As an adjunct to Mark's post, The New York Times has a detailed look at renewable energy in general and Germany in particular. But if you look more closely at the numbers, it becomes clear that "green" energy still comes with an environmental cost. Of course, it can't be any other way: there are billions of humans using trillions of kilowatt-hours of electricity: that's gonna leave a mark. On the other hand, hydroelectric, solar and wind power already cost less than coal and gas.
The following table gives more detail for power generation:
The thing to note is that Brazil and Canada lead the world in renewable power generation, and they do it with hydroelectric.
On the ideological front, conservatives love to hate renewables because they think it means caving in to namby-pamby Bambi lovers. They seem to think that using renewable energy somehow surrenders our God-given dominion over the earth.
But environmentalists hate hydroelectric power. It covers up huge areas of land, interferes with spawning fish and causes any number of other environmental problems. Huge dams can burst and kill thousands of people.
Ditto with wind power. Some environmentalists don't like wind turbines because some birds are killed flying into the blades. This is something that the fossil fuel industry loves to play up, even though the number of birds killed by wind turbines is infinitesimal compared to the billions of birds killed each year by pet cats, flying into glass buildings and oil spills.
Ditto with solar power. Some environmentalists don't like solar power because it uses so much land, and endangers some tortoise in the middle of the Mojave desert. They also don't like solar thermal power plants because the reflected sunlight scorches birds in midair.
So, conservatives need not worry that mankind will cease to assert our dominion over the earth just because we stop burning coal, oil and gas: with hydro, wind and solar we use will still make our mark on the world and run roughshod over other species. We just won't be pumping as much CO2 into the atmosphere and warming up the planet to the detriment of humanity.
On the economic front, Germany is finding is that solar power and wind power are already cheaper than coal and gas, due to improvements in technology, economies of scale and a Chinese push for cleaner energy (because of the intolerable air pollution in China).
Electric utility executives all over the world are watching nervously as technologies they once dismissed as irrelevant begin to threaten their long-established business plans. Fights are erupting across the United States over the future rules for renewable power. Many poor countries, once intent on building coal-fired power plants to bring electricity to their people, are discussing whether they might leapfrog the fossil age and build clean grids from the outset.The problem is that power companies make most of their profit during times of peak demand, when they can charge much more for power. Peak demand is usually during the day, when it's hottest. That coincides with peak energy generation from solar power.
A reckoning is at hand, and nowhere is that clearer than in Germany. Even as the country sets records nearly every month for renewable power production, the changes have devastated its utility companies, whose profits from power generation have collapsed.
In Germany, cheap solar power is already undercutting fossil fuel power generation during the most profitable time of day.
The free market is making coal and gas plants obsolete. Up till now most power utilities have been monopolies that have in turn been captives of the fossil fuel energy monopoly. But now, as the price of renewables has tumbled and governments have opened up power generation so that anyone can feed power into the grid, the utility and fossil fuel monopolies are endangered. Consumers benefit by not getting screwed for running the dishwasher at the wrong time.
In the long run, how can energy from coal, oil and gas compete? You have to pay fossil fuel energy monopolies a lot of money to dig through billions of tons of rock to extract billions of tons of oil, coal and gas, often in countries that are openly hostile to the Free World, and then ship that fuel thousands of miles at great expense and risk. Hydro, wind and solar plants get their fuel for free, right where they are. And when battery technology is improved to allow greater storage and fast charging, oil will no longer be an economical fuel for transportation.
Free markets and the dominion of mankind over the earth: for conservatives, what's not to love about renewable energy?
1 comment:
One does have to wonder where you got the idea that there are no economic arguments against expensive, unreliable "green" solar and windmills. And that because there are "no" economic arguments, that opposition is therefore based on Biblical belief. That's just too bizarre to have been pulled out of anywhere but a crazy person's asshole.
Post a Comment