It IS about the economy but facts count too.....
Today's post: Wednesday, 4-27-2010
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:
It IS about the economy but facts count too.....
I once was extremely opposed to the Presidential candidacy of Democrat John Edwards since some of his economic policies if he became President would have truly horrible consequences if he actually did as he said he would.
His comments showed he simply didn’t understand economic facts. Following his policies would have been much like standing on the beach watching after warnings were posted for a large Tsunami later that day just because you thought you could control or ignore facts you didn’t like. As writer Robert Heinlein once put it, the actually possible events would have happened anyway. Ouch! No way was John Edwards qualified to be President of the United States.
Unfortunately, now, it’s many of the current Republicans that are willing to pretend away facts they don’t like.
There are two problems with that. It looks increasingly as if gasoline price will double from here by 2010. That’s about $8 or $9 a gallon or more!
If we try to pretend this isn’t so and pass laws to cause us to continue to use gasoline and diesel fuel for transport, our economy is in grave danger. Similarly, if we do NOT pass laws to increase mileage standards for vehicles using oil and move to alternatives other than oil for transport, the facts will begin to kill our economy.
In addition to peak oil, China plans to add nearly as many vehicles by 2020 as now exist in Europe.
Shai Agassi, the founder of Better Place, an electric-car company, said this and it was reported yesterday by TIME magazine.:
"Within less than this decade the No. 1 selling car in the world will be the electric car," he says. "It's the biggest financial opportunity the world has ever seen…..."
He added. "I'll put it this way: We have people from China here."
The TIME article said this: “The People's Republic has been busy creating a bourgeoisie, and the middle class does like to drive. Beijing's next five-year plan foresees at least 170 million new vehicles, or perhaps twice that, according to Agassi.
The lower estimate alone is as many cars as there are in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Britain combined.
The 8 million barrels of oil that would be required every day to fuel them is about as much as the U.S. imports every day.
"Do you know what the price of oil will be in five years if they're not using electric cars?" Agassi asks.”
If that happens or even comes close to it, gasoline and diesel prices will go up. They may go up by more than double the current prices in fact.
A separate TIME article on China & its incentive to go to electric cars said this:
"China, like the U.S., also has worries about dependency on foreign oil -- half of its oil comes from abroad; and it's only likely to get worse. China's oil consumption is expected to rise from 7.6 million barrels a day in 2007 to 11.6 million barrels a day by 2020."
Second, we do need to protect our economy from relying on oil while its prices go up enough to stall out our economy.
But the scientists also have found clear and increasing evidence that to save our climate and possibly our ability to grow food and keep some of our coastal cities, we also need to dramatically switch away from much of our use of natural gas and close to all our use of coal. Or we need to find a cost effective way to turn the CO2 produced into Oxygen and Carbon compounds. Cutting back in several ways AND adding cost effective CO2 removal systems is likely best.
The current Republicans who think their wish this isn’t so will prevent the consequences are wrong. If they fail to act to help prevent the disasters we are headed for, their actions are not based on fact.
Unfortunately if they continue to do this in our Congress, the actually possible will happen anyway. And, the survivors will think of them in years to come as many people think of Hitler now. Their beliefs were not based on facts – so their actions had horrible consequences
Also, though many of the economic principles Republicans believe in are sound, as this becomes evident, Republicans will return to being a weak and minority party if they continue to act like ignorant fools. Facts do count. And, pretending or even believing otherwise is not a good idea! The facts always win the argument. As our past California Governor put it, they will return to “losing at the Box office.”
On a more positive note,:
Thermal solar power from the Southwest United States and Mexico, when developed, can come close to producing all the electricity we now use or more. BrightSource Energy, a thermal solar company, has filed for a $250 million dollar ipo. This will enable them to help begin the process of harvesting this potential source of renewable energy on a moderately large scale.
Miasole, a less known Silicon Valley thin film solar photovoltaic company, has just done a deal with Intel which already looks likely to enable them to use similar technology and methods to lower the cost of making these thin film solar panels and radically increase the volume they make. That means that larger photovoltaic solar plants in cool but sunny places and small photovoltaic solar systems all over the world will be more cost effective soon. That means we will build a lot more of them. This will also help.
So, even if the politicians fail to act enough or fast enough, some businesses are working out deals that may protect us anyway.
We just need ten times as much in a quarter of the time it’s taking to avoid real economic problems.
So, every kind of energy efficiency improvement we can put into use, will help us to overcome this. We’ll need a huge amount of them as things stand now!
Showing posts with label energy policy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label energy policy. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Manhattan project or Moon shot approach to clean energy solutions....
Today's post: Wednesday, 4-6-2010
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:
Manhattan project or Moon shot approach to clean energy solutions....
This week’s post is about what conceptual approach is needed to get to clean energy solutions in time to prevent catastrophic problems from warming or severe economic disruption from that or fossil fuels becoming too scarce and expensive before we have enough alternatives in use.
Tom Friedman and others have suggested that we use the Manhattan project or the race to get a man on the moon as a conceptual model to get enough clean energy solutions in place soon enough. The Manhattan project or the race to get a man on the moon were things ignited the public imagination or get very serious government funding or both and got successful results. They also got successful results in the shortest possible time.
They do inspire the imagination; suggest speed of execution is essential, and by implication suggest a successful result.
But the massive size, multiple aspect, and complexity of the energy situation needs a comparable model to emulate that had these characteristics I think.
The Manhattan project or the race to get a man on the moon had complexities but not at the very multiple level of complexity that the energy crisis does.
However, there WAS a historical event that compared well with the energy crisis. It had multiple aspects and locations and kinds of stakeholders just as the energy crisis does.
That was the focused effort of the United States and its allies to win World War II. It was also successful. But even better, it had several models of the components of that success that also may be helpful.
Yes, it may have won the war to have had the Manhattan project. And, it certainly shortened the war and saved hundreds of thousands of deaths of the Japanese people and the soldiers and other military forces of the United States that an invasion would have produced.
But a review of the progress of the war shows that the war was close to irrevocably won by that time.
It was the strategies that won the war in Europe and were winning in the Pacific war until that time that truly won the war.
These included having the key interest groups work together and support each other at least to some degree. And, it included multiple and massive efforts to deploy effective technologies and make small but real improvements on the fly and multiple sources of innovation and in virtually every area needed at the same time. And a real spirit of public support across our society supported that and helped us win the war.
So, I think what we need is a world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources.
The good news first is that we are beginning to have part of this in place. We are beginning to have the needed, “multiple and massive efforts to deploy effective technologies and make small but real improvements on the fly and have multiple sources of innovation and in virtually every area needed at the same time.”
Here are just a couple of examples.
For example, if a safe and doable way to supply vehicles with hydrogen was developed. We could use wind, solar, geothermal, or nuclear power located close enough to water – lakes, rivers, oceans, etc to use the electricity from those sources to provide the hydrogen and release back into the air some the oxygen we’ve already used and the oxygen the fuels cells in the vehicles powered then use by turning the water into hydrogen and oxygen. (These renewable sources near oceans could desalt the water and use just part of that to produce hydrogen.)
Now it seems we may have that technology. This time I seem to have lost my notes on who developed it; but I saw a recent story that explained that there is a new way to store and deliver hydrogen by encapsulating hydrides from which hydrogen can be extracted for fuel cells and which uses nanotechnology. These encapsulated hydrides can be safely stored, transported, and even piped into vehicle fuel tanks much as gasoline and diesel fuel is now.
Another technology we have posted on before is by the Swedish company that now has an office in Sunnyvale, California in the silicon valley, GLO AB.
They use nanotechnology to make manufacturing LED lights something like a fifth as expensive as the manufacturing of LED lights now requires.
Now, I’ve replaced most of the incandescent bulbs we use for lighting with compact fluorescents which use only 25% of the energy of the incandescent bulbs they replaced. But so far, despite their far greater safety to me and my family and using only an eighth of the electricity of incandescent bulbs & half that of compact fluorescents I’ve only replaced two of the compact fluorescents with KED bulbs.
The reason is that I had to pay over a hundred dollars for just those two LED bulbs!
If they only cost a fifth as much. I would have replaced 10 compact fluorescents for the same money. And with only a bit over $10 each, by now I’d have replaced several more compact fluorescents with LED bulbs.
And, at that price level, utilities facing the need for electricity for electric cars or rising prices for electricity from fossil fuels could make LED bulbs available to their customers for ALL their lights at no charge to their customers and still be money ahead themselves.
There are literally hundreds or thousands of such efforts now in every part of energy savings and energy efficiency and clean energy production. Even nuclear may stay around though with much better and more reliable safety features. And, the venture capital firms are beginning to put some serious money into expanding the companies that are successfully deploying those technologies according to a story this week here in the Silicon Valley.
What we are so far missing is the spirit and energy and mulitple buy-in from all kinds of people that the United States, England, and Russia had during World War II.
We need more leaders with that vision and who know how to sell it to all of the stakeholders involved, not just some of them.
I’m out of time today but will list some potential ideas to solve that problem next time.
Until then I challenge you to commit yourself personally to do what you can for the world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources.
What can you already do in your home or at work?
How can you help get support from everyone for the world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources?
Even a single new LED light or more replacing a single energy using device with a more energy efficient one will help.
Even getting one other person to also commit to winning the world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources -- will help.
Today's post: Wednesday, 4-6-2010
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:
Manhattan project or Moon shot approach to clean energy solutions....
This week’s post is about what conceptual approach is needed to get to clean energy solutions in time to prevent catastrophic problems from warming or severe economic disruption from that or fossil fuels becoming too scarce and expensive before we have enough alternatives in use.
Tom Friedman and others have suggested that we use the Manhattan project or the race to get a man on the moon as a conceptual model to get enough clean energy solutions in place soon enough. The Manhattan project or the race to get a man on the moon were things ignited the public imagination or get very serious government funding or both and got successful results. They also got successful results in the shortest possible time.
They do inspire the imagination; suggest speed of execution is essential, and by implication suggest a successful result.
But the massive size, multiple aspect, and complexity of the energy situation needs a comparable model to emulate that had these characteristics I think.
The Manhattan project or the race to get a man on the moon had complexities but not at the very multiple level of complexity that the energy crisis does.
However, there WAS a historical event that compared well with the energy crisis. It had multiple aspects and locations and kinds of stakeholders just as the energy crisis does.
That was the focused effort of the United States and its allies to win World War II. It was also successful. But even better, it had several models of the components of that success that also may be helpful.
Yes, it may have won the war to have had the Manhattan project. And, it certainly shortened the war and saved hundreds of thousands of deaths of the Japanese people and the soldiers and other military forces of the United States that an invasion would have produced.
But a review of the progress of the war shows that the war was close to irrevocably won by that time.
It was the strategies that won the war in Europe and were winning in the Pacific war until that time that truly won the war.
These included having the key interest groups work together and support each other at least to some degree. And, it included multiple and massive efforts to deploy effective technologies and make small but real improvements on the fly and multiple sources of innovation and in virtually every area needed at the same time. And a real spirit of public support across our society supported that and helped us win the war.
So, I think what we need is a world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources.
The good news first is that we are beginning to have part of this in place. We are beginning to have the needed, “multiple and massive efforts to deploy effective technologies and make small but real improvements on the fly and have multiple sources of innovation and in virtually every area needed at the same time.”
Here are just a couple of examples.
For example, if a safe and doable way to supply vehicles with hydrogen was developed. We could use wind, solar, geothermal, or nuclear power located close enough to water – lakes, rivers, oceans, etc to use the electricity from those sources to provide the hydrogen and release back into the air some the oxygen we’ve already used and the oxygen the fuels cells in the vehicles powered then use by turning the water into hydrogen and oxygen. (These renewable sources near oceans could desalt the water and use just part of that to produce hydrogen.)
Now it seems we may have that technology. This time I seem to have lost my notes on who developed it; but I saw a recent story that explained that there is a new way to store and deliver hydrogen by encapsulating hydrides from which hydrogen can be extracted for fuel cells and which uses nanotechnology. These encapsulated hydrides can be safely stored, transported, and even piped into vehicle fuel tanks much as gasoline and diesel fuel is now.
Another technology we have posted on before is by the Swedish company that now has an office in Sunnyvale, California in the silicon valley, GLO AB.
They use nanotechnology to make manufacturing LED lights something like a fifth as expensive as the manufacturing of LED lights now requires.
Now, I’ve replaced most of the incandescent bulbs we use for lighting with compact fluorescents which use only 25% of the energy of the incandescent bulbs they replaced. But so far, despite their far greater safety to me and my family and using only an eighth of the electricity of incandescent bulbs & half that of compact fluorescents I’ve only replaced two of the compact fluorescents with KED bulbs.
The reason is that I had to pay over a hundred dollars for just those two LED bulbs!
If they only cost a fifth as much. I would have replaced 10 compact fluorescents for the same money. And with only a bit over $10 each, by now I’d have replaced several more compact fluorescents with LED bulbs.
And, at that price level, utilities facing the need for electricity for electric cars or rising prices for electricity from fossil fuels could make LED bulbs available to their customers for ALL their lights at no charge to their customers and still be money ahead themselves.
There are literally hundreds or thousands of such efforts now in every part of energy savings and energy efficiency and clean energy production. Even nuclear may stay around though with much better and more reliable safety features. And, the venture capital firms are beginning to put some serious money into expanding the companies that are successfully deploying those technologies according to a story this week here in the Silicon Valley.
