From Stark
State Rep. Jeff Morris has never been one to shy away from the nuts and bolts of any complex issue, especially where energy policy is concerned.
In fact, in an age of bumper-sticker rhetoric, Morris seems to enjoy delving into the complexity of an issue.
Here’s Morris, via YouTube, explaining why we must build energy storage systems if we’re serious about increasing reliance on renewable energy sources such as wind, hydro, and solar. The electricity output from all those renewable sources naturally fluctuates, he says. That means we need storage systems to maintain the power supply.
How’s the ” smart grid ” coming ? Isn’t that the most necessary piece of the puzzle?
With all the public and private players involved, I wonder if we need some new laws to make it happen.
Let’s build more batteries!
That’s the solution to the energy problem, for sure!
If it’s really a good idea, private investors will fund it.
It’s not a good idea, so representative Morris has to jawbone for it.
This is a perfect example of the death of common sense.
Representative Morris might consider reading a little Bastiat, in order to familiarize himself with the concept of the seen and the unseen.
There is some buzz about a revolution in battery storage that could extend the mileage between charging up to 300 miles. Morris is on the right track when he focuses on storage BUT a system that depends on sophisticated software and engineering to move between systems as well as between units in each system is realistically beyond the capacities of people who think DOS and Windows were good ideas.
Anyone who doesn’t START with reducing car usage is not serious.
American Superconductor has solutions for energy storage.
Also, energy from sources that fluctuate can be used to create hydrogen from water by electrolysis. Then the hydrogen is the stored energy and is transportable.
Another idea was created by CalTech students. They created a device that uses sunlight and cerium oxide and carbon dioxide to make synfuel. The synfuel can be stored and transported. When the synfuel is burned for energy, the carbon dioxide can be captured and later reused in the cerium oxide device to create synfuel again.
Lowell has shown that the battery is the least likely medium for renewable energy storage.
I guess common sense is really yesterday’s idea of common.
Did you take the time to watch this two-minute video? He’s not necessarily talking about batteries.
His handwriting is almost as bad as mine!
An interesting related article:
“First, petroleum accounts for only one percent of electric generation in this country. Coal is responsible for 45% of our electricity, while natural gas is second, at 23%. Because natural gas burns so much cleaner than coal, and because, due to fracking, the known reserves in the U.S. have skyrocketed while the price has gone down, natural gas is accounting for an increasing share of new electric generation.
As for renewable electric generation, I know literally dozens of engineers who have spent their entire careers in the power generation business, and almost to a man (or woman), they do not believe in solar or wind generation. Oh, they believe that alt fuels are necessary, but in niche applications, such as where the grid is miles away.
But even if solar panels and windmills cost nothing and had 100% efficiency, there is a bigger problem with alt generation: the grid is not a storage system, but a distribution system….
..I want to believe in alt power, because sun and wind are free — just as petroleum is free. It’s only the extraction and distribution that cost.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/alt_power_gestalt.html#ixzz1nz1XjW4C
Blind faith can disallows reason, don’t ya know!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
BTW what is driving this debate anyway, Global warming; right?
So here’s a good question:
“If the theory of man-made global warming were such a self-obvious truth, the result of scientific consensus, then why do advocates for this idea keep committing frauds to advance it? Even more disturbing, why are some writers willing to defend this behavior?
The latest embarrassment for global-warming activists came on Feb. 20 after Peter Gleick, founder of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security in Oakland, admitted that he committed fraud to obtain documents he thought would embarrass a conservative think tank that has been a leading debunker of some of the overheated claims of the climate-change Chicken Littles….
http://reason.com/archives/2012/03/02/saving-the-earth-one-fraud-at-a-time
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
One of the points you are making is exactly what Morris says in the video: Renewables won’t work without storage.
I agree John that they won’t, but isn’t the larger question, will they even work with storage? Are they cost effective; period?
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
“Getting a lead balloon aloft is difficult even with billions in federal subsidies…
…the renewable power industry has become addicted to federal subsidies and probably can’t stand on its own without them. Last year alone, these tax breaks cost the Treasury $7 billion. For every megawatt of electricity produced by solar, the subsidy amounted to $776. For wind, it was $56.
At present, about 76 percent of all energy tax breaks go to renewables, even though they account for less than 5 percent of electric power generation, excluding hydropower. Green energy advocates justify these large and growing subsidies by making comparisons with current and past tax breaks for oil and gas. But they fail to mention that the tax incentives for fossil fuels amount to a mere 64 cents per megawatt….
Renewables have their place, and perhaps at some time in the future they’ll be able to stand the market test. But they don’t obviate the need for reliable, uninterruptible power….
http://reason.com/blog/2011/11/02/getting-a-lead-balloon-aloft-i
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
I agree that these are valid questions–but the cost equation is going to change over time, based on supply of and demand for fossil fuels. Is it really so wrong to use subsidies to help develop alternative technologies now? Or should we just wait until oil and gas supplies start to run short, prices skyrocket, and the economy we rely on today starts to slip off its foundation?
John do we sacrifice today for a hypothetical in the future?
