Posted by: Earl
on Jan 6, 2009
This past weekend President-elect Obama stated in his weekly address that he wants to see the U.S. renewable energy output to double as a result of an economic stimulus program. That's a laudable goal but let's put it into perspective. Bear with me but we have to wade through some numbers.
The U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Agency publishes the
Monthly Energy Review. The December 2008 edition documents the U.S. energy consumption through the first 9 months of 2008. It is interesting to note that over the past several years the totals have stayed quite consistent. After extrapolating the 2008 numbers out to 12 months it looks like the 2008 totals will be within 2% of the 2007 numbers. For sake of illustration I'll use the 2007 totals.
First a definition. The unit of energy measure used in the report is a Quad (short for 1 quadrillion BTUs). That is a one followed by 15 zeros. One barrel of oil (42 gallons) will provide approximately 5.8 million BTU. 1 Quad is roughly equivalent to 172 million barrels of oil.
Posted by: Earl
on Oct 21, 2008
My previous blog post was a rant against the poor quality of debate regarding energy policy and "green" policy. I anticipate that this will be a common t
heme. Now I want to discuss T. Boone Picken's "The Plan". Lets's not get into speculation on site procurement for the turbines, whether the plan requires Eminent Domain to be implemented, or his plan to divert natural gas from electrical generation to powering our cars. Instead, I'd like to address the so-called "technical" arguments against the use of wind as a major supply of electrical power.
The main argument against wind as a source of electrical power is that it doesn't blow all the time and cannot be relied upon to blow when electrical demand is at its greatest. Truth be told, this is absolutely correct. Does this make it a bad idea? Maybe, but not for this reason.
Posted by: Earl
on Sep 4, 2008
It seems to me that as a society we have lost either our ability or willingness to have honest debate. What should be logical arguments have become religious ones - good vs. evil instead of compromise and accommodation. This is especially evident in the energy policy legislative debate. The argument on opening new areas for drilling ranges from "this will solve our foreign oil dependence" to "we can't support that because oil's carbon emissions are too high". I would bet that most people agree with the basic premises of both of these arguments. We know that it would be good to cut both carbon emissions and foreign import dependency. Domestic drilling won't solve all of our oil dependency problems any more than we can afford economically to ignore the worldwide oil demand growth. Then what is the answer? Am I missing something when I think that this country needs to incorporate elements of both plus a comprehensive plan to develop new technologies that will make alternative energy sources economically viable?
Let's begin developing more of this country's resources in a responsible manner. Let's also continue working to reduce emissions. Let's use tax credits more effectively. Instead of funding already highly profitable enterprises let's use those funds on primary research. Companies have a hard time justifying research because of the business risk of these investments. And please, stop with the complaints that drilling should not be done because it will take 7 - 10 years to get new oil into the economy. If you don't understand that we are talking about something in the terms of decades you simply don't get it.
Blog 