What we are so far missing is the spirit and energy and mulitple buy-in from all kinds of people that the United States, England, and Russia had during World War II.
We need more leaders with that vision and who know how to sell it to all of the stakeholders involved, not just some of them.
I’m out of time today but will list some potential ideas to solve that problem next time.
Until then I challenge you to commit yourself personally to do what you can for the world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources.
What can you already do in your home or at work?
How can you help get support from everyone for the world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources?
Even a single new LED light or more replacing a single energy using device with a more energy efficient one will help.
Even getting one other person to also commit to winning the world wide all out war level campaign to convert the world to a very energy efficient economy powered by clean and sustainable energy sources -- will help.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Much safer nuclear or alternatives....
Today's post: Wednesday, 3-23-2010
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:
Much safer nuclear or alternatives....
This week’s post is on the nuclear situation.
There are two responses that make sense for nuclear energy now that the Japan quake and some checking of other reactors since have found safety issues.
I think the best answer is to do both. BUT they are both challenging to do. So we need to tackle them with a lot of brains, knowledge, energy and, unfortunately, money.
But the alternative of building a supposed to be safe nuclear facility near population centers and farms that was inadequately designed for effective safety cannot be allowed to continue. The situation in Japan shows this.
1. Germany was downwind from Chernobyl a few years ago. They already have done a close to best in the world job of adding energy conservation upgrades and renewable energy sources for electricity. And that experience is one of the reasons.
Now in today’s news, AP, in a story datelined Berlin reports that Germany now plans to begin to wean itself from nuclear power entirely. This is of interest for two reasons. One is that anything effective they manage to do can be used here and around the world. The second is that the United States in just California has more potential to generate renewable sources for electricity. So if Germany can even come close, the United States can do even better.
So what would doing without nuclear or adding very little more in the United States require?
Quite a lot which I’ll list. But the more we do, the less nuclear we will need and the more likely it is any nuclear we do add will be done safely instead almost safely but not really as it has been so far.
a) In the important and very well researched book, Addicted to Energy, by Elton Sherwin, Jr, he makes the point that simply retrofitting existing technologies or replacing things with the existing technologies to increase energy efficiency throughout the economy in the United States would save more energy than all the oil we now import.
The book should have been titled something like, “Massive savings from energy efficiency using already available technologies.”
Doing what he recommends at a flat out fast speed all over the economy right away will return more money than it costs. And, the improved GDP per energy used will arrive far sooner than we can add more renewable energy or nuclear that is actually safe or far closer to it can be done.
So, whether or not we build more nuclear, this set of things has to be the number one priority.
b) We need to do dramatically more building of renewable energy sources than we have.
Following Germany’s incentive system to ensure this happens is a first key. They have roughly a half to a third of California’s solar potential and have been installing nine times as much solar as California for many years. We must find locally effective versions of these incentives and use them very soon in California and across the United States.
We need to build close to the maximum that is even close to environmentally safe of large thermal solar plants throughout the Southwestern United States and most of Mexico. And, we need to build the transmission lines and make the upgrades to the current transmission grid to get that electricity to where it will be used.
We need to do the same with wind generated electricity from Minnesota to West Texas and add wind energy in most of the other places that have wind.
We need to add photovoltaic solar in moderate sized but inexpensive locations near cities and existing transmission grids and make the process of doing so easy, cheap, and quick where permits and grid connections are concerned.
We need to install photovoltaic solar on close to every rooftop and cover every parking lot of reasonable size with a canopy and install photovoltaic solar on every square foot of these canopies.
c) We need to continue our development and roll out of much better batteries so that homes, businesses, and cities can store the irregular supply of electricity from renewable sources for when it is actually needed.
d) We need to convert coal to gas and use that and natural gas to generate electricity in Bloom Energy’s fuels cells or those of a set of competitors if Bloom Energy isn’t up to the job; stop burning these fuels; and feed the CO2 released to algae to make biofuels.
e) We need to find out how to use far more geothermal energy including drilling much deeper to access it and to find out how to do this without causing earthquakes. Once we do that, we need to multiply our supply because like nuclear and natural gas and coal, geothermal delivers energy as needed.
The other good news besides the massive amount of usable electricity these steps can net our economy is that as expensive and time consuming as doing them all well is, it likely is cheaper and faster than building truly safe nuclear plants.
So, this is the better choice that we should rely on most and do the most and do the fastest.
2. But the recent TED talk by Stewart Brand supporting nuclear power make some good points.
Nuclear power uses dramatically less land than all of the renewable sources of any size and delivers power as needed as renewable energy sources do not – at least so far.
And, it deliver so much less air pollution and CO2 than burning coal it’s scary to contemplate.
To avoid having unbreatheable air as early London had and part of China do now, we need to burn dramatically less coal. (Gasifying it and using fuel cells to make electricity solves that problem.) But Brand has a legitimate point that so does using nuclear power instead.
And, if we really have already used up the safe limits of sending CO2 into the air as the evidence increasingly says we have, his point that nuclear can solve that problem and may well be badly needed to do so, is also legitimate.
So, I agree with Energy Secretary Chu and President Obama that we should keep nuclear power as an option.
But it’s only worth doing at all if it is done far more safely than it was recently in Japan and that level of safety likely is not in our existing reactors.
The reason is that the downside is so dreadful.
There are two problems that need to be solved every single time and solved far better than they have been.
Yes that will make nuclear far more expensive and slower to get more of. But no nuclear plant should be built or kept long in operation without it.
1. Nuclear plants should only be built in politically stable and relatively sane countries. Countries such as Iran and North Korea should have none based on their current politics. They should have nuclear power but from other countries that can afford to build safe reactors and won’t weaponize them. South Korea or China can supply North Korea and Russia can supply Iran.
In addition, every reactor should get extremely tight 24/7 security from the military of the country where they are located every single day they operate.
If that’s too expensive, don’t build nuclear. I think it is that simple.
2. Building safe reactors we are now seeing is much harder and expensive than was initially thought as the Japan experience has shown.
Here are just a few ideas I’ve had since the Japan situation has revealed the need for them.
Going forward, I think no reactor should be built that doesn’t have all of these needed steps in place that the Japanese reactors did not have.
a) Radioactive steam was released into the air and then spread out. They did not have a superfort sized building encasing the entire site that would have allowed that steam to enter there but not the surrounding community. The VAB, vehicle assembly building that was used for the Saturn moon rockets show we can build such structures.
That will be expensive to do for each reactor; but it can be done.
b) Many of the things the workers in these reactors could not do because of high radiation can be done by robots controlled from safer locations. Such robots are just now arriving in Japan to the stricken sites. That’s unacceptably unsafe, they should have already been inside and ready to use. Every nuclear site should have them & likely doesn’t now.
That will be expensive to do for each reactor; but it can be done.
c) The cooling that didn’t happen caused the problem in Japan and its severity.
Better reactor design and fuel rod storage design going forward can make this problem less likely. But dramatically better electric power backup within each site and of the coolants needed as well must be in every site.
They should have a mini-reactor that is even better protected than the main reactors that can supply the electricity needed to run the plant and its cooling systems – at least in shut down mode for the main reactors.
And, if that fails, they also need the natural gas and fuel cells to make electricity onsite with at least 3 weeks of supply necessary to maintain the controls, robots, and shut down mode cooling.
There would have been no problem in Japan if they had all these things ahead of time.
Doing all these things for every reactor built or retrofitted to those we will keep will be expensive to do for each and every reactor; but it can be done.
My position is that we need the nuclear reactors; but we should not use them or build more without these safe-guards. It will make them a lot more expensive and make them take longer to build.
But better that than nuclear accidents that happen near people and farmland. And, without these safeguards we run a very large risk.
Today's post: Wednesday, 3-23-2010
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:
Much safer nuclear or alternatives....
This week’s post is on the nuclear situation.
There are two responses that make sense for nuclear energy now that the Japan quake and some checking of other reactors since have found safety issues.
I think the best answer is to do both. BUT they are both challenging to do. So we need to tackle them with a lot of brains, knowledge, energy and, unfortunately, money.
But the alternative of building a supposed to be safe nuclear facility near population centers and farms that was inadequately designed for effective safety cannot be allowed to continue. The situation in Japan shows this.
1. Germany was downwind from Chernobyl a few years ago. They already have done a close to best in the world job of adding energy conservation upgrades and renewable energy sources for electricity. And that experience is one of the reasons.
Now in today’s news, AP, in a story datelined Berlin reports that Germany now plans to begin to wean itself from nuclear power entirely. This is of interest for two reasons. One is that anything effective they manage to do can be used here and around the world. The second is that the United States in just California has more potential to generate renewable sources for electricity. So if Germany can even come close, the United States can do even better.
So what would doing without nuclear or adding very little more in the United States require?
Quite a lot which I’ll list. But the more we do, the less nuclear we will need and the more likely it is any nuclear we do add will be done safely instead almost safely but not really as it has been so far.
a) In the important and very well researched book, Addicted to Energy, by Elton Sherwin, Jr, he makes the point that simply retrofitting existing technologies or replacing things with the existing technologies to increase energy efficiency throughout the economy in the United States would save more energy than all the oil we now import.
The book should have been titled something like, “Massive savings from energy efficiency using already available technologies.”
Doing what he recommends at a flat out fast speed all over the economy right away will return more money than it costs. And, the improved GDP per energy used will arrive far sooner than we can add more renewable energy or nuclear that is actually safe or far closer to it can be done.
So, whether or not we build more nuclear, this set of things has to be the number one priority.
b) We need to do dramatically more building of renewable energy sources than we have.
Following Germany’s incentive system to ensure this happens is a first key. They have roughly a half to a third of California’s solar potential and have been installing nine times as much solar as California for many years. We must find locally effective versions of these incentives and use them very soon in California and across the United States.
We need to build close to the maximum that is even close to environmentally safe of large thermal solar plants throughout the Southwestern United States and most of Mexico. And, we need to build the transmission lines and make the upgrades to the current transmission grid to get that electricity to where it will be used.
We need to do the same with wind generated electricity from Minnesota to West Texas and add wind energy in most of the other places that have wind.
We need to add photovoltaic solar in moderate sized but inexpensive locations near cities and existing transmission grids and make the process of doing so easy, cheap, and quick where permits and grid connections are concerned.
We need to install photovoltaic solar on close to every rooftop and cover every parking lot of reasonable size with a canopy and install photovoltaic solar on every square foot of these canopies.
c) We need to continue our development and roll out of much better batteries so that homes, businesses, and cities can store the irregular supply of electricity from renewable sources for when it is actually needed.
d) We need to convert coal to gas and use that and natural gas to generate electricity in Bloom Energy’s fuels cells or those of a set of competitors if Bloom Energy isn’t up to the job; stop burning these fuels; and feed the CO2 released to algae to make biofuels.
e) We need to find out how to use far more geothermal energy including drilling much deeper to access it and to find out how to do this without causing earthquakes. Once we do that, we need to multiply our supply because like nuclear and natural gas and coal, geothermal delivers energy as needed.
The other good news besides the massive amount of usable electricity these steps can net our economy is that as expensive and time consuming as doing them all well is, it likely is cheaper and faster than building truly safe nuclear plants.
So, this is the better choice that we should rely on most and do the most and do the fastest.
2. But the recent TED talk by Stewart Brand supporting nuclear power make some good points.
Nuclear power uses dramatically less land than all of the renewable sources of any size and delivers power as needed as renewable energy sources do not – at least so far.
And, it deliver so much less air pollution and CO2 than burning coal it’s scary to contemplate.
To avoid having unbreatheable air as early London had and part of China do now, we need to burn dramatically less coal. (Gasifying it and using fuel cells to make electricity solves that problem.) But Brand has a legitimate point that so does using nuclear power instead.
And, if we really have already used up the safe limits of sending CO2 into the air as the evidence increasingly says we have, his point that nuclear can solve that problem and may well be badly needed to do so, is also legitimate.
So, I agree with Energy Secretary Chu and President Obama that we should keep nuclear power as an option.
But it’s only worth doing at all if it is done far more safely than it was recently in Japan and that level of safety likely is not in our existing reactors.
The reason is that the downside is so dreadful.
There are two problems that need to be solved every single time and solved far better than they have been.
Yes that will make nuclear far more expensive and slower to get more of. But no nuclear plant should be built or kept long in operation without it.
1. Nuclear plants should only be built in politically stable and relatively sane countries. Countries such as Iran and North Korea should have none based on their current politics. They should have nuclear power but from other countries that can afford to build safe reactors and won’t weaponize them. South Korea or China can supply North Korea and Russia can supply Iran.
In addition, every reactor should get extremely tight 24/7 security from the military of the country where they are located every single day they operate.
If that’s too expensive, don’t build nuclear. I think it is that simple.
2. Building safe reactors we are now seeing is much harder and expensive than was initially thought as the Japan experience has shown.
Here are just a few ideas I’ve had since the Japan situation has revealed the need for them.
Going forward, I think no reactor should be built that doesn’t have all of these needed steps in place that the Japanese reactors did not have.
a) Radioactive steam was released into the air and then spread out. They did not have a superfort sized building encasing the entire site that would have allowed that steam to enter there but not the surrounding community. The VAB, vehicle assembly building that was used for the Saturn moon rockets show we can build such structures.
That will be expensive to do for each reactor; but it can be done.
b) Many of the things the workers in these reactors could not do because of high radiation can be done by robots controlled from safer locations. Such robots are just now arriving in Japan to the stricken sites. That’s unacceptably unsafe, they should have already been inside and ready to use. Every nuclear site should have them & likely doesn’t now.
