In Thomas Friedman's latest column, he praises Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts because he "took one for the country." Friedman sees that "America today is poised for a great renewal" if only it can get some "big, centrist, statesmanlike leadership."
Logically, there would be some renewable (energy) in America's renewal, right?
Wrong. Here's Friedman's vision for America:
Our newfound natural gas bounty can give us long-term access to cheap, cleaner energy and, combined with advances in robotics and software, is already bringing blue-collar manufacturing back to America. Web-enabled cellphones and tablets are creating vast new possibilities to bring high-quality, low-cost education to every community college and public school so people can afford to acquire the skills to learn 21st-century jobs. Cloud computing is giving anyone with a creative spark cheap, powerful tools to start a company with very little money. And dramatically low interest rates mean we can borrow to build new infrastructure -- and make money. [emphasis mine]
I'm generally a fan of Thomas Friedman. He's got an everyman way of writing about big issues, with a passion for practicality, especially when it comes to rebuilding America. But for a man who regularly talks of the opportunity of 21st technology, this is a very 20th century vision.
Here's an alternative:
The stodgy National Renewable Energy Laboratory says that renewable energy like wind and solar can meet at least 80% of our electricity needs by 2050. (Note: most forecasts of renewable energy generation by "reputable sources" lowball it, by a lot). This isn't just long-term energy, it's infinite. There are no refills on natural gas.
Two thirds of American states have the local resources to meet their entire electricity needs with renewable energy like wind, water, and solar. Within a decade, 100 million Americans in the largest metropolitan areas will be able to get cheaper electricity from solar on their rooftop than from their utility.
And what about the economy? Solar and wind create several times the jobs per megawatt of electricity capacity (Data below from Putting Renewables to Work published by UC Berkeley). Local ownership of distributed renewable energy resources can double and triple, respectively, the jobs and economic impact of our energy generation.
Big, centrist, statesmanlike leadership isn't found in last century's energy sources. We aren't going to frack our way to a cleaner, brighter future. We need a bold, 21st century vision for energy.
If President Obama wants to lead on energy, he should declare independence from a fossil fuel past and give Americans a vision for clean energy self-reliance.
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Mary Anne Hitt and Bruce Nilles: A Good Move for Wind
Ignore panel efficiency - that's a red herring. If one has more roof space, they can use lower efficiency (and less expensive) thin film panels. If one has less roof space (or higher energy needs) they can opt for higher efficiency panels. Look around at all the trees and plants - they only use 1% of the energy falling on them - yet that 1% efficiency works just fine!
Cost effective? Check out this report - especially page 9: http://www.ipcc.ch/docs/srren/presentations/bonn/Edenhofer.pdf
and notice that in 2005 solar was already cost effective in areas with higher electricity prices. But here's the bottom line for your cost effectiveness calculations - that 'cheap' fossil fueled power is MUCH more expensive than even the most expensive renewables - but the damage to air, water, and human lives (whether from cancer or war) is kept 'off the books' to make it LOOK cheaper.
Good luck.
I completely agree with the rest of your analysis except for the part where you skip what the waste disposal arm of the mafia are dumping down the wells to make fracking possible. The frackers refuse to say what they are dumping down the wells. Can we assume it's anything pure and clean?
Of course, that is only for starters. As I say, that price still includes the massive subsidies from carbon energy that the renewable live off of like parasites. Once carbon goes away the wind power cost will go way up. Then there is the fact of huge maintenance costs like we have never seen in carbon energy. That will have to added to the tab. Then there is the fact that the capital plant of renewable does not last as long as traditional energy plants. That cost will have to be added.
I believe it is essential to our race that we move away from petroleum as our energy source. When we look at the facts objectively that leaves natural gas. Current sources of natural gas will last us at least a thousand years. Then we can start making natural gas out of coal, which will last us tens of thousands of years. By then we will surely figure out how to capture the suns energy in a way that works.
If your really for the environment, and not just advancing a self-serving agenda, you will back natural gas all the way.
Maybe you meant 3.2? That's not far off.
