O is for Oil

It's back to the basics. A large part of our ignorance on energy issues in America comes from the fact that for years it has been so abundant that we rarely need to think about it. In a nicely reasoned article, O is for Oil, Paul Roberts makes a number of key points on our curious misconceptions about energy. As long as we are dependent on oil as a primary energy source, he argues, America as a nation will never have energy security. Well said!

Going Cold Turkey: Fossil Fuel Addiction

Kurt Vonnegut has a way a skating around the pretense and dodging the artful chimpanzee posturing to get to the pure, beating heart of an idea. Cold Turkey, from In These Times, makes the point as only Vonnegut can.

Don't Let the Beer Go Bad

Businesses trying to keep operations going during California's rolling blackouts in 2000 learned to distrust the mainstream electricity grid. Among those most sensitive to a continuous supply of power, Sierra Nevada Brewing, based in Chico, California, took advantage of incentives offered by the California Public Utilities Commission to install fuel cells. The goal is to achieve an energy-neutral brewing operation, where the company creates as much energy as it consumes.

Even a short interruption in the electrical supply can ruin a batch of beer. And the summer temperatures in the Chico area, which push beyond the century mark for days at a time, make it critical that the power keep flowing along with the suds. Business incentives can help companies like Sierra Nevada Brewing free their operations from a fickle electricity grid. The article from Wired, Business Buys Into Fuel Cells, illustrates some other innovative business uses of renewable energy as well.

Energy Politics at Work

In any open society, if democracy is to be given a reasonable chance to flourish, the machinations of government at every level should be visible to the citizens. Leaders who are obviously beholden to special interests or not representing the expectations of their constituents can be removed from office. Bad policies can be rejected by rejecting the leaders who initiate them. A growing problem, however, particularly in terms of energy policy, is that key decisions are being made behind closed doors in virtual secrecy. And a growing body of evidence is pointing to the fact that energy policies are being crafted to benefit the bottom line of the mainstream energy producers, the petroleum and nuclear industries, to the detriment of any advances in renewable energy systems. The pattern of secrecy that was established by Dick Cheney in creating national energy policy is now apparently being emulated by California's Governor Schwarzenegger as examined in this Common Dreams article, Schwarzenegger Pulls a Cheney. Only by finding out who is pulling the strings behind the scenes do we have any chance to turn the current energy juggernaut around and move toward a future where sustainable energy practices can take hold.

Beware the Fossil Fools

One of the strongest arguments for shifting our energy base away from dependency on fossil fuels is, of course, global warming. Given the overwhelming consensus of the legitimate scientific community (i.e. those scientists not directly or indirectly on the payroll of a company that earns its profits extracting, refining, promoting or distirbuting fossil fuel products) that global warming is a serious risk for human survival, it's a puzzle how so many media pundits and quasi-scientists still blather on about the myth of global warming. Skewering these misinformed, unscientific flaks soundly, this article from The Guardian, Beware the Fossil Fools, doesn't pull any punches.

Little Solar Houses for Everyone

Solar power is too expensive and too impractical for mainstream use in the U.S. Or, is it? Truth be told, there are already numerous examples of the practicality of solar power in both business and home applications. Grist Magazine, a feisty little publication that provides "gloom and doom with a sense of humor", makes it a point to bring attention to promising developments on the alternative energy front. One of their staff writers, Amanda Griscom, highlighted a very apt example in her article, Little Solar Houses for You and Me. A collection of homes in Tennessee being built by volunteers from Habitat for Humanity use rooftop solar panels, insualted walls, windows and floors, energy-efficient lighting and other techniques to reduce the overall energy consumption to less than half that consumed by a conventionally constructed home.

This experimental project, co-sponsored by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), is one step towards a larger goal: the net-zero-energy home. Simply put, the net-zero-energy home will generate as much power as it consumes. This goal is reachable, so the story goes, only if consumer demand increases to the point that the cost of solar panels drops to about a third of what they cost today. To make that happen, we need incentives, public education, research, and perhaps a new administration more interested in investing in the future rather than propping up a dying oil industry.