That will be expensive to do for each reactor; but it can be done.
c) The cooling that didn’t happen caused the problem in Japan and its severity.
Better reactor design and fuel rod storage design going forward can make this problem less likely. But dramatically better electric power backup within each site and of the coolants needed as well must be in every site.
They should have a mini-reactor that is even better protected than the main reactors that can supply the electricity needed to run the plant and its cooling systems – at least in shut down mode for the main reactors.
And, if that fails, they also need the natural gas and fuel cells to make electricity onsite with at least 3 weeks of supply necessary to maintain the controls, robots, and shut down mode cooling.
There would have been no problem in Japan if they had all these things ahead of time.
Doing all these things for every reactor built or retrofitted to those we will keep will be expensive to do for each and every reactor; but it can be done.
My position is that we need the nuclear reactors; but we should not use them or build more without these safe-guards. It will make them a lot more expensive and make them take longer to build.
But better that than nuclear accidents that happen near people and farmland. And, without these safeguards we run a very large risk.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Current Republicans are misleading people....
Today's post: Wednesday, 3-16-2010
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:
Current Republicans are misleading people....
(Next week’s post will be on the nuclear situation. This week it may be a bit too early to know how bad it will get.)
In the important and very well researched book, Addicted to Energy, by Elton Sherwin, Jr, he makes the point that simply retrofitting existing technologies or replacing things with the existing technologies to increase energy efficiency throughout the economy in the United States would save more energy than all the oil we now import.
The book should have been titled something like, “Massive savings from energy efficiency using already available technologies.”
Since the majority of these changes improve energy efficiency for the use of electricity and natural gas, the savings he speaks of will only cut petroleum use if we also begin to use dramatically more plug-in hybrid and all electric cars and trucks.
But doing both these things well and soon and on a large enough scale will indeed increase the energy independence of the United States.
We will need far less oil from outside our country and the reduction in demand will cut the prices for fuel from petroleum to less than they would have been.
In fact, gasoline and diesel prices would be much higher now if Federal Standards had not mandated higher mpg standards in cars and trucks.
Tightening these standards now will help speed the adoption of plug-in hybrids and all electric cars – and increase the efficiency of new vehicles that still use gasoline and diesel.
Recently we had an increase of gasoline prices from close to $3 a gallon to close to $4 a gallon. This was due entirely to the growth in demand and the threats to supply and its increased costs.
So, the more we are able to reduce demand for petroleum fuels, the less we will pay for gasoline and diesel fuel.
In fact, gradually beginning to tax oil in some way for part of its real cost for climate change will help speed the changes that cut demand.
That means that adding something like 25 cents a gallon to gasoline and diesel from such taxes is a way to make the future price of gasoline closer to $6 a gallon instead of $12.
So, trying to cut back fuel efficiency standards or these carbon taxes is penny wise and twenty dollar bill foolish.
Meanwhile I got an email today from a conservative Republican source that said that the only way to energy independence was to drill for more oil within the United States and to trash or turn off the kinds of programs that will cut the long term prices of oil. It came right out and said that doing anything else was only boosting gasoline prices and cutting back our energy independence.
So, fight back against people who disagree.
Simply put, this is either total ignorance or deliberate deception – and it’s a campaign which many current Republicans openly endorse.
It deliberately leaves key parts of a solution off the table and only leaves solutions favorable to the oil companies and the oil industry instead.
They actually have a reasonable point that increased oil production and drilling within the United States would help, particularly in the short run once the oil starts flowing.
So, I was saddened by the recent offshore drilling disaster in our Gulf of Mexico since that’s the best place to do this increased drilling.
Before that, the support was there from most people for more drilling in the Gulf.
But their email was NOT about energy independence or keeping gasoline costs low. It SAID so but completely left out the large additional leverage of the ways to cut demand to achieve these things.
This is irresponsible and inaccurate. And, they are trying so hard with it, it’s clear they hope to fool a lot of less informed people into leaving out many parts of the solutions we need badly.
Some people believe it. Unfortunately, it’s dangerously wrong.
If the other solutions are blocked because of it, we will all be in worse trouble and gasoline prices will both be higher and increasing faster.
This is most unfortunate. But it also shows that the other side has not stepped up to the plate enough that most people getting these emails know it’s inaccurate and incomplete at best.
Today's post: Wednesday, 3-16-2010
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:
Current Republicans are misleading people....
(Next week’s post will be on the nuclear situation. This week it may be a bit too early to know how bad it will get.)
In the important and very well researched book, Addicted to Energy, by Elton Sherwin, Jr, he makes the point that simply retrofitting existing technologies or replacing things with the existing technologies to increase energy efficiency throughout the economy in the United States would save more energy than all the oil we now import.
The book should have been titled something like, “Massive savings from energy efficiency using already available technologies.”
Since the majority of these changes improve energy efficiency for the use of electricity and natural gas, the savings he speaks of will only cut petroleum use if we also begin to use dramatically more plug-in hybrid and all electric cars and trucks.
But doing both these things well and soon and on a large enough scale will indeed increase the energy independence of the United States.
We will need far less oil from outside our country and the reduction in demand will cut the prices for fuel from petroleum to less than they would have been.
In fact, gasoline and diesel prices would be much higher now if Federal Standards had not mandated higher mpg standards in cars and trucks.
Tightening these standards now will help speed the adoption of plug-in hybrids and all electric cars – and increase the efficiency of new vehicles that still use gasoline and diesel.
Recently we had an increase of gasoline prices from close to $3 a gallon to close to $4 a gallon. This was due entirely to the growth in demand and the threats to supply and its increased costs.
So, the more we are able to reduce demand for petroleum fuels, the less we will pay for gasoline and diesel fuel.
In fact, gradually beginning to tax oil in some way for part of its real cost for climate change will help speed the changes that cut demand.
That means that adding something like 25 cents a gallon to gasoline and diesel from such taxes is a way to make the future price of gasoline closer to $6 a gallon instead of $12.
So, trying to cut back fuel efficiency standards or these carbon taxes is penny wise and twenty dollar bill foolish.
Meanwhile I got an email today from a conservative Republican source that said that the only way to energy independence was to drill for more oil within the United States and to trash or turn off the kinds of programs that will cut the long term prices of oil. It came right out and said that doing anything else was only boosting gasoline prices and cutting back our energy independence.
So, fight back against people who disagree.
Simply put, this is either total ignorance or deliberate deception – and it’s a campaign which many current Republicans openly endorse.
It deliberately leaves key parts of a solution off the table and only leaves solutions favorable to the oil companies and the oil industry instead.
They actually have a reasonable point that increased oil production and drilling within the United States would help, particularly in the short run once the oil starts flowing.
So, I was saddened by the recent offshore drilling disaster in our Gulf of Mexico since that’s the best place to do this increased drilling.
Before that, the support was there from most people for more drilling in the Gulf.
But their email was NOT about energy independence or keeping gasoline costs low. It SAID so but completely left out the large additional leverage of the ways to cut demand to achieve these things.
This is irresponsible and inaccurate. And, they are trying so hard with it, it’s clear they hope to fool a lot of less informed people into leaving out many parts of the solutions we need badly.
Some people believe it. Unfortunately, it’s dangerously wrong.
If the other solutions are blocked because of it, we will all be in worse trouble and gasoline prices will both be higher and increasing faster.
This is most unfortunate. But it also shows that the other side has not stepped up to the plate enough that most people getting these emails know it’s inaccurate and incomplete at best.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Energy efficiency upgrades with already available technology is critical to do....
Today's post: Wednesday, 3-9-2010
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:
Energy efficiency upgrades with already available technology is critical to do....
In the important and very well researched book, Addicted to Energy, by Elton Sherwin, Jr, he makes the point that simply retrofitting existing technologies or replacing things with the existing technologies to increase energy efficiency throughout the economy in the United States would save more energy than all the oil we now import.
The book should have been titled something like, “Massive savings from energy efficiency using already available technologies.” Addicted to Energy is shorter but both misrepresents the content and is a bit negative.
His book, by contrast is quite positive. He points out that the work needed to make these energy efficiency upgrades will both create jobs and improve the economy from energy savings and less need for new electric power generation plants.
Yesterday, I found out the United States may be on its way to being behind the economy of the EU countries and left with increasing energy costs while they are NOT so burdened.
They actually have an EU plan to make these upgrades in every part of Europe.
AP ran a story yesterday titled, “EU plan to double energy efficiency by 2020.” Arthur Max wrote it.
The EU plans to boost energy efficiency dramatically by producing better household appliances, renovating public buildings and private homes, and driving more energy efficient cars. The plan to do this was adopted yesterday, Tuesday, 3-8, according to the article.
The EU aims to cut greenhouse gases 25 % below 1990 levels by 2020, outperforming its original 20 % target, with the resulting increase in energy efficiency in transportation, buildings, construction, and agriculture.
“"The good news is we don't need to wait for technological breakthroughs," said European climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard, because existing technologies are enough. "We need to start the transition toward a competitive low carbon economy now," she said….”
The principal goal is to cut emissions 80 % by 2050. This new plan also sets milestones of 40 % by 2030 & 60 by 2040.
The plan, called Roadmap 2050, will be presented to the European Parliament and member countries for creating legislation to implement the plan.
Environmentalists criticized the plan for not being even more ambitious. That’s unfortunate since implementing the plan can be accelerated later and an even more ambitious plan might be rejected as undoable. (The United States and the EU should both have done this 20 years ago too! I think the environmentalists should support this now; and find ways to add doable upgrades later once it is actually happening. That actually might get to the goals they seek. Getting in the way of putting this plan in motion now will jeopardize those goals.)
The plan targets investments of 270 billion Euros a year, or 1.5 percent of the EU's economic output.
That sounds like a huge amount of money and one that might slow their economy.
But that is totally misleading. It may save their economy and give them a significant economic advantage instead!
In the most important point in the article, it explained why that’s so!
Initially most of that will return and later all of it will return from the savings due to lower oil and gas imports. (If they also switch to plug-in hybrids and all electric cars and trucks as a part of this plan, they may do even better.)
The long term projection shows this plan reaping returns that would please a venture capitalist!
Check out this quote.:
“Over the next 40 years, fuel costs could fall by euro175 billion to euro320 billion a year, the commission said, but without action those bills will more than double.”
This means the investments of 270 billion Euros a year will begin to save 670 billion Euros a year or more. Their imported fuel bill will be 320 billion Euros a year or less instead of 990 billion Euros a year or more – and rising!
If the United States fails to do likewise, Europe will have a massive economic advantage.
They will prosper while we go broke!
The current good news is that the Silicon Valley and California have more knowledgeable people about science, technology, and the real energy situation, and the world economy than most of the members of the current congress.
If they succeed in doing as the EU is doing which they are working to do, eventually the rest of the country will follow along – if we are lucky.
If so, our economy will improve too instead of getting far worse!
Today's post: Wednesday, 3-9-2010
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:
Energy efficiency upgrades with already available technology is critical to do....
In the important and very well researched book, Addicted to Energy, by Elton Sherwin, Jr, he makes the point that simply retrofitting existing technologies or replacing things with the existing technologies to increase energy efficiency throughout the economy in the United States would save more energy than all the oil we now import.
The book should have been titled something like, “Massive savings from energy efficiency using already available technologies.” Addicted to Energy is shorter but both misrepresents the content and is a bit negative.
His book, by contrast is quite positive. He points out that the work needed to make these energy efficiency upgrades will both create jobs and improve the economy from energy savings and less need for new electric power generation plants.
Yesterday, I found out the United States may be on its way to being behind the economy of the EU countries and left with increasing energy costs while they are NOT so burdened.
They actually have an EU plan to make these upgrades in every part of Europe.
AP ran a story yesterday titled, “EU plan to double energy efficiency by 2020.” Arthur Max wrote it.
The EU plans to boost energy efficiency dramatically by producing better household appliances, renovating public buildings and private homes, and driving more energy efficient cars. The plan to do this was adopted yesterday, Tuesday, 3-8, according to the article.
The EU aims to cut greenhouse gases 25 % below 1990 levels by 2020, outperforming its original 20 % target, with the resulting increase in energy efficiency in transportation, buildings, construction, and agriculture.
“"The good news is we don't need to wait for technological breakthroughs," said European climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard, because existing technologies are enough. "We need to start the transition toward a competitive low carbon economy now," she said….”
The principal goal is to cut emissions 80 % by 2050. This new plan also sets milestones of 40 % by 2030 & 60 by 2040.
The plan, called Roadmap 2050, will be presented to the European Parliament and member countries for creating legislation to implement the plan.
Environmentalists criticized the plan for not being even more ambitious. That’s unfortunate since implementing the plan can be accelerated later and an even more ambitious plan might be rejected as undoable. (The United States and the EU should both have done this 20 years ago too! I think the environmentalists should support this now; and find ways to add doable upgrades later once it is actually happening. That actually might get to the goals they seek. Getting in the way of putting this plan in motion now will jeopardize those goals.)
The plan targets investments of 270 billion Euros a year, or 1.5 percent of the EU's economic output.
That sounds like a huge amount of money and one that might slow their economy.
But that is totally misleading. It may save their economy and give them a significant economic advantage instead!
In the most important point in the article, it explained why that’s so!
Initially most of that will return and later all of it will return from the savings due to lower oil and gas imports. (If they also switch to plug-in hybrids and all electric cars and trucks as a part of this plan, they may do even better.)
