive units ($600 - 1000 Canadian) that "replace a section of drainpipe", thus require some plumbing skills.
Policy not party!
Policy not party!
a remarkable display of pendantry...
I’ll cut to the chase, keep your eye on #2 if you can (although I don’t agree it is “our need” so much as “the energy corporations need” and therein lies the rub).
from which herb then goes on a rant about "evil corporations" in a remarkable display of pedantry.
Here's a clue, herb. I pay for energy. Its expensive. I need it to be cheaper. So do most americans -- my house isn't going to heat itself with words this winter.
Longer-term...
... doesn't mean pedantic.
I worry about heating fuel, too, but that doesn't make what Herb's saying invalid.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I didn't mean to pick on you Paul
What I wrote is just pointing out that the driver of the energy economy, alternative or otherwise, has nothing to do with politics, only economics. Ignore the truth if you want, it won't change the fact that the only thing driving the energy debate right now is economics. In other words, all current mainstream energy politics are in the service of and setting the table based for the economic interests of the major energy corporations. Nobody in mainstream politics is much concerned about making your heat bill lower next winter except that the price has to be low enough that the populace doesn't rebel and demand a complete overhaul of our structure of providing energy, going back to a completely public utility situation, and strict regulation of costs. If the price isn't low enough to hold that off, the only solution approved will be vouchers and subsidies that pay the energy companies the money they are charging.
Evil corporations? Corporations aren't evil, in fact I said quite clearly they have a responsibility to their shareholders to make profits, the highest profits possible. I'm a businessman and capitalist myself, I have no problem with corporations making a profit, or even bending the government to their will. I only call that "reality". T. Boone Pickens (and his ilk) on the other hand, is/are evil, and his ads are a dishonest shell game, designed to manipulate the public into supporting his own "stopgap" panacea, namely compressed natural gas. It's disgusting to me that the primary Swiftboat funder, who lied when it came time to pony up the million dollars to the swifties who disproved the Swiftboat lies, who fought tooth and tong to stop Kerry from getting elected, a guy who would have pushed for alt.energy 4 years ago when it would have made more difference, gets to be some kind of "voice of reason" in the alternative energy debate, based only on having billions of windfall oil tax profits to burn on advertising. Sorry, that is ghoulish to me, especially his "drill, drill, drill" toss off line which although it seems like it is sarcastic, is really the main thrust of his argument.
Call me pedantic if you want, but I know what I'm talking about, it's my business (my crew is working on a 166 turbine wind farm as I write this, and I was working in the field yesterday). I don't call your explanations of polling data pedantic. Even if I don't like the data findings, or may not agree on some of your interpretations, I respect your perspective and the work you put in on a topic where you know much, much more than I.
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I'm not such a bad guy once you get to know me.
20% less pedantic!
I'm going to try again here to make my point shorter and more clearly.
Volatile energy prices - including speculation on energy futures - are driven by the current commodity based energy market. The future energy market will be based on capital equipment and infrastructure investment with very predictable costs. The costs may be "higher" but will be more predictable and less of a driver of economic cycles of expansion and depression. The major energy corporations are moving into the alternative energy field because they know the costs of suppling oil cannot sufficiently be contained. They have a further incentive to reinvest their profits in capital infrastructure to receive tax credits and to parlay their cash profits into non-taxable capital investment. I applaud this development.
Politicians and politics regarding energy, and especially alternative energy solutions, as outlined by the positions Lambert describes here are both entirely predictable if you look at it through the lens I describe, and in service of the energy companies interests much more than your interests or the country's.
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
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I'm not such a bad guy once you get to know me.
BINGO gyrfalcon!
infrastructure vs. commodity. Yes, the profits will be lower, strike that, the profits will be more PREDICTABLE.
Rather than being based on whether a Saudi prince saw a turtle fall out of a tree and decided to cut back production by 10%, or a tanker sinks in a harbor and backlogs 20 more tankers, energy costs will be based on the cost of installing and maintaining the capital investment/infrastructure. Since energy costs will be more predictable, energy demand will also be more predictable (not entirely on both fronts, but much, much better).