Or, perhaps you're comparing the cost of buying a grandfathered coal plant versus building the same capacity in new wind power. An easy mistake to make if you're a hedge fund.
The reality is that fossil fuel sources are limited and not renewable, and their use contributes to global climate change (don't tell me you're going to deny that one too!) and global political turmoil. Where you get those statistics like "last one thousand years" is likely a suspect source of info and probably industry-sponsored. Many of those "infinite" sources are inaccessible with our current technology.
Get real. Renewable is the way to go. Let's invest in it before it's too late.
F & F'd
http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/07/news/economy/energy-subsidies/index.htm
Everyone across the political spectrum should be fighting for energy independence at an individual, microgrid and community level. Freedom from the unholy alliance of Big Energy and Big Government is the most critical challenge of our time, yet most people ignore it and count on the dubious behaviors of either tea party politicians (enslaved to Koch, Duke, etc.) or Gang Green Big Enviros (enslaved to Gore, Kennedy, Bryson, etc.) - all of whom want to expand Big Energy's chokehold over our wilderness, our wallets, our grid and our democracy. NO!
Keep saying what you are saying, people are gathering steam behind you, and we are seeing the light, literally and figuratively. Energy democracy is the only future, we need to bring it about sooner rather than later. First steps, restoring PACE financing and establishing a generous feed in tariff for PV systems under 100kW. Everything else will fall into place...
http://africabusiness.com/2012/03/25/statistics/
Do you understand how quickly a natural gas generating facility can respond to supply the grid with electricity when unexpected energy demands occur?
Try that with solar cells or wind? Think of all the excess infrastructure you have to have to meet these peaks!
Thomas Friedman believes in it. President Obama believes in it. What more conformation do you need?
I'm thinking of it...it's dark...tiny...YES! Thank you - it's ZERO! LOL
Wind is already being used as baseload power on this planet. All nations with modern electric grids have controllers that constantly adjust for load changes and generation changes - and they can even handle the nuclear power plants that drop off-line due to a flood and don't come back for 16 months. :)
We cannot call natural gas a bridge fuel unless we know where we're going. Without a plan it's yet another bridge to nowhere.
Here's a plan - a 2.6 times larger US economy powered by no oil, coal, or nuclear and much less gas, with a five trillion dollar savings. With no new technology and no action by people in DC. We can do this - we just need to lace our boots and get walking!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-Kq89M0t18
What we need are policies that make dirty, centralized, wilderness-killing, transmission-intensive power cost what it really costs, so that we can make an accurate comparison. At the moment, 90% of the true costs of ALL Big Energy (including Big Solar and Big Wind) are being socialized onto the planet, taxpayers and ratepayers to artificially create "low prices" but it's a sickening market distortion that enforces the status quo.
So, instead of fighting against the people who get it right, why don't you start fighting for policies that favor economically and environmentally preferable models, that favor jobs, democracy, reliability and energy independence (from Big Energy and Big Government)?
If you want environmental Justice, you need to vote for Rocky in November.
Your model presupposes that generation monopolies are good for the grid, good for the planet and/or good for the economy, but they aren't. Quite the opposite. We don't want utilities to make more investments in the status quo. We want them to join us in the 21st century, where the internet, PCs and cellphones are the model, not the IBM mainframe, the card catalog and Ma Bell phone leases! That means transforming their business models into load balancers, backup generation, storage and microgrid operators, not generation monopolies.
The U.S. produces 5 trillion cubic feet of shale gas (115 million tons of oil equivalent) per year.
Using solar water heaters, using solar steam generators, using biomass boilers, using ice storage air-conditioning systems, using LED bulbs … the U.S could save more than 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year.
P.S.
The U.S. could produce over one billion tons of biomass a year (300 milion tons of oil equivalent) by 2030, according to a report from the Department of Energy.
http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/
Domestic natural gas is a bridge fuel it needs to be used and taxed to fund our transition.
When people are talking about running out of fuel, they really mean running out of cheap fuel.
"Cheap" is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
http://priceofoil.org/thepriceofoil/