The long term projection shows this plan reaping returns that would please a venture capitalist!
Check out this quote.:
“Over the next 40 years, fuel costs could fall by euro175 billion to euro320 billion a year, the commission said, but without action those bills will more than double.”
This means the investments of 270 billion Euros a year will begin to save 670 billion Euros a year or more. Their imported fuel bill will be 320 billion Euros a year or less instead of 990 billion Euros a year or more – and rising!
If the United States fails to do likewise, Europe will have a massive economic advantage.
They will prosper while we go broke!
The current good news is that the Silicon Valley and California have more knowledgeable people about science, technology, and the real energy situation, and the world economy than most of the members of the current congress.
If they succeed in doing as the EU is doing which they are working to do, eventually the rest of the country will follow along – if we are lucky.
If so, our economy will improve too instead of getting far worse!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Current congressional Republicans are ignorant of the energy situation....
Today's post: Wednesday, 2-23-2010
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:
Current congressional Republicans are ignorant of the energy situation....
Or at least they act like it in congress.
Earlier this week TIME online news had this story:
Environmentalists Warn of Natural Debt as Budget Cuts Loom
TIME Tues 2-22-2011 By BRYAN WALSH
In his article, he presents the idea that we may be living beyond the level of the Earth and its biosystems to recover from our use and continue to work right in the same way that financially it can be damaging in the long run to use up capital gradually instead of only living on the interest or dividends.
Here’s a brief quote:
"....the very politicians who are so worried about the public debt - and who want deep spending cuts now to save our future, whatever the cost - utterly dismiss the idea that we could face an equal crisis of natural debt. Politicians like Boehner and Ryan order us to tighten our belts immediately, but they utterly deny the climate and resource crisis the world faces. In fact, the Republicans in Congress are going well beyond simple denial - they're now using their budget to erode America's ability to prepare for that very scary future.
The Republican budget would cut the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) budget by one-third - $3 billion - and would prevent the agency from setting any limits on CO2 and a number of other pollutants. It would eliminate U.S. funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - which would save all of $12.5 million.
It would cut Department of Energy budgets that promoted renewable energy by $1.7 billion - a 23% reduction at a time when the U.S. is in a clean-energy race with China. The National Science Foundation budget would be cut by $395.5 million.
"This is probably the single most irresponsible bill I have seen either Chamber of Congress pass in the more than 20 years I have been in Washington," wrote Dan Lashof, the director of the Natural Resource Defense Council's climate center.
To which the Republicans would respond, We face an unprecedented fiscal crisis, and tough choices have to be made.”
What this misses entirely is that cuts that increase the future costs for energy and which cut into the reliability of our energy supply are dramatically more dangerous to our economy than cuts elsewhere.
Cuts that reduce our increasing energy sources other than coal and particularly other than petroleum threaten to cause truly grave increases in costs and even catastrophic downturns in our economy.
Whatever is cut must NOT be things that will prevent increasing our other sources of energy.
We can cut elsewhere if we must though that won’t be popular either.
But we also must not only leave alone but increase spending on things that increase energy efficiency, increase our usable supply of sustainably produced energy and electricity, education for jobs actually in demand and which support the economy, and small business formation and venture capital.
If we continue to spend on those, we will create jobs and the economy will be strong and able to keep growing. That will enable us to restore the other cuts.
Here’s why cutting things that sharply decrease our dependence on oil and on coal to some extent and cutting things that decrease energy efficiency programs and increased production of renewable energy will cause economic disaster.
1. Bright, well educated, grade school children know that once scientists measure things enough and in enough ways, the conclusions they come to are quite reliable.
The work has been done to show that:
CO2 release from our vast and so far fast-increasing burning of fossil fuels is a primary driver for global warming and that global warming is real and continuing.
Global warming doesn’t just increase the mean global temperature, it produces increased numbers and severity of extreme weather events. (This means that both things like the recent floods in Australia and Pakistan and the heat waves and fires in Russia, Greece, and Oklahoma in the United States AND the recent and repeated massive snowfalls in the United States are all products of global warming.)
Further, such extreme weather costs lives, costs money to deal with, and disrupt the economy. Not stopping global warming means these costs will all increase.
If global warming continues, most countries in the world with important cities on their coasts, will face massive costs to relocate or to dam off the rising sea levels.
Lastly, if you can’t grow food, you starve. If global warming continues enough, our ability to grow crops will be threatened.
2. Even if we could somehow get away with pretending these events from global warming are going on and will get worse if we do nothing, our economy will still stay in recession or go back to it or even collapse if we continue to rely on petroleum for transport.
Much of the world’s oil is in the Middle East including a frighteningly large percentage of the oil those of us in the United States use for gasoline and diesel fuel now. The recent events may wind up improving things there in the long run if we are lucky and God is merciful. But, in the short term anywhere from a quarter to all of that supply may be shut off.
USA Today had a headline this week that gasoline prices of $5 a gallon will arrive by early summer, just 4 months from now, and may well happen because of the events in the Middle East.
Second, peak oil is predicted now by Kuwaiti scientists for 2014, just 3 years from now. There will still be oil available to be sure. But the combination of increasing costs to extract oil and increased demand from increases in population and attempted increases in living standards will combine very soon to drive the cost of gasoline even higher.
It’s well to remember that our recent sharp downturn was triggered by the increase of gasoline prices to about $4.50 per gallon.
If we don’t have transport SOON that either needs no oil or much less oil, we will be in serious trouble.
That means that for both preventing huge costs from global warming and for a reliable energy supply for all transport that avoids huge cost run ups, we need to continue programs that begin to limit the use of oil and to massively increase renewable energy and energy efficiency and the amount of all electric vehicles and of plug-in hybrids.
I understand that many Republicans take political contributions from the oil industry. Understandably, the oil businesses don’t want restrictions and increased costs.
But once all members of congress take the oath of office to serve in the congress of the United States, their JOB is to serve the interests of the entire country and to be well and accurately informed about the risks it faces.
The current crop of Republicans in congress flunks that test in my view. Every single one who voted for the cuts described above, should resign or change the votes they make.
They are either ignorant to the point of incompetence &/or failing their responsibility as members of our congress.
Today's post: Wednesday, 2-23-2010
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:
Current congressional Republicans are ignorant of the energy situation....
Or at least they act like it in congress.
Earlier this week TIME online news had this story:
Environmentalists Warn of Natural Debt as Budget Cuts Loom
TIME Tues 2-22-2011 By BRYAN WALSH
In his article, he presents the idea that we may be living beyond the level of the Earth and its biosystems to recover from our use and continue to work right in the same way that financially it can be damaging in the long run to use up capital gradually instead of only living on the interest or dividends.
Here’s a brief quote:
"....the very politicians who are so worried about the public debt - and who want deep spending cuts now to save our future, whatever the cost - utterly dismiss the idea that we could face an equal crisis of natural debt. Politicians like Boehner and Ryan order us to tighten our belts immediately, but they utterly deny the climate and resource crisis the world faces. In fact, the Republicans in Congress are going well beyond simple denial - they're now using their budget to erode America's ability to prepare for that very scary future.
The Republican budget would cut the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) budget by one-third - $3 billion - and would prevent the agency from setting any limits on CO2 and a number of other pollutants. It would eliminate U.S. funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - which would save all of $12.5 million.
It would cut Department of Energy budgets that promoted renewable energy by $1.7 billion - a 23% reduction at a time when the U.S. is in a clean-energy race with China. The National Science Foundation budget would be cut by $395.5 million.
"This is probably the single most irresponsible bill I have seen either Chamber of Congress pass in the more than 20 years I have been in Washington," wrote Dan Lashof, the director of the Natural Resource Defense Council's climate center.
To which the Republicans would respond, We face an unprecedented fiscal crisis, and tough choices have to be made.”
What this misses entirely is that cuts that increase the future costs for energy and which cut into the reliability of our energy supply are dramatically more dangerous to our economy than cuts elsewhere.
Cuts that reduce our increasing energy sources other than coal and particularly other than petroleum threaten to cause truly grave increases in costs and even catastrophic downturns in our economy.
Whatever is cut must NOT be things that will prevent increasing our other sources of energy.
We can cut elsewhere if we must though that won’t be popular either.
But we also must not only leave alone but increase spending on things that increase energy efficiency, increase our usable supply of sustainably produced energy and electricity, education for jobs actually in demand and which support the economy, and small business formation and venture capital.
If we continue to spend on those, we will create jobs and the economy will be strong and able to keep growing. That will enable us to restore the other cuts.
Here’s why cutting things that sharply decrease our dependence on oil and on coal to some extent and cutting things that decrease energy efficiency programs and increased production of renewable energy will cause economic disaster.
1. Bright, well educated, grade school children know that once scientists measure things enough and in enough ways, the conclusions they come to are quite reliable.
The work has been done to show that:
CO2 release from our vast and so far fast-increasing burning of fossil fuels is a primary driver for global warming and that global warming is real and continuing.
Global warming doesn’t just increase the mean global temperature, it produces increased numbers and severity of extreme weather events. (This means that both things like the recent floods in Australia and Pakistan and the heat waves and fires in Russia, Greece, and Oklahoma in the United States AND the recent and repeated massive snowfalls in the United States are all products of global warming.)
Further, such extreme weather costs lives, costs money to deal with, and disrupt the economy. Not stopping global warming means these costs will all increase.
If global warming continues, most countries in the world with important cities on their coasts, will face massive costs to relocate or to dam off the rising sea levels.
Lastly, if you can’t grow food, you starve. If global warming continues enough, our ability to grow crops will be threatened.
2. Even if we could somehow get away with pretending these events from global warming are going on and will get worse if we do nothing, our economy will still stay in recession or go back to it or even collapse if we continue to rely on petroleum for transport.
Much of the world’s oil is in the Middle East including a frighteningly large percentage of the oil those of us in the United States use for gasoline and diesel fuel now. The recent events may wind up improving things there in the long run if we are lucky and God is merciful. But, in the short term anywhere from a quarter to all of that supply may be shut off.
USA Today had a headline this week that gasoline prices of $5 a gallon will arrive by early summer, just 4 months from now, and may well happen because of the events in the Middle East.
Second, peak oil is predicted now by Kuwaiti scientists for 2014, just 3 years from now. There will still be oil available to be sure. But the combination of increasing costs to extract oil and increased demand from increases in population and attempted increases in living standards will combine very soon to drive the cost of gasoline even higher.
It’s well to remember that our recent sharp downturn was triggered by the increase of gasoline prices to about $4.50 per gallon.
If we don’t have transport SOON that either needs no oil or much less oil, we will be in serious trouble.
That means that for both preventing huge costs from global warming and for a reliable energy supply for all transport that avoids huge cost run ups, we need to continue programs that begin to limit the use of oil and to massively increase renewable energy and energy efficiency and the amount of all electric vehicles and of plug-in hybrids.
I understand that many Republicans take political contributions from the oil industry. Understandably, the oil businesses don’t want restrictions and increased costs.
But once all members of congress take the oath of office to serve in the congress of the United States, their JOB is to serve the interests of the entire country and to be well and accurately informed about the risks it faces.
The current crop of Republicans in congress flunks that test in my view. Every single one who voted for the cuts described above, should resign or change the votes they make.
They are either ignorant to the point of incompetence &/or failing their responsibility as members of our congress.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
China seems to be winning on clean energy....
Today's post: Wednesday, 12-15-2010
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 a bit over 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: China seems to be winning on clean energy
In last Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle (Sunday, December 12, 2010), the Bottom Line column by Andrew S. Ross was titled:
“China has national plan for getting greener.”
He reported in part on the conference "Scaling Green Finance in China and the U.S.," put on by the Asia Society at PG&E's headquarters in San Francisco the previous Wednesday.
Main points:
China’s government has a national plan to increase clean energy in several ways. But the government of the United States does not yet have such a clear and focused plan.
One speaker said that China is beginning to outdo the United States on renewables, in harnessing wind and solar , particularly in solar panel production.
Ross reports the idea from this conference that unless the United States begins carbon pricing, with a carbon tax or cap-and-trade (which California is about to try), it will keep falling farther behind on clean energy.
The good news is that many US CEO’s are willing to compete and will likely do more when carbon pricing does show up.
For more clean energy China already has a 5 year plan to generate 15% of China's electricity come from renewable sources by 2020 and will directly invest $1.5 trillion in making this happen. They also plan to build more third- and fourth-generation nuclear power plants.
And, as of last month, China has an "Energy Efficiency Resource Standard" which will go into effect nationwide in January.
It will require China's electricity industry to both reduce energy and set up programs for factories, other businesses and homes to become more energy efficient.
Energy efficiency saves money and reduces emissions. It also allows economic growth with far less need for new electricity generation. It’s also potentially far faster to put into place than building more renewable energy sources of electricity and other energy.
As Elton Sherwin explains in his superb but mistitled book, Addicted to Energy, this can be done with massive and positive effects throughout the US economy. Further this can be done using already available and developed technology. His book literally lists dozens of ways policies by the US government and state governments can cause these ways to increase efficiency to be put into use.
For three reasons, I think his work will be used soon.
1. Since we need to increase economic growth while using less fossil fuels, particularly oil, and removing CO2 and air pollution where fossil fuels are still used, electricity from burning carbon based fossil fuels will inevitably get more expensive even without new government charges on carbon use. And, those are likely too at some point.
2. If China does do an effective job of this, far more pressure will be brought on governments at all levels in the United States to keep up.