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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites
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I'm not such a bad guy once you get to know me.
Public Financing of Elections
Obama claimed he was for it. If he wins then we'll have a Democratic President and a bigger majority in Congress. Presumably it would be easier to address almost all of our current problems if the corporations who benefit from the problems (and not the solutions) were no longer pouring money into every legislator's pocket.
So here's an idea, should what we really be pushing for is to hold Obama's feet to the fire on campaign financing. If he wants to change Washington, should the first thing he do is try to get through a Constitutional Amendment that sets up public financing for all federal elections? Isn't this something that, in theory, the blogs could harp on constantly?
We're never going to really solve global warming so long as the Agriculture industry decides our ethanol policy and the Coal and Oil industries design our fuel policies. Just like we're never going to get healthcare right so long as the biggest voices are insurance and drug companies.
Now, personally, I suspect that we won't hear another word about public financing after Obama wins. He used it to beat Hillary and so he's done. But I'd sure like to be wrong abou that and I'd like to try to figure out how to make sure I was wrong about it (e.g. give Obama less choice in the matter).
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
I'm loving this set of comments
So full of facty and concepty goodness, so void of ladyparts ravings.
Policy not party!
Policy not party!
Don't need a wind turbine
to tell which way the wind blows. but it helps....
Regarding decentralized (or distributed or whatever) power generation, is a good thing, but imperfect not only for why Lambert says, that it is an investment and you need the $$$ upfront, it is also an investment you can't take with you if you move, historically has had little resale value, and you are limited in your energy budget to that which you can gather and store. Not always an issue, but not everyplace is the same.
Regarding power lines, power generation ALREADY IS transported hundreds of miles. from coal-fired power plants, dams, nuclear plants, etc.. Same as it ever was.
Regarding what we should do, should not do, that is a good discussion to have but I hate to say it but it is both secondary and mostly irrelevant. What I describe above is what IS HAPPENING CURRENTLY. I describe it so that people here can make their decisions with better knowledge of facts on the ground, and what to expect in the next 2-3 years in alt.energy development and as a tool to better understand the energy policies of all candidates for every major office and a better understanding of the current energy situation than the average American.
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I'm not such a bad guy once you get to know me.
look--the nat'l economy & our lives run on electricity/gas--
it's absolutely a national issue--and affects every single one of us, whether in food costs or work or whatever.
we need national infrastructure solutions/ideas that cover the whole country-like the interstate highway system and rural electrification, etc.
Re: Decentralization and initial investments
Lambert, I take your point about needing money for the initial retro-fitting if installing individual things on your home was required, but I don't think any of us here are suggesting people who don't have the money be forced to do that (we couldn't afford it either, or even close, right now).
But solar and wind allow for the possibility of decentralization for some people (a helluva lot of people in areas like this one); and the more widely available and efficient these things become, the easier and cheaper to equip a broader base of people.
And there are all sorts of ways to encourage this without hitting the individual consumer particularly hard -- for example, not saying there would be *no* effect on home prices if all new homes were required to be designed/built in an environmentally efficient manner and/or have solar panels, but it wouldn't be killer, either (people who know more about this than me have told me it wouldn't necessarily raise the price at all, depending on how it was done & how much efficiency you're talking about). And some of these upfront costs would be offset over time by $0.00 utility bills in some months. (and yeah, I realize it takes a long time to catch up even so, thus why I'm emphasizing voluntary retrofitting and new construction)
Given the damage our current system is doing (transforming the biosphere in a bad way at best, killing the planet at worst), some sort of change is mandatory, even if it does cause some pain somewhere (and there are ways to insulate the people who would have the most difficulty coping with changeover costs, tho whether these things will be done is another issue).
Likewise, if the peak oil scenario is correct, even if the global warming deniers are right (not that i'm suggesting I think this remotely likely), we *still* have to switch to some other format, and if we're going to, why not emphasize those that diminish concentrated power the most? (I'm not saying solar should be the only solution, though from what I've read it strikes me as the best one to put the most emphasis on)