Renewable Energy: Can't vs. Shouldn't

You frequently hear people say that we "have to" continue using fossil fuels for the foreseeable future because we "can't" meet our energy needs with renewables. Naturally, if that's true, the debate is over. Can't is can't; impossible is impossible. Or is it?

What's known as our "solar budget" -- the currently circulating flows of wind, sunlight, tides, the heat inside the earth -- is orders of magnitude larger than our current or projected energy demand. It's more than we could ever realistically use.

We already have the technology to put these renewable sources of energy to work for us (and to do so more efficiently). New, ingenious ways of capturing renewable energy are being developed every day.

We also have the money to shift to renewables. It's easy to forget in all the quibbles over relatively small dollar amounts, but the U.S. is almost unfathomably rich, with an economy north of $13 trillion in 2006. When all is said and done, we're going to spend about $1 trillion on the Iraq War, and while it's a spectacular waste, it hasn't noticeably damaged our economy. If we collectively decided to devote, say, $5 trillion over five years to build out renewables and efficiency (R&E), you better believe we could make them "adequate for the whole energy picture."

So: we have the renewable energy, we have the technology to capture it, and we have the money to build out the technology. That is to say:

The argument over renewables isn't about can or can't, it's about should or shouldn't.

If people want to argue that we shouldn't aggressively switch to renewables -- that it's too expensive, or too politically difficult -- let them. But quit with the "can't" cant.

Comments

[realitytrumpsbull]

Bush is a former oilman. Cheney's a not-so-former oilman. And, they've got a little entourage of energy peeps that follow them around asking for more gummit donutz.

Here's the problem: Say you gradamatademed from high school, and you can like, replace a light bulb all by your lonesomeness without Mommy watching you, and stuff. Say you go and learn how to set up your home to where you can do most things on 12v where you used normal house current before, or you just enlarge your testicles/ovaries to the point where you don't need any of that 'wussy' electricity in your daily life anymore, period. What happens? The montly tithe you were paying to some publicly traded electric company drops, ergo their overall revenue drops. Now, let's say you went out and got 200,000 other people to do the same. Pretty soon, FraudLarceny Power And Light
is watching their balance sheets with grim fascination as, each month, another 3,000 people have their power shut off, or reduce their usage by 30,40, 60-80 percent. Next thing you know, they have to Find Honest Work. Imagine if people learned how to brew their own ethanol, and never bought a gallon of gas again.
That'd put several foreign countries in the same boat, in the employment line, no longer able to enjoy a Perpetual Free Ride off the 'american consumer'. Isn't that RIGHT, Mr. Bernanke and friends? Hmmm...

[mrkerb]

It is in many ways, sad that the USA has shifted to a post-industrial economy because in the past, we were pretty good at building things and solving problems. Currently,many folks look at the issue of photvoltaics, wind power or wave power and only think about currently available tecnology or whoever is selling them on the internet. However.... what if we threw down the gauntlet (like Kennedy did with the challenge to go to the moon) and said, by 2020 (or even sooner) we will reduce our energy imports by 80%. If we put our best universities and brightest minds on the problem we might be able to design, manufacture and distribute a functional, competitve product that (here's the really good part) we can sell to others, outside the US. The last time we really reassessed our energy usage or transportation choices was the 'gas crisis of the early Seventies. That short period got us out of our Buicks and into Toyotas, Hondas and all the rest.I don't think the proposition of a 'real' energy crisis will be pretty so why wait for it?

[VEGAN]

RENEWABLE ENERGY is AN IMPORTANT ISSUE BUT IT IS NOT AS IMPORTANT AS the "vegan issue".

[Guitarsandmore]

No, because even if everyone became Vegan somehow magically overnight they would all still be driving cars which belch out greenhouse gasses and use electricity at home that is made by burning fossil fuels.

The solution is lower population (translation stop having kids and stop immigration), plus hybrid cars, plus solar and wind generators.

It is totally irresponsible for the government to continue to allow the burning of fossil fuels when other choices are available. Global warming is accelerating at an alarming rate. Coal miners are being trapped and killed or infected with black lung. E gads! Wake up and smell the coffee!

[Guitarsandmore]

The reason it is not being done is that Edison and department of water and power can"t figure out what they will do for a living once they are no longer needed.