3. His work will be used because energy efficiency literally saves money for the end user and because that market will drive new businesses and old businesses to produce more and more products that work and which are much more energy efficient.
The bad news for China is that it depends far too heavily on coal and oil and has the most polluted cities in the world as they have not yet begun to adequately capture air pollutants where these are burned to generate electricity.
Their planned and expected economic growth will make changing this on such a large scale quite challenging.
This heavy and massive use of fossil fuels also is beginning to generate the most CO2 released in the world, let alone if they add more yet.
The good news, as we posted last week about Skyonic, is that there is now a way to remove most of the pollutants and CO2 from burning fossil fuels in one step.
But whether or not China, which has been doing things on the cheap to gain market share with lower production prices will do this pollution and CO2 removal on their own or respond well to world wide pressure and do so is not yet clear.
The United States and China are world’s two biggest energy users and greenhouse gas releasers in the world
So it’s at least possible that if the United States uses this technology and others to stop releasing most of their air pollution and CO2 from fossil fuel use and begins to use less fossil fuels, that example and the products and services developed by companies that do this in the United States may cause China to do the same.
Based on their hard work to minimize the air pollution for the last Olympics, China showed that they are not that happy with having their cities covered with bad air pollution either. So I’m moderately optimistic they will do this eventually.
The ideal would be:
For the United States to do as well or better than China on building more much renewable electricity generation and to use far less oil and somewhat less coal plus doing as well or better than China at increasing our energy efficiency in every part of our economy;
&
For China to begin to do dramatically more to remove air pollutants and CO 2 from plants that burn oil or coal throughout China.
This certainly will not happen as fast as we need for it to. But I do think it has a good shot at happening eventually.
Today's post: Wednesday, 12-15-2010
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 a bit over 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: China seems to be winning on clean energy
In last Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle (Sunday, December 12, 2010), the Bottom Line column by Andrew S. Ross was titled:
“China has national plan for getting greener.”
He reported in part on the conference "Scaling Green Finance in China and the U.S.," put on by the Asia Society at PG&E's headquarters in San Francisco the previous Wednesday.
Main points:
China’s government has a national plan to increase clean energy in several ways. But the government of the United States does not yet have such a clear and focused plan.
One speaker said that China is beginning to outdo the United States on renewables, in harnessing wind and solar , particularly in solar panel production.
Ross reports the idea from this conference that unless the United States begins carbon pricing, with a carbon tax or cap-and-trade (which California is about to try), it will keep falling farther behind on clean energy.
The good news is that many US CEO’s are willing to compete and will likely do more when carbon pricing does show up.
For more clean energy China already has a 5 year plan to generate 15% of China's electricity come from renewable sources by 2020 and will directly invest $1.5 trillion in making this happen. They also plan to build more third- and fourth-generation nuclear power plants.
And, as of last month, China has an "Energy Efficiency Resource Standard" which will go into effect nationwide in January.
It will require China's electricity industry to both reduce energy and set up programs for factories, other businesses and homes to become more energy efficient.
Energy efficiency saves money and reduces emissions. It also allows economic growth with far less need for new electricity generation. It’s also potentially far faster to put into place than building more renewable energy sources of electricity and other energy.
As Elton Sherwin explains in his superb but mistitled book, Addicted to Energy, this can be done with massive and positive effects throughout the US economy. Further this can be done using already available and developed technology. His book literally lists dozens of ways policies by the US government and state governments can cause these ways to increase efficiency to be put into use.
For three reasons, I think his work will be used soon.
1. Since we need to increase economic growth while using less fossil fuels, particularly oil, and removing CO2 and air pollution where fossil fuels are still used, electricity from burning carbon based fossil fuels will inevitably get more expensive even without new government charges on carbon use. And, those are likely too at some point.
2. If China does do an effective job of this, far more pressure will be brought on governments at all levels in the United States to keep up.
3. His work will be used because energy efficiency literally saves money for the end user and because that market will drive new businesses and old businesses to produce more and more products that work and which are much more energy efficient.
The bad news for China is that it depends far too heavily on coal and oil and has the most polluted cities in the world as they have not yet begun to adequately capture air pollutants where these are burned to generate electricity.
Their planned and expected economic growth will make changing this on such a large scale quite challenging.
This heavy and massive use of fossil fuels also is beginning to generate the most CO2 released in the world, let alone if they add more yet.
The good news, as we posted last week about Skyonic, is that there is now a way to remove most of the pollutants and CO2 from burning fossil fuels in one step.
But whether or not China, which has been doing things on the cheap to gain market share with lower production prices will do this pollution and CO2 removal on their own or respond well to world wide pressure and do so is not yet clear.
The United States and China are world’s two biggest energy users and greenhouse gas releasers in the world
So it’s at least possible that if the United States uses this technology and others to stop releasing most of their air pollution and CO2 from fossil fuel use and begins to use less fossil fuels, that example and the products and services developed by companies that do this in the United States may cause China to do the same.
Based on their hard work to minimize the air pollution for the last Olympics, China showed that they are not that happy with having their cities covered with bad air pollution either. So I’m moderately optimistic they will do this eventually.
The ideal would be:
For the United States to do as well or better than China on building more much renewable electricity generation and to use far less oil and somewhat less coal plus doing as well or better than China at increasing our energy efficiency in every part of our economy;
&
For China to begin to do dramatically more to remove air pollutants and CO 2 from plants that burn oil or coal throughout China.
This certainly will not happen as fast as we need for it to. But I do think it has a good shot at happening eventually.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Mixed news on sudden increases in global warming....
Today's post: Wednesday, 12-1-2010
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: Mixed news on sudden increases in global warming
Last week we wrote about how the thawing of the permafrost could soon release up to 1.5 trillion tons of carbon, now locked into the tundra & permafrost, into the atmosphere – as methane. This could lead to dangerously rapid climate change or having this extra warming develop its own momentum and become unstoppable by us.
This week the other shoe dropped. It seems the tundra and the permafrost are just part of the earth’s surface that will release more methane as warming continues! Ouch !
The good news is that if we can at least sharply slow the increases in CO2 release soon, this will become a gradual and potentially reversible process instead of creating sudden flooding of coastal cities and developing its own momentum and become unstoppable by us.
The recession has temporarily slowed the increase in CO2 release and will not improve quickly, so if we can become more energy efficient in hundreds of ways and add thousands more sources of clean energy as the recession gradually ends, we may be able to catch this extra carbon release in time to be able to survive it and reverse it. This might actually be doable!
Here’s the story I found today on Livescience.com . They released a story today by their, writer, Jeremy Hsu.
It seems Earth's biggest store of carbon dioxide is locked within the decaying vegetation found in peatlands, from tropical peat swamps to Arctic permafrost – which is just a part of this problem. British researchers have calculated that a too fast-warming world would cause all these peatlands to dump huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
A global warming rate of about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) per decade might well be enough to destabilize these peatlands compost, according to Sebastian Wieczorek, one of these mathematicians at the University of Exeter in England.
“Peat soils contain from 400 billion to a trillion metric tons of carbon, "which is about the same as the carbon content in the atmosphere," Wieczorek said. "A release of the soil carbon from peatlands into the atmosphere would therefore have an enormous impact on the climate system."
Peatlands cover just 3 percent of the world's land area, but they store almost 30 percent of all global soil carbon - about as much carbon as found in the atmosphere or in the total of terrestrial biomass (plants and animals). “
The article goes on to say, however, that slowing this rate of increase would allow the peatlands to release less carbon more slowly as the peatlands evolved relatively more stable ways to adapt to the warming.
This would allow people to take more like 30 years to dike off or abandon coastal areas before they are flooded and move people and businesses in an orderly way that will need to be moved.
If this process reaches a runaway stage because we failed to do this, we would have more like a year or two at most to do this. This would be quite catastrophic as it simply would cause much of the world’s population to become homeless and destroy much of the world’s economy that’s now located in these coastal cities in that year or two.
And, almost as bad, the process of global warming would get worse and become unstoppable even if we stopped adding CO2 to the air totally.
The only good news in this is that we may have enough of a start on implementing solutions to catch this in time.
At the very least, each of us can help contribute something to making our economy more energy efficient and adding more sources of clean energy. This can range from adding just one LED light bulb that saves a few watts of electricity each month or improving the ceiling insulation in your house to helping launch several billion dollar solar farms to generate renewably sourced electricity.
If everyone who can, does something productive, we have a shot.
What can you do?
Today's post: Wednesday, 12-1-2010
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: Mixed news on sudden increases in global warming
Last week we wrote about how the thawing of the permafrost could soon release up to 1.5 trillion tons of carbon, now locked into the tundra & permafrost, into the atmosphere – as methane. This could lead to dangerously rapid climate change or having this extra warming develop its own momentum and become unstoppable by us.
This week the other shoe dropped. It seems the tundra and the permafrost are just part of the earth’s surface that will release more methane as warming continues! Ouch !
The good news is that if we can at least sharply slow the increases in CO2 release soon, this will become a gradual and potentially reversible process instead of creating sudden flooding of coastal cities and developing its own momentum and become unstoppable by us.
The recession has temporarily slowed the increase in CO2 release and will not improve quickly, so if we can become more energy efficient in hundreds of ways and add thousands more sources of clean energy as the recession gradually ends, we may be able to catch this extra carbon release in time to be able to survive it and reverse it. This might actually be doable!
Here’s the story I found today on Livescience.com . They released a story today by their, writer, Jeremy Hsu.
It seems Earth's biggest store of carbon dioxide is locked within the decaying vegetation found in peatlands, from tropical peat swamps to Arctic permafrost – which is just a part of this problem. British researchers have calculated that a too fast-warming world would cause all these peatlands to dump huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
A global warming rate of about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) per decade might well be enough to destabilize these peatlands compost, according to Sebastian Wieczorek, one of these mathematicians at the University of Exeter in England.
“Peat soils contain from 400 billion to a trillion metric tons of carbon, "which is about the same as the carbon content in the atmosphere," Wieczorek said. "A release of the soil carbon from peatlands into the atmosphere would therefore have an enormous impact on the climate system."
Peatlands cover just 3 percent of the world's land area, but they store almost 30 percent of all global soil carbon - about as much carbon as found in the atmosphere or in the total of terrestrial biomass (plants and animals). “
The article goes on to say, however, that slowing this rate of increase would allow the peatlands to release less carbon more slowly as the peatlands evolved relatively more stable ways to adapt to the warming.
This would allow people to take more like 30 years to dike off or abandon coastal areas before they are flooded and move people and businesses in an orderly way that will need to be moved.
If this process reaches a runaway stage because we failed to do this, we would have more like a year or two at most to do this. This would be quite catastrophic as it simply would cause much of the world’s population to become homeless and destroy much of the world’s economy that’s now located in these coastal cities in that year or two.
And, almost as bad, the process of global warming would get worse and become unstoppable even if we stopped adding CO2 to the air totally.
The only good news in this is that we may have enough of a start on implementing solutions to catch this in time.
At the very least, each of us can help contribute something to making our economy more energy efficient and adding more sources of clean energy. This can range from adding just one LED light bulb that saves a few watts of electricity each month or improving the ceiling insulation in your house to helping launch several billion dollar solar farms to generate renewably sourced electricity.
If everyone who can, does something productive, we have a shot.
What can you do?
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Good & bad news for Renewable Energy....
Today's post: Wednesday, 11-10-2010
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 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: Good & bad news for Renewable Energy
1. Due to the defeat of Proposition 23 in California, we will now see a good faith effort to put AB32 into practice. To the extent that this succeeds in creating new jobs, causing more renewable energy generation to be built, and cutting CO2 emissions without slowing the rest of California’s economy, this will provide a model for other states and for the nation.
It may not happen soon. But at some point, oil prices will again run up enough to slow the economy. And, we will begin to see more harm from global warming here in the United States.
When either of those happen, let alone both as I think likely, the country will follow California’s lead.
2. Even people who voted for leaders who say they think global warming is not happening or not caused by burning fossil fuels like to save energy and have more new jobs locally.
Such people also are fond of saving money personally. And, most people like useful new technology and products that contain it.
Clean energy advocates need to throw strong support to such programs because even these new leaders and the people who voted for them will support them.
3. President Obama suggested recently the new congress might be able to agree on and pass improved renewable energy standards, increasing the domestic supply and use of natural gas, increasing domestic production of electric cars, and building more nuclear power plants.
I give this hopeful suggestion a mixed review.
1. Improved renewable energy standards would be welcome and are extremely desirable; but I think he may be too optimistic – maybe far too optimistic. But even some progress in this area, even if just a little bit at first, would help. So, adding that to something that will fly on its own that has stronger support might work.
He might well have better luck though with improving the energy efficiency standards for buildings and products that use energy –
and for programs that create jobs by helping businesses that help do this make money and hire new people and use existing technologies and new ones to make much more energy-efficient products.
He might get backing for creating jobs to retrofit to more efficient technologies and products and to insulate and heat proof buildings to help them use less energy.
People want more new jobs and help saving money. So these efforts might work.
2. Increasing the domestic supply and use of natural gas has a shot. It would help us use less imported oil which would get the backing of conservatives and Republicans who see that as increasing our national security and a way to send less money out of the country when our domestic economy could use some help. Even better, the oil companies led by Exxon and Chevron will be on board. They have seen this coming and have invested heavily in increasing their ability to supply natural gas and make money doing it.