Need more convincing? The Rocky Mountain Institute, a leader in energy efficiency studies and programs, includes details of more than 200 green building projects from around the world on their Green Developments 2.0 CD-ROM. The technology is out there, along with the answers to a brighter energy future.

Energy Futures in California: Renewable or More of the Same?

Over the years, California has earned a reputation for being quick to act on environmental problems and more progressive on many energy-related issues. Strict automobile emission standards in California prompted massive changes throughout the automotive industry and helped make improved emission controls a priority to relieve some of the air quality problems in major metropolitan areas. The recent energy crisis in the state, however, tainted by the scandal of price manipulation and fraud, has made energy futures a major focus for state government. Landmark legislation championed by Gray Davis before he left office mandates nearly doubling the use of renewable energy resources by 2017. Under Governor Schwartzegger's leadership, despite his professed commitment to renewable energy, the direction of the state's renewable energy futures are in question. What does the new energy governor have in mind?

The Perfect Storm That's About to Hit

In good times, when the price of a gallon of gas is closer to one dollar, rather than two, people don't worry much about fuel costs. To those of us old enough to remember the fuel shortages of the late 70's, when the lines at the gas pumps often stretched around the block, there are ominous harbingers on the horizon, as this article by Jeremy Rifkin, The Perfect Storm That's About to Hit, points out. Fuel costs affect so many different aspects of our society (as well as the global economy) that the advancement of alternative fuel sources really needs to go into overdrive before our addiction to oil kills us.

SUV Solutions

It's no secret that Americans love SUVs. Each time I make a trip to the local supermarket in relatively affluent Manchester, Vermont, I find myself immersed in a sea of ponderous, top-heavy, barge-like vehicles (many of them with N.Y. and N.J. plates, bearing ski racks, monstrous tires, and oversized luggage carriers). The question is: do these machines have to be gas guzzlers and do they have to be unsafe? The Union of Concerned Scientists challenges this notion in a dedicated area of their site, SUV Solutions. Better still, they approach the topic without the somber, lab-coat pedantry you might expect, offering Flash cartoons and a decidedly satirical slant to their viewpoint. And, they demonstrate that with technologies we have available today, we can build safe and fuel-efficient SUVs. If you have a few minutes to spend, take their SUV-TV Challenge.

Apollo Alliance : Wind, Biomass, Solar at the Center of Apollo Energy Plan

The outsourcing of jobs in a variety of areas--including the supposedly impregnable high-tech sector where America has led the world in the recent past--presents a formidable obstacle to any significant economic recovery. The manufacturing sector, in particular, continues to lose jobs. According to Ray Perryman, president of the Perryman Group, in this article, Apollo Alliance : Wind, Biomass, Solar at the Center of Apollo Energy Plan, job losses in the manufacturing sector have continued for 41 consecutive months.

The solution being touted by the Apollo Alliance is a program to create millions of new jobs through a vigorous expansion of renewable energy technologies, including innovation and growth in the solar, biomass, and wind energy fields. Instead of looking backwards towards dangerous and polluting fossil-fuel and nuclear energy approches, the Apollo Energy Plan (named after John F. Kennedy's Apollo Mission that led to a landing on the moon) focuses on the next generation of hybrid automobiles, more efficient building technologies, streamlined mass transportation, and a advances in all forms of renewable power. This alliance brings together labor unions and environmental groups in a unified effort to research and design practical and non-polluting energy technologies--an effort that includes some very major players.

Fuel-Cell Microbes' Double Duty: Treat Water, Make Energy

Wastewater treatment consumes an enormous amount of energy. Why not put bacteria to work to offset the energy requirements? This novel idea--a single-chambered microbial fuel cell--is being prototyped through a grant from the National Science Foundation. In this press release, NSF - OLPA - PR 04-021: Fuel-Cell Microbes' Double Duty: Treat Water, Make Energy - , a strong case is made for an approach that could greatly reduce the $25 billion a year that it costs to treat about 33 billions gallons of domestic wastewater in the United States.