[Guitarsandmore]

When the telephone was first invented they tended to crop up in big cities only initially. But the Federal Government issued a mandate that there would be a telephone in every house. A Federal Mandate makes it a priority and helps absorb some of the cost.

A Federal Mandate to have solar panels on every roof top with a time table to do it in would be enough motivation to get the job done.

The government could provide low interest loans spread out over 50 years if need be to make the cost affordable to consumers. If the loan payment looks about like the energy payment that it is replacing then anyone can afford solar.

Consumers dies? That"s OK the loan payment is inherited by the new tenant or owner.

Oh and, Leave your hands off of social security and medicare republican liar.

[daniel155]

Too late, Congress had been spending Social Security "contributions" as general revenue for years.

[Sumocat]

It's embarrassing that we still aren't getting a sizeable chunk of our energy from the sun. The greatest source of energy in the solar system (hence, the name "solar") and we tap an imperceptible iota of it. We need to step up and do it soon.

[TedB]

I've been contemplating this a great deal lately:

Even at current prices (I'm guessing $20-40K per house), a trillion dollars sets up 30 million homes. Right now solar is at boutique pricing; Producing home solar systems on this scale would drive prices down so much that we could outfit 100 million homes or more perhaps. Imagine how much foreign oil we would avoid buying (or fighting wars for).

Doesn't this seem attainable, or am I missing something?

[CriminallySane]

Perhaps the wise choice of action is to commit the combustibles to the refit of our energy infrastructure - use the non-renewable to usher in the renewable.

[tcagle]

People tend to do this very thing, but don't switch over until reaching the point where it is unavoidable. My contention is that we have reached this point already.
I don't want to pump more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. No coal, no biofuel. Generate with clean renewable sources. Thankfully there is a capacitor-based battery that will soon replace the chemical ones and charge in five minutes with great storage. We won't need internal combustion engines anymore.

[Mormondude]

5 TRILLION over 5 years?

I hope you simply forgot to take your meds...

Even the Iraq War, which is every liberal's favorite excuse to talk about spending another trillion or two on their pet project hasn't come anywhere near that amount.

Now, when you start talking about a trillion per year, there is only really one expense that is even in the ballpark, and that's our federal entitlement spending. If we diverted every dollar we spend on Social Security and Medicare, we would more than meet your target.

And why not do it? It's a temporary thing. Only 5 years. After that people will be able to go back onto SS and Medicare just as before. And our culture has survived for hundreds and hundreds of years without SS or Medicare, I think we could make due in a pinch.

[brantl]

Mormondude: oddly, conservatives like you never want to address real urgency. Let's worry about "fighting 'them' over there, so we don't have to fight 'them' over here"; get a grip and get on with the things that matter.

A clue: you aren't even warm, yet.

How about skipping this stupid war-on-a-technique, and addressing alternative power (as we make an effort to restore New Orleans, too)?

[Mormondude]

I'm unmoved by the bumper sticker slogans about Global Warming. I changed out all the light bulbs in my house. I commute on a bike. I have my thermostat set at 80.

But, I don't agree that we need to take drastic federal action of the type being discussed here (1 TRILLION per year??????!?!?!?) into alternative energy.

First of all, that amount of money could never be spent responsibly. 95% of it would go to waste, fraud, or abuse as phony 'Alternate Energy' companies started coming out of the woodwork with their hat in their hand.

Meanwhile the most common sense solutions are completely ignored.

Why not build nuclear power plants? France does it. Japan does it. Heck, even Iran is trying to do it. Why can't the US do it? The waste bogeyman trumps all.

And why not spend a billion putting out coal seam fires around the world? The underground coal fires in China ALONE spew out more CO2 and other greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the US combined.

These straighforward and economical solutions are completely ignored by the left. They are on a crusade to change society by force from the top down, and anything that doesn't further that goal is demonized and rejected.

[shaggles]

I'm not clear on whether the author is saying the $5 trillion would be part of the federal budget or if it would be partly (or largely) private investment from that $13+ trillion economy.

[DrVeruju]

Good post.

Solar home heating is possible almost anywhere, (Google Drakes Landing Solar Community) and although the timescales for conversion are long, they are not as long as it takes to build and commission a nuclear power station.