This also has clean energy and environmental value. It would help wean us from using oil before its price spikes or it simply runs out. And, it would generate less air pollution than burning coal, particularly if it’s used to run more efficient and dramatically less polluting fuel cells such as those already made commercially by Bloom Energy.
3. Increasing domestic production of electric cars also has a shot. The car makers are already onboard and are setting up to make both plug-in hybrids and all electric cars. Since this is happening in the rest of the world too, notably in Japan and Germany, doing more of it here, will help create US jobs that would otherwise be lost.
And, even when the electricity used is from burning coal, less CO2 is generated than would be by powering cars of the same weight with oil.
But, even better, as we generate more electricity from sources other than coal and oil from photovoltaic and thermal solar and wind to fuel cells using natural gas, geothermal, and nuclear, such cars give us a real shot at breaking our addiction to oil before it’s too late.
And, having more of such cars built here saves or create jobs here -- which for SURE has universal support.
4. Even conservative Republicans will find that with the recent Gulf oil spill that more offshore drilling may not fly, do quite often support building more nuclear power.
So that might work also. It has worked well in France.
But it does have some safety issues due to terrorism here.
And unless we switch to breeder reactors from use the uranium and then try to figure out where to put the radioactive waste method -- that we have been using, we will run short of uranium, have to transport these wastes with the terror risk that poses, and have it be more of a short term solution only.
That said, more nuclear that creates electricity as needed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, plus far more electricity from renewable sources that vary from day to day and hour to hour would create a viable replacement for burning coal to make electricity.
5. He did not speak of it. But a program for coal producing states to help them switch to a cleaner way of making electricity from it instead of simply abandoning it would get very enthusiastic support from those states.
And, like increasing our use of natural gas, doing so would get support from conservatives who want to increase our independence from imported oil and to stop sending billions of dollars a week out of the United States.
Coal can be use to make gas that can be used in fuel cells to make electricity and burning it also produces less air and water pollution than burning coal directly. Coal has already been used to make gasoline. The technology exists. And, last but far from least, when gas from coal is used to make electricity, the CO2 created can be fed to algae to make biofuels.
The next two years or more may be quite challenging. But good things are likely to happen more and more in California. And nationally, some productive things might yet come out of the next congress.
Today's post: Wednesday, 11-10-2010
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 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: Good & bad news for Renewable Energy
1. Due to the defeat of Proposition 23 in California, we will now see a good faith effort to put AB32 into practice. To the extent that this succeeds in creating new jobs, causing more renewable energy generation to be built, and cutting CO2 emissions without slowing the rest of California’s economy, this will provide a model for other states and for the nation.
It may not happen soon. But at some point, oil prices will again run up enough to slow the economy. And, we will begin to see more harm from global warming here in the United States.
When either of those happen, let alone both as I think likely, the country will follow California’s lead.
2. Even people who voted for leaders who say they think global warming is not happening or not caused by burning fossil fuels like to save energy and have more new jobs locally.
Such people also are fond of saving money personally. And, most people like useful new technology and products that contain it.
Clean energy advocates need to throw strong support to such programs because even these new leaders and the people who voted for them will support them.
3. President Obama suggested recently the new congress might be able to agree on and pass improved renewable energy standards, increasing the domestic supply and use of natural gas, increasing domestic production of electric cars, and building more nuclear power plants.
I give this hopeful suggestion a mixed review.
1. Improved renewable energy standards would be welcome and are extremely desirable; but I think he may be too optimistic – maybe far too optimistic. But even some progress in this area, even if just a little bit at first, would help. So, adding that to something that will fly on its own that has stronger support might work.
He might well have better luck though with improving the energy efficiency standards for buildings and products that use energy –
and for programs that create jobs by helping businesses that help do this make money and hire new people and use existing technologies and new ones to make much more energy-efficient products.
He might get backing for creating jobs to retrofit to more efficient technologies and products and to insulate and heat proof buildings to help them use less energy.
People want more new jobs and help saving money. So these efforts might work.
2. Increasing the domestic supply and use of natural gas has a shot. It would help us use less imported oil which would get the backing of conservatives and Republicans who see that as increasing our national security and a way to send less money out of the country when our domestic economy could use some help. Even better, the oil companies led by Exxon and Chevron will be on board. They have seen this coming and have invested heavily in increasing their ability to supply natural gas and make money doing it.
This also has clean energy and environmental value. It would help wean us from using oil before its price spikes or it simply runs out. And, it would generate less air pollution than burning coal, particularly if it’s used to run more efficient and dramatically less polluting fuel cells such as those already made commercially by Bloom Energy.
3. Increasing domestic production of electric cars also has a shot. The car makers are already onboard and are setting up to make both plug-in hybrids and all electric cars. Since this is happening in the rest of the world too, notably in Japan and Germany, doing more of it here, will help create US jobs that would otherwise be lost.
And, even when the electricity used is from burning coal, less CO2 is generated than would be by powering cars of the same weight with oil.
But, even better, as we generate more electricity from sources other than coal and oil from photovoltaic and thermal solar and wind to fuel cells using natural gas, geothermal, and nuclear, such cars give us a real shot at breaking our addiction to oil before it’s too late.
And, having more of such cars built here saves or create jobs here -- which for SURE has universal support.
4. Even conservative Republicans will find that with the recent Gulf oil spill that more offshore drilling may not fly, do quite often support building more nuclear power.
So that might work also. It has worked well in France.
But it does have some safety issues due to terrorism here.
And unless we switch to breeder reactors from use the uranium and then try to figure out where to put the radioactive waste method -- that we have been using, we will run short of uranium, have to transport these wastes with the terror risk that poses, and have it be more of a short term solution only.
That said, more nuclear that creates electricity as needed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, plus far more electricity from renewable sources that vary from day to day and hour to hour would create a viable replacement for burning coal to make electricity.
5. He did not speak of it. But a program for coal producing states to help them switch to a cleaner way of making electricity from it instead of simply abandoning it would get very enthusiastic support from those states.
And, like increasing our use of natural gas, doing so would get support from conservatives who want to increase our independence from imported oil and to stop sending billions of dollars a week out of the United States.
Coal can be use to make gas that can be used in fuel cells to make electricity and burning it also produces less air and water pollution than burning coal directly. Coal has already been used to make gasoline. The technology exists. And, last but far from least, when gas from coal is used to make electricity, the CO2 created can be fed to algae to make biofuels.
The next two years or more may be quite challenging. But good things are likely to happen more and more in California. And nationally, some productive things might yet come out of the next congress.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
National Oil Savings Plan of the Union of Concerned Scientists....
Today's post: Wednesday, 8-18-2010
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:
I subscribe to emails from 5 clean energy groups. I got an email this morning from the Union of Concerned Scientists asking me to forward a copy of their National Oil Savings Plan to President Obama.
I have two points to make in this post.
1. I think this is silly. President Obama believes in their goals; and he and the key people in his Department of Energy likely already have a copy of their plan. For example, they have already done well in supporting the development of electric cars and advanced battery design. They have acted to increase mileage standards.
What might help President Obama is a well informed enough and capable enough political consultant to show him how to sell the new jobs -- AND how overcoming the threat of peak oil slam dunking our economy is a critical job to PROTECT our existing jobs. This would be someone who would be effective enough and know how to test ideas well enough to enable him to promote actions to support clean energy AND win votes by doing so.
As long as the timid and short-sighted political consultants he has now hold him back or fail to do this, in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s words, he is “losing at the box office.”
In this economy, unless people realize and believe clean energy will add jobs and how much it will protect their jobs and lifestyles from the coming effects of peak oil AND that Obama is doing a good job on this issue, he will lose votes to others who voters think are promoting a strong economy better.
So, I decided to pass on writing him about their plan.
2. However, you and your Representative to the House in Washington and your Senators might not have seen it or understand how it important it is to put it into place.
So, I will post it here and add just after that why I think it is critical that it be adopted.
National Oil Savings Plan of the Union of Concerned Scientists
Scientific Solutions for America’s Oil Dependence
America's dependence on oil puts our environment, economy, public health, and national security at risk. But unless we create an oil savings plan that is based on sound science, smart policy, and good technology, we will repeat the mistakes of the past and stay reliant on oil.
That is why UCS is advocating for a plan that moves the country forward by boosting the fuel economy of our vehicles, producing clean biofuels, and investing in the next generation of advanced vehicles that no longer rely exclusively on oil.
If Americans were to do nothing to improve energy efficiency, or to invest in clean alternative fuels, and nothing to change the travel choices we make every day, our dependence could rise to more than 25 million barrels of oil each day by 2030.
If we instead secure the needed commitments from decision makers, automakers, fuel producers, and consumers, together, we can cut America's projected oil consumption by 2030 in half. This would save tens of billions of dollars at the gas pump; provide for a safer, more diverse, and more secure American energy future; and put the United States squarely in the driver's seat as a leader in addressing the urgent issue of climate change.
Working together as a nation we can finally start moving beyond oil. In addition to defending the hard-won victories on cleaner cars and fuel standards, UCS has developed a suite of policies that will transform our future:
Each point below lists these components:
Policy title
Description
Oil Savings (2030) in million barrels a day (mbd)
a) Improvements in Light-Duty Fuel Economy and Expanded Vehicle Electrification
Under existing authority, DOT and EPA can increase the fuel economy and reduce tailpipe emissions from light-duty vehicles. Tight standards and strong financial incentives can lead to an aggressive penetration of electric drive vehicles (plug-in hybrid, fuel cell and battery electric). By 2030, these vehicles would represent approximately 25% of all new vehicles sold.
5.8 mbd
b) Medium & Heavy-Duty Fuel Economy
Using existing authority from EISA and the Clean Air act, EPA and DOT can increase the fuel economy of medium duty vehicles to approximately 16mpg and heavy-duty vehicles to over 10mpg in 2030.
1.0 mbd
c) Improve Efficiency of Other Transportation Modes
Using existing authority, EPA can improve fuel economy and reduce emissions from non-road vehicles, including planes, trains, boats, and other non-highway vehicles.
0.7 mbd
d) Advanced Biofuels
Cellulosic biofuels made from grass, wood waste and even garbage can replace as much as 20 billion gallons of gasoline by 2030. But they are currently not projected to even meet the RFS mandates in 2022 due to a lack of capital. Adopting policies to launch a move from the lab into production would help reach and even exceed the RFS targets.
1.3 mbd
e) Industrial and Building Efficiency
Increase the energy efficiency in buildings and improve industrial processes, including an efficiency boost of boilers operating on fuel oil 50% by 2030
3.8 mbd
e) Smart Growth and Expanded Public Transit Options
Expanded public transit options, mode-shifting for freight, smart traffic management and other smart growth strategies.
1.3 mbd
TOTAL of these steps in OIL SAVINGS as contrasted to no action: 13.9 mbd
(These steps are listed exactly as they did. But I upgraded the format so they are clearer.)
The UCS oil savings plan is crucial to move our country forward. If we defend our current vehicle fuel economy standards and consumers and businesses meet oil consumption expectations, America’s oil use would simply remain at its current level.
We must go further, we must decrease our oil use, and that is what the UCS oil savings plan does.
The full suite of solutions will save more oil than the United States currently imports and will cut our total use of oil and other petroleum products to levels not seen since the 1960s. This would allow the transportation sector to emerge as the spearhead of a new clean energy economy.
Last Revised: 08/16/10 Clean Vehicles (plan)
My comments:
Their goals for expanding the use of electric cars and plug-in hybrids may be low. More may be achievable given the momentum building in the marketplace.
And, it would be a valuable addition to add goals for getting the new electricity for this effort from new wind and solar (both photovoltaic and thermal) electricity generation as well as from Bloom Energy’s natural gas powered fuel cells instead of by burning more coal.
Similarly goals for getting this natural gas from gasifying coal and getting some of the biofuels from the CO2 released when coal is used to generate electricity either with fuel cells or by burning in existing plants by having algae convert the CO2 to biofuels would be good. This would give the coal industry somewhere positive to go; and it would use our abundant coal deposits better to make us far less dependent on oil.
As you know if you have been reading this blog, peak oil is coming and to avoid having it slam dunk our economy which is now heavily oil dependent, taking these actions or at least doing the very best we can do to achieve them is truly imperative.
It would also make the United States a credible partner in fighting global warming with the rest of the world. It would be nice to lead by example instead of dragging our feet.
Doing these things also will clearly increase our National Security and improve our international balance of payments. The billions of dollars these actions can save in money spent to buy oil overseas times the coming increase in oil prices make this economically essential.
Simply put, if we take these actions, peak oil will challenge our economy but leave it functioning. If we do not, peak oil will slam our economy so hard the depression of the 1930’s will seem mild by comparison.
Today's post: Wednesday, 8-18-2010
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:
I subscribe to emails from 5 clean energy groups. I got an email this morning from the Union of Concerned Scientists asking me to forward a copy of their National Oil Savings Plan to President Obama.
I have two points to make in this post.
1. I think this is silly. President Obama believes in their goals; and he and the key people in his Department of Energy likely already have a copy of their plan. For example, they have already done well in supporting the development of electric cars and advanced battery design. They have acted to increase mileage standards.
What might help President Obama is a well informed enough and capable enough political consultant to show him how to sell the new jobs -- AND how overcoming the threat of peak oil slam dunking our economy is a critical job to PROTECT our existing jobs. This would be someone who would be effective enough and know how to test ideas well enough to enable him to promote actions to support clean energy AND win votes by doing so.
As long as the timid and short-sighted political consultants he has now hold him back or fail to do this, in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s words, he is “losing at the box office.”