Hydrogen Economy: A Bad Idea?

In this article, A Hydrogen Economy Is a Bad Idea, David Morris argues that looking towards a hydrogen economy is probably a bad idea. The question of where the hydrogen comes from is a key concern. The petroleum and nuclear power industries would love to play a key role in the game--creating hydrogen by means of the same greenhouse-gas producing and toxic-waste producing methods they've been using for years.

Generating, storing, transporting and distributing the hydrogen to energize fuel cells may create more problems and inefficiencies than it solves, Morris reasons, and if the centralized distribution models that we've used for years for fuel are applied to the problem, that may be the case.

Alternatively, a decentralized means of generating hydrogen might sidestep the significant obstacles in producing hydrogen for powering homes and vehicles. A company in New York, Plug Power Fuel-Cell Systems manufactures residential units that burn natural gas or use other forms of energy to produce electricity, heat, pure water, and hydrogen. One of the partners in this effort is Honda and as they are set to rollout the hydrogen-powered Honda FCX during 2004, the potential for fueling these vehicles from a home-based system seems promising. If I'm reading the specs correctly, it also looks as though the fuel cell systems from Plug Power can be coupled with solar and wind power systems, which could alleviate many of the concerns that David Morris expresses in his article. More on this development as I investigate further.

State Incentives for Renewable Energy

While the federal government may not be doing much to make renewable energy more attractive to the average citizen, many states have initiated their own programs to help offset the costs of installing solar energy panels, purchasing a gas-electric hybrid vehicle, or erecting a wind turbine. These incentives sometimes come in the form of state tax credits or as rebates. California alone provided $2.6 million in tax credits in 2001 to residents who installed solar power systems. As an example of the potential savings, a solar project tagged at $24,000 is eligible for a rebate of $10,730--representing close to a 50 percent reduction in costs.

How does your state rate? If you're wondering what incentives are available to you, consult the Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy (DSIRE) for an easy-to-use, up-to-date list of programs.

Solar energy's cloudy past

Solar energy, like many technologies (DVD, hybrid vehicles), showed promise years before it gained widespread acceptance. In the case of solar energy, it has taken about 50 years for manufacturing processes and supporting technology to demonstrate the practicality of this infinitely renewable energy source. Trouble is that at the moment other nations (Germany and Japan) are leapfrogging the U.S., capitalizing on the benefits of solar power while Amercans puzzle over an energy policy (enacted by the present short-sighted administration) that leans heavily toward coal and petroleum. This historical perspective on the slow, steady advances in solar energy, Solar energy's cloudy past / Advocates say 50-year-old industry is finally in a position to heat up, shows that it's really here--if only we recognize it.

Scientists Advance Hydrogen Tech

Imagine compact fuel cells that can be readily installed in your basement, offering a neat replacement for that furnace sucking up fuel oil like a drunken monkey swilling cheap vodka. Then imagine that one of the prime obstacles to clean fuel cell development--the generation of hydrogen without reliance on fossil fuels--can be overcome by using corn-based ethanol, giving farmers in the Midwest a potential source of new revenues. Research advances discussed in this article, Scientists Advance Hydrogen Tech point to a renewable model for hydrogen-based fuel cells that might lead the way to cleaner motoring and home heating.

Clean energy part of `Green Wave'

Environmental technologies make economic sense, so much so that the Treasurer of the State of California has announced plans to invest pension money as part of a `Green Wave' initiative. With $1.5 billion of the state's pension money being invested in environmentally screened funds and financing to develop clean technologies, Angelides hopes to not only profit from positive growth in this sector, but also help generate job growth. The economic advantages of taking an ecocentric energy path are becoming clear to a widening circle of investors and financial professionals.

