Ways communities and utilities can create jobs and clean energy....

Today's post: Wednesday, 8-10-2010

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 3 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:

Ways communities and utilities can create jobs and clean energy....

I see 3 ways this can be done.

1. They can sponsor homes and businesses they serve to do just a few things that will make a major difference if lots of the homeowners and businesses do them.

Such things as:

adding insulation

and weather stripping or heat proofing buildings with peaked roofs by adding well screened intake ports around their perimeter and convection powered turbines so that the spaces between the roof and ceiling stay very warm and cool off when the sun goes down instead of being much hotter than the air temperature and staying that way all night

or replacing all or most of the light bulbs with LED bulbs fit here.

2. They can sponsor a special program for homeowners and businesses to do all or add most of the energy saving or renewable or onsite power generation methods they don’t already have in place.

That would add doing things like double pane windows and adding solar power in addition to doing all three of the things above.

3. They can in addition sponsor a program for all local organizations and businesses that have parking lots that get sun now to cover them with solar photovoltaic canopies.

This one is a surprisingly large opportunity that has extra benefits.

Every community in the United States has from hundreds to thousands of parking lots where people park where they work or where they shop. With minor exceptions such as some breaks for daytime light or trees now in the larger parking lots, every square foot of those parking lots could be generating solar electricity for the businesses or shops involved.

But that’s not the only benefit. The canopies and the solar cells will make the cars and people in the parking lots MUCH cooler in the summer. On a 100 degree summer day, the cars will be up to 100 degrees inside instead of the 120 to 150 degrees they often are now. That will give the shops that offer them a competitive advantage. And it will save the energy now spent by the people running their car air conditioners to remove all that heat. Lastly, it will make getting in and out of their cars and going to and from their cars much drier and less of a hassle in rainy weather.

A. Given the sparse money currently available to the governments of communities from small towns to large states, their main role will likely need to be to:

Encourage the utilities serving them to offer and finance such programs.

Encourage the companies that now finance solar installations to offer similar financing to other energy saving work to new customers even without solar and to other energy saving work for their current solar clients.

Publicize to everyone in their communities that these programs exist as they become available so everyone who lives there knows they exist. This one they can do immediately because of the programs that already exist that companies such as Solar City and Sungevity offer.

Offer lower permit fees or fast track the project approvals or both for the work to install such projects.

B) Utilities have more to gain and more money available to promote such projects.

They can publicize the value of doing these things and the national and local companies that offer them in the areas they serve.

But in addition, they can offer to help finance all such upgrades that save energy in the summer or which add more solar power either for homeowners or businesses that have no other way to finance them or offer incentives for using other financing options.

Doing this would likely add more to their ability to meet peak summer demand than adding more fossil fuel or nuclear power plants, do it in a tenth of the time, and at far less cost.

Lastly, they could ask for small increases in rates to help pay to do even more in this area. Germany is doing extremely well using this technique, FIT or feed-in tariff, to add more solar and such energy saving upgrades.

Every one of these actions will improve the economy and add jobs in the communities that do them.

The money saved from the energy savings over time will also strengthen the local economy as the residents will have more money to spend.

And, it will give the utility companies a more diverse and stable way to generate and supply energy and meet peak demands.