In this economy, unless people realize and believe clean energy will add jobs and how much it will protect their jobs and lifestyles from the coming effects of peak oil AND that Obama is doing a good job on this issue, he will lose votes to others who voters think are promoting a strong economy better.
So, I decided to pass on writing him about their plan.
2. However, you and your Representative to the House in Washington and your Senators might not have seen it or understand how it important it is to put it into place.
So, I will post it here and add just after that why I think it is critical that it be adopted.
National Oil Savings Plan of the Union of Concerned Scientists
Scientific Solutions for America’s Oil Dependence
America's dependence on oil puts our environment, economy, public health, and national security at risk. But unless we create an oil savings plan that is based on sound science, smart policy, and good technology, we will repeat the mistakes of the past and stay reliant on oil.
That is why UCS is advocating for a plan that moves the country forward by boosting the fuel economy of our vehicles, producing clean biofuels, and investing in the next generation of advanced vehicles that no longer rely exclusively on oil.
If Americans were to do nothing to improve energy efficiency, or to invest in clean alternative fuels, and nothing to change the travel choices we make every day, our dependence could rise to more than 25 million barrels of oil each day by 2030.
If we instead secure the needed commitments from decision makers, automakers, fuel producers, and consumers, together, we can cut America's projected oil consumption by 2030 in half. This would save tens of billions of dollars at the gas pump; provide for a safer, more diverse, and more secure American energy future; and put the United States squarely in the driver's seat as a leader in addressing the urgent issue of climate change.
Working together as a nation we can finally start moving beyond oil. In addition to defending the hard-won victories on cleaner cars and fuel standards, UCS has developed a suite of policies that will transform our future:
Each point below lists these components:
Policy title
Description
Oil Savings (2030) in million barrels a day (mbd)
a) Improvements in Light-Duty Fuel Economy and Expanded Vehicle Electrification
Under existing authority, DOT and EPA can increase the fuel economy and reduce tailpipe emissions from light-duty vehicles. Tight standards and strong financial incentives can lead to an aggressive penetration of electric drive vehicles (plug-in hybrid, fuel cell and battery electric). By 2030, these vehicles would represent approximately 25% of all new vehicles sold.
5.8 mbd
b) Medium & Heavy-Duty Fuel Economy
Using existing authority from EISA and the Clean Air act, EPA and DOT can increase the fuel economy of medium duty vehicles to approximately 16mpg and heavy-duty vehicles to over 10mpg in 2030.
1.0 mbd
c) Improve Efficiency of Other Transportation Modes
Using existing authority, EPA can improve fuel economy and reduce emissions from non-road vehicles, including planes, trains, boats, and other non-highway vehicles.
0.7 mbd
d) Advanced Biofuels
Cellulosic biofuels made from grass, wood waste and even garbage can replace as much as 20 billion gallons of gasoline by 2030. But they are currently not projected to even meet the RFS mandates in 2022 due to a lack of capital. Adopting policies to launch a move from the lab into production would help reach and even exceed the RFS targets.
1.3 mbd
e) Industrial and Building Efficiency
Increase the energy efficiency in buildings and improve industrial processes, including an efficiency boost of boilers operating on fuel oil 50% by 2030
3.8 mbd
e) Smart Growth and Expanded Public Transit Options
Expanded public transit options, mode-shifting for freight, smart traffic management and other smart growth strategies.
1.3 mbd
TOTAL of these steps in OIL SAVINGS as contrasted to no action: 13.9 mbd
(These steps are listed exactly as they did. But I upgraded the format so they are clearer.)
The UCS oil savings plan is crucial to move our country forward. If we defend our current vehicle fuel economy standards and consumers and businesses meet oil consumption expectations, America’s oil use would simply remain at its current level.
We must go further, we must decrease our oil use, and that is what the UCS oil savings plan does.
The full suite of solutions will save more oil than the United States currently imports and will cut our total use of oil and other petroleum products to levels not seen since the 1960s. This would allow the transportation sector to emerge as the spearhead of a new clean energy economy.
Last Revised: 08/16/10 Clean Vehicles (plan)
My comments:
Their goals for expanding the use of electric cars and plug-in hybrids may be low. More may be achievable given the momentum building in the marketplace.
And, it would be a valuable addition to add goals for getting the new electricity for this effort from new wind and solar (both photovoltaic and thermal) electricity generation as well as from Bloom Energy’s natural gas powered fuel cells instead of by burning more coal.
Similarly goals for getting this natural gas from gasifying coal and getting some of the biofuels from the CO2 released when coal is used to generate electricity either with fuel cells or by burning in existing plants by having algae convert the CO2 to biofuels would be good. This would give the coal industry somewhere positive to go; and it would use our abundant coal deposits better to make us far less dependent on oil.
As you know if you have been reading this blog, peak oil is coming and to avoid having it slam dunk our economy which is now heavily oil dependent, taking these actions or at least doing the very best we can do to achieve them is truly imperative.
It would also make the United States a credible partner in fighting global warming with the rest of the world. It would be nice to lead by example instead of dragging our feet.
Doing these things also will clearly increase our National Security and improve our international balance of payments. The billions of dollars these actions can save in money spent to buy oil overseas times the coming increase in oil prices make this economically essential.
Simply put, if we take these actions, peak oil will challenge our economy but leave it functioning. If we do not, peak oil will slam our economy so hard the depression of the 1930’s will seem mild by comparison.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Electric cars may be a key catalyst for renewable energy....
Today's post: Wednesday, 8-4-2010
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:
There will be a place for biofuels in an economy that is sustainable. Aviation fuels and for travel outside of areas with access to electricity and for the transition while very large numbers of vehicles still in use run on liquid fuels will all continue to need liquid fuels. So to stop using fuels from oil, we will need biofuels. And, biofuels from agricultural waste, from algae grown on lands not suitable for farming, and from algae fed CO2 from burning coal or oil or natural gas or from fuel cells using natural gas (see Bloom Energy), all will gradually become more available and more economically viable.
But, as the founder of Nanosolar showed in his blog, for harvesting energy from the sun, even our current technology for photovoltaic solar cells delivers many multiples of the energy that can be harvested from the same area through biofuels. Similarly, solar thermal, wind, and even nuclear as a CO2 and coal and oil free source of energy all output electricity.
So to the extent we wish to run our economy or the clear and large majority of our economy free from oil and coal, it will pay us to use these cleaner sources instead. And, they output electricity.
So, because of the large numbers of electric and plug-in hybrid cars now poised for sale in the next few months to few years, this enables a trend towards a more sustainable energy economy based on these renewable sources.
However, while oil and coal are not yet charged for the real costs of the pollution generated in extracting and burning them or for releasing CO2, it will take continuous drops in cost for electricity from renewable sources.
The good news is that I think over time they will be charged for these things. Further, due to the growth of population and economic growth the demand for oil will be greater than the supply again. That will drive costs up for drivers enough to make biofuels cost less and cause many people to switch to electric cars.
Then we will reach peak oil and the prices for oil will double and double again while the actual supply of oil will go down.
So, to change the majority of our transport to sustainable energy sources and to protect our economy, the majority of our transport should soon be powered by electricity. That means that the current surge of new models of cars that will be powered all or mostly by electricity, is not just good news but is in fact a critically important development.
Today's post: Wednesday, 8-4-2010
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:
There will be a place for biofuels in an economy that is sustainable. Aviation fuels and for travel outside of areas with access to electricity and for the transition while very large numbers of vehicles still in use run on liquid fuels will all continue to need liquid fuels. So to stop using fuels from oil, we will need biofuels. And, biofuels from agricultural waste, from algae grown on lands not suitable for farming, and from algae fed CO2 from burning coal or oil or natural gas or from fuel cells using natural gas (see Bloom Energy), all will gradually become more available and more economically viable.
But, as the founder of Nanosolar showed in his blog, for harvesting energy from the sun, even our current technology for photovoltaic solar cells delivers many multiples of the energy that can be harvested from the same area through biofuels. Similarly, solar thermal, wind, and even nuclear as a CO2 and coal and oil free source of energy all output electricity.
So to the extent we wish to run our economy or the clear and large majority of our economy free from oil and coal, it will pay us to use these cleaner sources instead. And, they output electricity.
So, because of the large numbers of electric and plug-in hybrid cars now poised for sale in the next few months to few years, this enables a trend towards a more sustainable energy economy based on these renewable sources.
However, while oil and coal are not yet charged for the real costs of the pollution generated in extracting and burning them or for releasing CO2, it will take continuous drops in cost for electricity from renewable sources.
The good news is that I think over time they will be charged for these things. Further, due to the growth of population and economic growth the demand for oil will be greater than the supply again. That will drive costs up for drivers enough to make biofuels cost less and cause many people to switch to electric cars.
Then we will reach peak oil and the prices for oil will double and double again while the actual supply of oil will go down.
So, to change the majority of our transport to sustainable energy sources and to protect our economy, the majority of our transport should soon be powered by electricity. That means that the current surge of new models of cars that will be powered all or mostly by electricity, is not just good news but is in fact a critically important development.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Peak oil may show up this time....
Today's post: Wednesday, 6-23-2010
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.
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.
Further, it’s extremely clear that the most supported and economically beneficial solution to add energy that does not use oil nor burn fossil fuels to release more CO2 into air that already has too much is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy production, particularly those that generate electricity & to dramatically increase energy efficiency and reduce the amount of energy that is now wasted.
And, of those, the more important long range solution is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy generation.
Today’s post:
There are three key reasons to suspect that peak oil may be showing up soon.
1. The people who are in a position to know the real reserves of oil in the key countries in the Middle East are the scientists and other energy experts in Kuwait.
Earlier this year they published saying their current estimate is that peak oil will happen in 2014. That’s now less than 4 years from now.
After that, no matter how much the price is bid up, each year there will be less oil and the price will rise in two ways.
As more countries develop economically and population rises, in the near term there will be more demand for oil. So with greater demand and slightly reducing supplies, prices will go up. Before the recent credit crash added to it and caused global economic slowing, our economy had been slowing from this rising demand impacting our current prices since oil was not becoming more available that fast.
Once peak oil hits, that will return even if the recovery from the global recession is weak. And, the price run up of oil will be greater if the recovery has been better.
Second, there are ways of getting more oil but which are not in use now because they cost more than the oil is now selling for. Once peak oil hits and the effects begin, this will initially slow the increase in prices due to the small increase in oil this will make available. But, it will also increase the cost of the oil itself which will then be passed along to the users after that.
2. Despite the recession, both economic growth in developing countries and growth in population worldwide will continue. That will gradually increase the demand for energy for transport which is now provided mostly by oil.
3. Despite some promising beginnings, electric cars; plug in hybrids; truly widespread increases in energy efficiency, electricity from solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, and wind, will not yet be ready for prime time for us to switch to fast enough to compensate for the slowing effect of peak oil. Nor do we yet have cost or energy efficient production of biofuels in real quantity.
This means that if we fail to dramatically accelerate those alternatives to oil, within the next 5 to 10 years, we will have serious slowing of the economy due to very steep increases in the cost of oil.
My hope is that the efforts now being made to get the United States congress to pass helpful legislation work well enough to get us moving fast enough to minimize the impact -- by both dramatically increasing the rate at which we are building these alternatives and by slightly increasing the costs of gasoline and diesel now to help fund that and to incentivized people to choose those alternatives.
The concept is a bit like the shock absorbing cans of water now on some freeways so that cars that are about to run into large concrete bridge supports will have significant but survivable crashes instead of the almost always fatal results of the crashes 20 times worse from running into the bridge supports without that initial slowing.
Certainly causing expensive cosmetic damage to your car if it runs into the shock absorbing cans of water is no fun to experience. But when you survive unhurt, you can overcome the problem. Conversely, without those shock absorbing cans of water, if you collide directly with the concrete bridge supports, you are dead and the game is lost.
Do we slow the use of oil now by making gasoline 25 to 75 cents a gallon more expensive and go to fairly decent supplies of $6 to $8 dollars a gallon gasoline later because there are beginning to be large scale alternatives available?
Or, do we decide we can’t afford to do that just now and then get to experience gasoline costing twice that much, $12 to $16 dollars a gallon or more -- and only half as much is available?
Will our now functioning economy and food delivery systems survive that hit? They might not.
That to me is the key question.
It’s why I think the people are fools who argue for permanently postponing California’s AB32 or for not supporting a National energy bill that gradually limits the use of carbon fuels with some near term cost increases involved.
Unfortunately, a recent poll found that the majority of Americans have heard we need to switch away from oil but also are unwilling to support paying a bit more now for gasoline to speed up that process.
Ultimately, unless those Americans and their representatives learn WHY we are in desperate trouble unless we do just that, we may not act fast enough to dodge the disastrous effects of peak oil once it arrives.
Over the next few weeks and months, we will see how it goes. But if it goes badly -- and it might, may God be merciful on us. We will need it.
Today's post: Wednesday, 6-23-2010
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.
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.
Further, it’s extremely clear that the most supported and economically beneficial solution to add energy that does not use oil nor burn fossil fuels to release more CO2 into air that already has too much is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy production, particularly those that generate electricity & to dramatically increase energy efficiency and reduce the amount of energy that is now wasted.
And, of those, the more important long range solution is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy generation.
Today’s post:
There are three key reasons to suspect that peak oil may be showing up soon.
1. The people who are in a position to know the real reserves of oil in the key countries in the Middle East are the scientists and other energy experts in Kuwait.