Oil and Democracy Don't Mix

Many reasons exist for reducing the stranglehold that oil addiction has on our society. In the frenzied quest for the next fix, social justice issues and support for genuine democracy take a back seat to keeping the flow of petroleum moving, as this article, Oil and Democracy Don't Mix, points out. This situation doesn't promise to get any better until we collectively go through an extensive detox, embrace renewable sources of power and end the century-long power struggle to dominate access to a dwindling resource.

How the Cookie Crumbles: A TrueMajority Perspective

If alternative energy is such a great idea, why aren't we seeing more practical applications in the everyday world? TrueMajority offers a vividly clear perspective on where our federal budget efforts are directed. This animated piece, starring Ben & Jerry's cofounder Ben Cohen, reduces the complexities of the federal budget to stacks of cookies--each cookie representing 10 billion dollars [US]. The graphic reality of the situation is enough to make any thoughtful person choke on their cookies and milk. The Pentagon budget appears as a big stack of 40 cookies ($400 billion dollars a year). The entire budget for researching and developing alternative energy technologies is 1/4 of a cookie. Education and other essential social programs are similarly dwarfed by Pentagon expenditures. The rational for maintaining this gargantuan military infrastructure certainly doesn't look very credible when compared to the expenditures of other nations. Both Russia and China combined equal only 12 cookies and the terrorist threat in the world is represented by less than a cookie. Perhaps it's time we thought seriously about taking a few cookies off the bloated military budget stack and putting them into something beneficial: alternative energy development, education, and other worthwhile programs.

U.S. Climate Policy Bigger Threat to World Than Terrorism

Why worry about changing our energy habits? One good reason is the threat posed by global climate change, as discussed in this article. The chief scientific advisor in the UK Government, Sir David King, sees climate change as a much more serious threat than terrorism. The potential extinction of millions of species and the threat of drought, hunger, flooding, and rampant malaria for much of the world's population represents a genuine risk much more tangible than the colorized terror alerts endlessly waved in our faces.

Beyond the shadow

"Between the conception and the creation," T.S. Eliot wrote, "Between emotion and the response falls the shadow." Years ago, while still in college, I dreamed of living in a solar-powered geodesic dome somewhere in a northern California redwood forest. A creative writing instructor mocked that vision (which I had expressed through a character in one of my short stories) and mainstream America saw solar and wind power as a pipe dream from granola-munching, pot-smoking hippies, as eager to dismiss the possibilities as they were to jump into their heavy-metal 16 mpg American road machines and take their turn in a gas line. The nascent alternative energy movement was nonetheless taking root, suggesting another energy path that didn't have risky megalithic nuclear reactors at its heart. The Nuclear Power Initiative in California made it clear that not everyone thought it wise to depend on fuel that could destroy half a state in the case of an accident or that would generate wastes that would have to be guarded for tens of thousands of years--longer than the span of any known civilization.

Thirty years later, the technologies that make alternative energy the only realistic future possibility have come of age, but their adoption has been slowed by the massive worldwide infrastructure that refuses to abandon a future tied to dwindling supplies of petroleum-based fuel. Wars are already being fought over oil. How much worse will it get in 20 or 30 years when serious scarcities drive the developed nations into even more frantic quests to suck the last few dregs of oil from the earth?

We don't need more oil; we need a new direction. This blog offers steps and guideposts to other energy paths that any of us can follow. The "Think globally, act locally" credo of the environmental movement makes much sense. We can equip our homes with solar or wind power and charge utility companies for surplus energy (through Intertie connections) put back into the grid. We can choose efficient devices that save energy, change our transportation habits, critically examine our lives, and move away from gluttonous energy use and the indiscriminate wasting of resources, moving toward a more frugal, more mindful existence that recognizes and reverses the destructiveness of the prevailing path.

So, this is step one... As I take more steps in this direction, I invite you along for the journey and I hope maybe there is something useful in this vision that you can share, as well. The emphasis will be on practical, realistic, accessible approaches--either things that you can do tomorrow with tools and technologies already available, or examples that demonstrate how others have taken other energy paths, the road less travelled that Robert Frost talked about. Put on your hiking boots and join the journey.