We need to have cheap energy today if we want to be competitive in the world, we need to use our resources today in way that does not penalize efficiency. We can plan for the future without sacrificing what works for something that does not.
Throwing away our economic resources on a failed course is killing jobs and wasting what we don’t have.
I support alternate energy but not by turning our backs (and we are doing that BTW i.e. shale, keystone, etc) on what is efficient & viable today.
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
“Some 8,000 people die in the UK every year due to what is being called “fuel poverty” or, more simply, when it costs too much to heat your home. Naturally the left is already on the case, staging “die-ins” outside energy companies and demanding that carbon credits be used to make homes “super-energy efficient.”
Left out of the equation is that rising fuel prices can in no small part be attributed to the environmental mania which is at the heart of the movement. It isn’t oil and gas companies that are killing the elderly with high fuel prices. It’s carbon mania and environmentalism. Energy companies are not run by saints, but they don’t have an interest in putting oil and gas prices out of reach of ordinary people. It’s hard to sell home heat to the dead or the destitute. On the other hand environmentalists do indeed have that agenda…..
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/03/02/dying-to-be-green/
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Is this what is best for the US today?
“Energy Secretary Steven Chu yesterday admitted the Department of Energy (DOE) has no intentions of working to lower gas prices in the United States…
“somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”
Continue reading on Examiner.com Energy Secretary Steven Chu says Obama wants to keep gas prices high – Detroit Political Buzz | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-detroit/energy-secretary-steven-chu-says-obama-wants-to-keep-gas-prices-high#ixzz1nzvWu7SU
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Is this what is best? I have no idea. Do you think it is best to keep gas prices low to encourage maximum consumption of petroleum, until we run out? Do you think oil supplies are infinite? If not, when will they run out? How long should we wait to start making the adjustment.
It seems to me that liberals are often blind to the evils of deficit spending. Conservatives are often blind to what I call “deficit consumption…” using up a resource at unsustainable levels.
I am not against alternate energy and it’s development by no means especially today when that is about the only thing in greenfield energy construction that is going on however I really do have a problem with turning our backs on the following mainly because those that govern us have way too dark of green lenses that they view their world through:
“America’s oil shale reserves are enormous, totaling at least 1.5 trillion barrels of oil. That’s five times the reserves of Saudi Arabia!
But what if we could safely and economically get our hands on all that oil? Imagine how the world might change. The U.S. would instantly have the world’s largest oil reserves. Imagine…having so much oil we’d never have to worry about Saudi Arabia again, or Hugo Chavez, or the mullahs in Tehran. And instead of ships lined up in L.A.’s port to unload cheap Chinese goods, we might see oil tankers lined up waiting to export America’s tremendous oil bounty to the rest of the world. The entire geopolitical and economic map of the world would change…and the companies in the vanguard of oil shale development might make hundreds of billions of dollars as they convert America’s untapped shale reserves into a brand new energy revolution….
Read more: Oil Shale Reserves http://dailyreckoning.com/oil-shale-reserves/#ixzz1o05701F9
BTW you can be a conservative and strive to live off the grid as much as the next guy, don’t ya know!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
High energy prices will make those who can least afford it (i.e. elderly, low income, etc) suffer the most and we should as a country want our energy cost to be as low as possible.
We should also want to develop new energy resousres for the future but not at the expense of placing a burden on those who can least afford it.
We do need to find the truth about energy but truth is had to find when government says there is only one truth/way can be found.
“The word ‘truth’ itself ceases to have its old meaning. It describes no longer something to be found, with the individual conscience as the sole arbiter of whether in any particular instance the evidence (or the standing of those proclaiming it) warrants a belief; it becomes something to be laid down by authority, something which has to believed in the interest of unity of the organized effort and which may have to be altered as the exigencies of this organized effort require it.”
― Friedrich A. von Hayek
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Uh oh didn’t use the spell check:
High energy prices will make those who can least afford it (i.e. elderly, low income, etc) suffer the most and we should as a country want our energy cost to be as low as possible.
We should also want to develop new energy recourses for the future but not at the expense of placing a burden on those who can least afford it.
We do need to find the truth about energy but truth is hard to find when government says there is only one truth/way can be found.
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Time to call it a day:
“Resources”
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
“Did you take the time to watch this two-minute video? He’s not necessarily talking about batteries.”
I did.
If you define “battery” as a method of storing energy, he is.
Morris is arguing for finding ways to deal with the mostly unpredictably cyclical nature of most “alternative” methods of “energy” generation, ways that involve inefficiencies and deadweight losses of their own. I’m saying that the private sector will find those solutions without any help from Rep. Morris, at least until government subsidies for those ridiculously inefficient methods of generating power are eliminated by a rational administration, at which time the whole industry will collapse, as it should.
The inefficiencies and high costs of “alternative energy sources”, together with the inefficiency (call it “friction”, because that’s part of it.) of his strategies for dealing with those inefficiencies and high costs, are all part of Bastiat’s “unseen”.
Richard Heinberg pointed out a long time ago that development of solar, wind, tidal, ocean thermal, and all the rest require fossil fuels. The same is true for storage. I do not expect a Herald reporter to give other people credit for original ideas. Nor do I expect a Herald reporter to give credit to posters who actually understand the issues.