Earlier this year they published saying their current estimate is that peak oil will happen in 2014. That’s now less than 4 years from now.
After that, no matter how much the price is bid up, each year there will be less oil and the price will rise in two ways.
As more countries develop economically and population rises, in the near term there will be more demand for oil. So with greater demand and slightly reducing supplies, prices will go up. Before the recent credit crash added to it and caused global economic slowing, our economy had been slowing from this rising demand impacting our current prices since oil was not becoming more available that fast.
Once peak oil hits, that will return even if the recovery from the global recession is weak. And, the price run up of oil will be greater if the recovery has been better.
Second, there are ways of getting more oil but which are not in use now because they cost more than the oil is now selling for. Once peak oil hits and the effects begin, this will initially slow the increase in prices due to the small increase in oil this will make available. But, it will also increase the cost of the oil itself which will then be passed along to the users after that.
2. Despite the recession, both economic growth in developing countries and growth in population worldwide will continue. That will gradually increase the demand for energy for transport which is now provided mostly by oil.
3. Despite some promising beginnings, electric cars; plug in hybrids; truly widespread increases in energy efficiency, electricity from solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, and wind, will not yet be ready for prime time for us to switch to fast enough to compensate for the slowing effect of peak oil. Nor do we yet have cost or energy efficient production of biofuels in real quantity.
This means that if we fail to dramatically accelerate those alternatives to oil, within the next 5 to 10 years, we will have serious slowing of the economy due to very steep increases in the cost of oil.
My hope is that the efforts now being made to get the United States congress to pass helpful legislation work well enough to get us moving fast enough to minimize the impact -- by both dramatically increasing the rate at which we are building these alternatives and by slightly increasing the costs of gasoline and diesel now to help fund that and to incentivized people to choose those alternatives.
The concept is a bit like the shock absorbing cans of water now on some freeways so that cars that are about to run into large concrete bridge supports will have significant but survivable crashes instead of the almost always fatal results of the crashes 20 times worse from running into the bridge supports without that initial slowing.
Certainly causing expensive cosmetic damage to your car if it runs into the shock absorbing cans of water is no fun to experience. But when you survive unhurt, you can overcome the problem. Conversely, without those shock absorbing cans of water, if you collide directly with the concrete bridge supports, you are dead and the game is lost.
Do we slow the use of oil now by making gasoline 25 to 75 cents a gallon more expensive and go to fairly decent supplies of $6 to $8 dollars a gallon gasoline later because there are beginning to be large scale alternatives available?
Or, do we decide we can’t afford to do that just now and then get to experience gasoline costing twice that much, $12 to $16 dollars a gallon or more -- and only half as much is available?
Will our now functioning economy and food delivery systems survive that hit? They might not.
That to me is the key question.
It’s why I think the people are fools who argue for permanently postponing California’s AB32 or for not supporting a National energy bill that gradually limits the use of carbon fuels with some near term cost increases involved.
Unfortunately, a recent poll found that the majority of Americans have heard we need to switch away from oil but also are unwilling to support paying a bit more now for gasoline to speed up that process.
Ultimately, unless those Americans and their representatives learn WHY we are in desperate trouble unless we do just that, we may not act fast enough to dodge the disastrous effects of peak oil once it arrives.
Over the next few weeks and months, we will see how it goes. But if it goes badly -- and it might, may God be merciful on us. We will need it.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Let’s act on clean energy....
Today's post: Wednesday, 6-16-2010
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.
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.
Further, it’s extremely clear that the most supported and economically beneficial solution to add energy that does not use oil nor burn fossil fuels to release more CO2 into air that already has too much is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy production, particularly those that generate electricity & to dramatically increase energy efficiency and reduce the amount of energy that is now wasted.
And, of those, the more important long range solution is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy generation.
Today’s post:
Today, most of the critical comments on President Obama’s speech last night badly missed the mark.
They revealed the small mindedness of the critics more than the actual faults of the President.
Given the Gulf Oil Spill situation, he clearly needed to take several kinds of action.
It would be nice if he could have started earlier and done more on each of the key areas he listed. But, given his lack of God-like power and the other demands on his time, I think he is doing a decent job.
He laid out the exact things he should be doing and showed that in each case, he is indeed taking action to be sure those things get done.
He’s chosen experienced and appropriate people to work in each of the areas and set them to work.
He is taking the time to go see the situation first hand besides which shows in the strength of the effort he has begun to restore the health of the Gulf and the people who depend on it for their income.
The only weak point was his last and in many ways his most important one.
Let’s act on clean energy!
We have the ability to reduce our use of petroleum by 60 to 90 % with the technologies now developed. Had we done that already, BP would not have had the incentive to do deep water offshore drilling or have felt the necessity to cut corners to go faster despite the grave risks involved.
So, perhaps the most effective long term way to ensure only well managed, careful, and safe offshore drilling is done or is no longer needed at all, is to do just that.
The problem is that the Senate has many members who either are virtual employees of the oil companies who are taking a dangerously short sighted view of the situation OR those who want very badly to increase jobs and boost the economy and are scared to death of anything that might harm that.
Because of the oil spill and how horrible it has turned out to be, the influence of the oil companies and their lobbying money is temporarily low.
But those Senators, including some conservative Democrats, who are scared to do anything that might slow the economy, are still holding the energy bill hostage in fear that it will have that effect.
I think the President’s speech would have been far stronger as hopefully will his future policy, if he had added these two points.
1. We are running out of oil yet our economy now depends on it and we are NOT prepared enough to avoid economic collapse when it does.
So, I think the President needs to make this point about the initial costs of the change over to clean energy. Well managed companies will have the employees they want and need to keep during a severe recession cut their hours or pay a bit so that they can keep their jobs and will be in place when it turns around. In the same way, it is justified to have energy costs go up a bit now so that later they won’t go up horribly or have us run out of energy completely. Yes. It’s not great now to do this. But it will be SO much better later if we do, it’s irresponsible to refuse to do it.
2. On the other hand, we have a lot of people out of work and a lot of people very worried. In addition, we have other things slowing our economy. So, it’s also irresponsible to add costs to our economy without making every intelligent effort to reduce the impact of the switch over in energy or even make it zero if we can.
I am disappointed that the Obama administration has not made a major effort to create programs that will do just that.
And, I’m not just disappointed in the Senators who have done nothing in this area besides saying we can’t act on energy, I’m a bit angry about it.
This is exactly the area where a win win compromise can be reached in the Senate.
Tom Campbell just lost the Republican nomination to the Senate here in California. The Republicans here wanted a more partly line only candidate more than they wanted one who could win in November.
The good news is that Tom Campbell said that we should postpone acting on Clean energy while the economy is so bad; and now he won’t be in office supporting that view.
But, he WAS the best Republican candidate and does think well on topics where he has expertise.
He may have come up with the solution to how to get a bill through congress that will both help us switch from oil to clean energy AND minimize how much doing so will impact the economy.
When I emailed me about energy, he replied with this.:
“"The key is to lower business taxes by exactly the amount of revenue that would be generated by a carbon tax. The carbon tax would apply to the large users of fuels: largely, electrical generation and automobiles.
Economists overwhelmingly agree that the reduction in greenhouse gases proposed under a cap-and-trade program can be achieved, more efficiently, with less government supervision, less cost, and less interference with productive operations, by imposing a tax on the carbon content of the fuel used.
If we offset that increase in tax, dollar for dollar, by a lowering of the business tax, we actually favor companies that produce less amounts of greenhouse gases. The overall cost of doing business in our state would not change; but we would have achieved good environmental results. We also would have given an incentive to the creation of technology to reduce greenhouse gases, which is a real future area for California's business future.
We can find a way to achieve both good environmental results and good economic growth results...."
I think this is an example of the kind of bi-partisan work that can lead to an energy bill that can pass the congress.
I’d like to see more data on his assertion that carbon taxes have the advantages over cap & trade that he says they do. But it IS clear that you get better control of what the costs will be and scripting a gradual phase in program using carbon taxes.
AND, whether or not we use carbon taxes or a cap & trade – which has worked well in some applications, his idea of a compensating tax break to minimize the slowing on the economy and INCREASE the incentive to build more renewable energy is brilliant and has so far been missing from the debate.
Had President Obama included this last set of ideas AND given a list of the people he has recruited in a bi-partisan group to work on this area to improve it, I think the impact of his speech & his Presidency would have been far greater.
The good news is that it’s not too late to do so now.
I hope he does.
Today's post: Wednesday, 6-16-2010
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.
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.
Further, it’s extremely clear that the most supported and economically beneficial solution to add energy that does not use oil nor burn fossil fuels to release more CO2 into air that already has too much is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy production, particularly those that generate electricity & to dramatically increase energy efficiency and reduce the amount of energy that is now wasted.
And, of those, the more important long range solution is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy generation.
Today’s post:
Today, most of the critical comments on President Obama’s speech last night badly missed the mark.
They revealed the small mindedness of the critics more than the actual faults of the President.
Given the Gulf Oil Spill situation, he clearly needed to take several kinds of action.
It would be nice if he could have started earlier and done more on each of the key areas he listed. But, given his lack of God-like power and the other demands on his time, I think he is doing a decent job.
He laid out the exact things he should be doing and showed that in each case, he is indeed taking action to be sure those things get done.
He’s chosen experienced and appropriate people to work in each of the areas and set them to work.
He is taking the time to go see the situation first hand besides which shows in the strength of the effort he has begun to restore the health of the Gulf and the people who depend on it for their income.
The only weak point was his last and in many ways his most important one.
Let’s act on clean energy!
We have the ability to reduce our use of petroleum by 60 to 90 % with the technologies now developed. Had we done that already, BP would not have had the incentive to do deep water offshore drilling or have felt the necessity to cut corners to go faster despite the grave risks involved.
So, perhaps the most effective long term way to ensure only well managed, careful, and safe offshore drilling is done or is no longer needed at all, is to do just that.
The problem is that the Senate has many members who either are virtual employees of the oil companies who are taking a dangerously short sighted view of the situation OR those who want very badly to increase jobs and boost the economy and are scared to death of anything that might harm that.
Because of the oil spill and how horrible it has turned out to be, the influence of the oil companies and their lobbying money is temporarily low.
But those Senators, including some conservative Democrats, who are scared to do anything that might slow the economy, are still holding the energy bill hostage in fear that it will have that effect.
I think the President’s speech would have been far stronger as hopefully will his future policy, if he had added these two points.
1. We are running out of oil yet our economy now depends on it and we are NOT prepared enough to avoid economic collapse when it does.
So, I think the President needs to make this point about the initial costs of the change over to clean energy. Well managed companies will have the employees they want and need to keep during a severe recession cut their hours or pay a bit so that they can keep their jobs and will be in place when it turns around. In the same way, it is justified to have energy costs go up a bit now so that later they won’t go up horribly or have us run out of energy completely. Yes. It’s not great now to do this. But it will be SO much better later if we do, it’s irresponsible to refuse to do it.
2. On the other hand, we have a lot of people out of work and a lot of people very worried. In addition, we have other things slowing our economy. So, it’s also irresponsible to add costs to our economy without making every intelligent effort to reduce the impact of the switch over in energy or even make it zero if we can.
I am disappointed that the Obama administration has not made a major effort to create programs that will do just that.
And, I’m not just disappointed in the Senators who have done nothing in this area besides saying we can’t act on energy, I’m a bit angry about it.
This is exactly the area where a win win compromise can be reached in the Senate.
Tom Campbell just lost the Republican nomination to the Senate here in California. The Republicans here wanted a more partly line only candidate more than they wanted one who could win in November.
The good news is that Tom Campbell said that we should postpone acting on Clean energy while the economy is so bad; and now he won’t be in office supporting that view.
But, he WAS the best Republican candidate and does think well on topics where he has expertise.
He may have come up with the solution to how to get a bill through congress that will both help us switch from oil to clean energy AND minimize how much doing so will impact the economy.
When I emailed me about energy, he replied with this.:
“"The key is to lower business taxes by exactly the amount of revenue that would be generated by a carbon tax. The carbon tax would apply to the large users of fuels: largely, electrical generation and automobiles.
Economists overwhelmingly agree that the reduction in greenhouse gases proposed under a cap-and-trade program can be achieved, more efficiently, with less government supervision, less cost, and less interference with productive operations, by imposing a tax on the carbon content of the fuel used.
If we offset that increase in tax, dollar for dollar, by a lowering of the business tax, we actually favor companies that produce less amounts of greenhouse gases. The overall cost of doing business in our state would not change; but we would have achieved good environmental results. We also would have given an incentive to the creation of technology to reduce greenhouse gases, which is a real future area for California's business future.
We can find a way to achieve both good environmental results and good economic growth results...."
I think this is an example of the kind of bi-partisan work that can lead to an energy bill that can pass the congress.
I’d like to see more data on his assertion that carbon taxes have the advantages over cap & trade that he says they do. But it IS clear that you get better control of what the costs will be and scripting a gradual phase in program using carbon taxes.
AND, whether or not we use carbon taxes or a cap & trade – which has worked well in some applications, his idea of a compensating tax break to minimize the slowing on the economy and INCREASE the incentive to build more renewable energy is brilliant and has so far been missing from the debate.
Had President Obama included this last set of ideas AND given a list of the people he has recruited in a bi-partisan group to work on this area to improve it, I think the impact of his speech & his Presidency would have been far greater.
The good news is that it’s not too late to do so now.
I hope he does.
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