Very bad and very good news on energy....

Today's post: Wednesday, 9-8-2010

We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.

At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 4 years from now.

And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.

Today’s post: Very bad and very good news on energy

1. Here’s the mostly very bad news first.:

Since I am a moderate Republican and registered as a Republican, albeit one who believes in renewable and clean energy, I got on the email list of the "conservative action alerts."

Their most recent email says that there is a new government entity called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that is taxing businesses that in some way contribute to the release of CO2.

It apparently is already in operation as they say that, "RGGI added a 0.9% increase in energy prices in New England."

They then decry this as an unnecessary tax and say that because global warming "ISN'T EVEN REAL!" the reader of the email should become angry enough to shout, "I Am Mad As Hell And I Am Not Going To Take This Anymore!"

And they recommend the reader take this attitude out on their local US Representative or Senators to have congress cancel the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

I found the website for this Regional Greenhouse Gas Imitative to see what it is.

It's not a federal program but a program by a group of state governments in the Northeastern part of the United States:

"The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is the first mandatory, market-based effort in the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Ten Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states have capped and will reduce CO2 emissions from the power sector 10% by 2018.

States sell nearly all emission allowances through auctions and invest proceeds in consumer benefits: energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other clean energy technologies. RGGI is spurring innovation in the clean energy economy and creating green jobs in each state."

So this program is funding small cuts in CO2 production AND green jobs in this area in adding renewable energy sources and in increasing the energy efficiency of homes and businesses in this area.

So, even if global warming was NOT real, it’s making these states more diversified in their energy sources, helping the homes and businesses there become more energy efficient, which SAVES money; and it’s adding new jobs to the area.

Since the increase is less than one percent of the utility bills in the New England part of the area, this “tax” is costing most people less than $5 a month.

For most homeowners and businesses in this area in fact, improvements in their energy efficiency could easily pay back their costs AND this tiny increase.

Unfortunately, the facts so far also indicate that global warming is real and will at the very least increase the number and severity of weather disasters and emergencies even if it doesn’t flood our coastal cities and severely cut back on the amount of food we can grow.

Here’s why I think this email is horribly bad news. It is designed to generate a large number of badly informed, hostile, and close-minded people to try to force our governments to move away from what to me look like reasonable and desirable changes in our energy policy.

A legitimate case can be made that the people and locations who depend on the jobs in the coal industry in this area need to be taken into account and that reasonable care needs to be taken while the country is in a severe recession not to go overboard on increased taxes and costs to the people in this area.

But the costs are relatively small and these added costs are funding new jobs and increases in energy efficiency that will create more economic benefit to these states and their people than the costs.

To be fair, I’ve seen Democrats deliberately mislead the uninformed and unthinking in this exact same way.

But, on the subject of energy, this is totally despicable and harmful.

The fact that some people will believe this email and push hard to end what so far looks like a mostly beneficial program based on the disinformation and hostility in this email is extremely bad news for the energy situation in this country.

I find this most unfortunate indeed & very, very bad news that this email even exists, let alone that such emails are going to people all over the United States.

Mercifully the very good news is dramatically better and will gradually begin to operate on a much larger scale than the deliberately deceptive people who composed this email and had it sent.

2. I just found out that the gains that can be made in increasing energy efficiency in ways that actually SAVE money to do can do some very large scale good.

It would create jobs while lowering costs and doubly strengthen our economy.

And, it goes far beyond the heat proofing of our house we once did that created a no energy needed way to cool our house BETTER than paying for air conditioning and the related energy use or just insulating houses in poor neighborhoods to lower heating costs and energy use.

It includes those on a nationwide scale. But like those, it simply employs ALREADY EXISTING TECHNOLOGY.

But what I did not know before is that almost every part of our energy use and economy has that much potential for energy and dollar cost savings.

We can make a huge difference in cutting CO2 release, in reducing our dependence on oil as peak oil approaches, in increasing our national security by sharply decreasing our imports of foreign oil, add new jobs, and save money and all at the same time!

This can be done without waiting for 200 times more renewable energy to be installed or new transmission systems built to deliver it or new energy technologies to be discovered, developed and put into widespread use.

We need to do all that as close to lightning speed as we can manage.

But we have had a horribly late start and are making too little progress. So it hasn’t been looking very good.

This new approach is much more promising. By using it, we can make progress fast enough to gain the time needed to do the other things even with the late start and too slow progress.

Best of all, everyone can get behind it. It adds jobs and saves money.

But, how do I know this and how can this be done in practice?

I would have had no clue this was so doable or had this vast a potential or how to get it done myself.

But someone did and does. He wrote a book about it. He was and is extremely well informed and covers almost every part of our economy in his book.

It’s one of the most important books published in the last 100 years.

I strongly recommend you read it and make sure all your political representatives know of it and how important it is.

The book’s unfortunate and not very fitting or descriptive title is “Addicted to Energy.”

“Energy salvation through energy efficiency IS doable” is or would be a more accurate title.

The author is Elton Sherwin, Junior.

He learned much of the information because his job is being a venture capitalist for clean energy companies.

How large scale is this?

We could end all imported oil and still grow our economy -- is just one example.

We could cut our nationwide CO2 release by up to 80%, need no carbon taxes to do it, and still grow our economy and save money and create jobs in the process.

To put it simply, I knew increased energy efficiency was an important part of the needed list of things to do about energy before. But I had no clue it was by far the biggest and most important part with the most doable and fastest payoff.