Matt Ridley says it well: The beginning of the end of wind”
“To the nearest whole number, the percentage of the world’s energy that comes from wind turbines today is: zero. Despite the regressive subsidy (pushing pensioners into fuel poverty while improving the wine cellars of grand estates), despite tearing rural communities apart, killing jobs, despoiling views, erecting pylons, felling forests, killing bats and eagles, causing industrial accidents, clogging motorways, polluting lakes in Inner Mongolia with the toxic and radioactive tailings from refining neodymium, a ton of which is in the average turbine — despite all this, the total energy generated each day by wind has yet to reach half a per cent worldwide…”
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/beginning-end-wind?
No batteries required: Hyperion Power Generation
Press Release
Hyperion Power Generation Inc. Plans to Deploy an Advanced Hyperion Reactor at the DOE Savannah River Site
DOE Savannah River Site agreement establishes the next steps toward deployment
DENVER, CO March 5, 2012 – Hyperion Power Generation Inc. (HPG), the Department of Energy – Savannah River (DOE-SR), and Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) have announced their commitment to deploy a privately-funded first-of-a-kind Hyperion reactor at the DOE Savannah River Site.
“This is an important value-creating event for the company,” said Hyperion Power Generation’s CEO, Bob Prince, “Securing a first site is a key contributor toward our continued forward progress.” Prince also stated “The Savannah River Site and the Southeast region have the skilled workforce and an optimal site to support the next generation of advanced nuclear power technology.”
“We have a unique combination of nuclear knowledge and laboratory expertise, infrastructure, location and much more to make the Site a natural fit for advancing the small modular reactor technology,” said Dr. Dave Moody, DOE-SR Manager. “I am extremely pleased to announce this exciting and promising new initiative for Savannah River Site.”
The recent DOE announcement of the partnership is based on an executed Memorandum of Agreement between the parties that establishes next steps towards deployment. These steps include working toward target dates for Land Use, Site Services, and Technical Assistance agreements, with licensing to be accomplished under the authority of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
“It is important that we achieve NRC licensing to provide worldwide confidence in the technology and design of our advanced Generation 4 reactor” said Dave Carlson, COO and Chief Nuclear Officer with HPG.
Hyperion Power Generation Inc., based in Denver, Colorado, was founded in 2007, and is working with Los Alamos National Laboratory to design a nuclear reactor referred to as the Hyperion Power Module (HPM). The HPM is designed to power remote mining or oil and gas operations, large government complexes, and isolated or remote communities and islands. The HPM design intent is to produce 25 megawatts (MW) electric and to use uranium nitride fuel and lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) coolant. The reactor vessel is to be sealed at the factory, sited underground, and replaced with a new module after a designed core life of ten years. The reactor vessel, including internals, will be transportable by truck, ship, and rail. The HPM will provide safe and reliable power that is available 24/7, emitting no greenhouse gasses, and operate without on-site refueling.
Note: Ordinarily, I don’t do long cut-and-paste, but I couldn’t see a logical edit for this piece.
One can very easily argue that the private sector will NOT develop solutions to our energy production or storage problems, without government involvement. Indeed, the slavish devotion and uncritical homage conservatives pay overly simplistic notions about the omnipotence of free markets and the innovative capacities of the private sector are really quite misguided and unsubstantiated.
In fact, the idea that the private sector has ever solved ANY of our energy production and storage problems, without government subsidy, involvement, or assistance, is patently erroneous. Here are three handy examples:
The largest “battery” in the state (Banks Lake) and the largest hydroelectric project, Grand Coulee Dam, are both government projects initiated by the Roosevelt administration after the private sector nearly destroyed the banking sector and, along with it, our entire economy.
Large U.S. oil companies have been receiving billions of dollars in tax-payer subsidies, low tax rates, and inexpensive access to federal lands for many, many years now.
The HPM project Dave mentions above was made possible with R&D support, special licensing provisions, and technical assistance from a host of federal agencies, including the DOE, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Savannah River National Laboratory.
We can’t expect the private sector to solve matters of national importance without very substantial government leadership and involvement. Only ideologues would espouse such nonsense.
“In free-market economies, decisions about whether to invest in a technology or an industry are made by market actors with private capital. The promise of profit induces investment in promising ventures and the sting of loss penalizes those investments that turn out to be misguided. Of course, we live in a mixed economy in which government frequently assumes tasks that were once left to private individuals and corporations. Whether the government should invest in green energy suggests two questions. Are major green energy investments worthwhile in the first place?
….If green energy is commercially promising, then profit-hungry capitalists will make those investments. If it isn’t, no amount of government subsidy will turn those economic sows’ ears into wealth-creating silk purses.
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/its-private-sector-invest-new-technology
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
I see that Todd2 hasn’t changed.
Senator Lamar Alexander On Ending Wasteful Energy Subsidies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7jFl37vaPw&list=UU5bEfSFTYQVfLCwkhBt8NtQ&feature=plcp
Federal Financial Support For The Development And Production Of Fuels And Energy Technologies
http://cbo.gov/publication/43032