Advocates of nuclear energy, coal gasification, and other hold-your-nose-and-take-your-medicine energy alternatives frequently bully opponents by saying that there's no other way to fight global warming.
If you really cared about global warming, the rhetoric goes, you'd put your effete, nitpicky objections aside for the greater good. After all, global warming is an urgent problem, and these are the only solutions we have!
This is more or less the pro-nuke line taken by James Lovelock and Stewart Brand, and the pro-gasification line taken by Montana governor Brian Schweitzer. There are plenty of other examples.
Problem is, it's not true.
There is another vision of our energy future, one that does not require the embrace of capital-intensive, insecure, mega-industrial-scale technologies. It combines a price on carbon (a carbon tax, market, or cap-and-trade system) with efficiency, conservation, and renewable energy.
It has no official name. Amory Lovins calls it the "soft path to energy." In this paper, David Fleming calls it "lean energy" and summarizes it this way:
- A transformation in standards of energy conservation and efficiency;
- structural change to build local economic and energy systems; and
- renewable energy; all within
- a framework, such as emissions permits or tradable energy quotas (TEQs).
This vision has several advantages over our current system, which is a brittle network of massive, centralized energy producers connected up by a dumb grid. (Nuclear and gasification preserve that basic paradigm.) It is more flexible, safer, more able to degrade gracefully, and arguably more democratic.
Of course, like all alternative-energy visions, it is largely speculative. It's open to dispute whether it, or any other alternative, is realistic or sustainable.
But it exists. Never let it be said that environmentalists only say no on energy and climate change. This is our yes.
Comments
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bookerly Posted 11:33 am
15 Aug 2006
David,
I agree with you 100%. There are alternatives (scientifically) to nuclear power and more coal usage. But politicians stick with what they know. Bankers like to fund big one-loan projects. Large organizations are more capable of presenting information and selling government officials and the public.
All of these combine to make both nuclear and more coal attractive to government planners. In the earlier days of computers, there were many companies with computers that were better than IBM. But they failed. Why? If a manager had a choice, they were sold by IBM, the reason being that if you went with Big Blue, you could not be blamed if something went wrong.
If environmentalists want to sell the alternatives, we need to not only talk about them, we need to offer realistic bullet-proof business plans for implementing them to government officials.
Unless we do this, we lose. Is this fair? No. But unless we do this, we lose.
patrick
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kattmanduu Posted 3:04 pm
15 Aug 2006
sewer water to methane, hydrogen,oxygen etc to be used as commercial power generator fuel, home cooking /heating fuel and as a motor fuel in a compressed form. We could clean up rivers and make fuel at the same time, lower amounts of nuclear fuel waste produced. The nuclear fuel required for this could be salvaged from old nuclear weapons we don't really need. Not making depleted urainum ammo is a good thing too, WOW!! That a positive environmental impact or what? Same power generators could make the power needed to cook garbage to make fuel as well.
I think old Albert Einstein would aprove of that use of his technology. We could convert the old reactors the navy has from their retired subs and aircraft carriers to weapons of peace to make drinking water from seawater or even sewer water and make useable gases to replace propane and the natural gases when they run out or are imported. We don't need oil to do this. We have more garbage than we know what to do with, let's make gas from it. I was raised by my grandpa who was a Phd in engineering. He was always trying to teach me something new everyday. This would be like a nuclear powered still. Used for the benefit of all not just a select few. A Brown's Gas Generator on steroids. Is there any better idea's out there, that doesn't involve any fossil fuels, period? I am open to discussion on this. No I'm not a Phd or professor, just severely home schooled. KATT
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sunflower Posted 4:05 pm
15 Aug 2006
A global energy transition away from carbon will be a massive effort, and might cost as much as the Iraq war.
It is just idle talk. Who wants to work?
Don't carpool alone.
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bookerly Posted 9:32 pm
15 Aug 2006
Here is a link to a story about China (which hopefully Grist will pick up (smile)).
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060811/sc_afp/chinaenergyen...
The city of Shenzhen will require "all new residential buildings with fewer than 12 storeys to install solar powered water heating systems". Follow the happy link for more information.
patrick (who is glad to be back in Beijing)
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JMG Posted 1:05 am
16 Aug 2006
Utilities are not rewarded for power saved or services provided. Rather, utilities make money in two ways: (1) by "earning" a return on the capital invested in physical plant; and (2) selling power. Therefore, for a utility can make the most money by (1) building high-cost capital structures (a.k.a. nuclear power plants and big pulverized coal units), and (2) selling lots of power.
Moreover, utility executives work in a field that could easily be the most isolated bastion of male dominance of any industry--thus, we get testosterone-fueled planning rather than logic, accentuated by what Lovins called the "edifice complex." That is, utility executives are not the kinds of people who want to go to the board and say "Let's not build a $2 billion nuke or coal plant and name it after me. Instead, let's invest that same $2 billion in insulating houses and in reducing the demand for our product."
We have got to figure out a way to rework the incentives so that it's more profitable NOT to make and sell power. Until we do that, we're just chasing our tail.
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rsmith02 Posted 5:40 am
16 Aug 2006
What is stopping us from mandating that utilities have to invest in cheaper efficiency first? Rhode Island, Maine and California are going down this path.
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Amy Gregory Posted 6:35 am
16 Aug 2006
We all know about the huge tax breaks given to the oil industry. At no time has this practice been more glaringly unjust. Please take a moment and click on this link to send your representative a message saying we need a new energy plan NOW. It's time we supported clean, renewable energy and more fuel efficient cars instead of supporting the bloated wallets of ExxonMobil and BP.
Amy Gregory
GreenpeaceUSA
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bookerly Posted 11:16 am
16 Aug 2006
Dear Amy,
Thanks for the call to action! Government will respond if it hears enough voices speaking loudly. (The first goal of any politician is to secure their re-election).
Can I please suggest that hand written letters stating your case (in your own words) are the most effective? Since so few people do this any more, it makes a greater impression on politicians.
patrick
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Amy Gregory Posted 1:12 am
17 Aug 2006
We always encourage people to edit as much or all of the form letter to personalize it. Having it there enables more people to get in contact with their politicians. There are always trade offs.
That said, if you have the time to send a hand written letter, good for you. We support you.
Amy Gregory
GreenpeaceUSA
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bookerly Posted 6:41 am
17 Aug 2006
Dear Amy,
You are correct of course. Trade offs are the nut and veggie of the situation.
I do remember once calling a power company in New England because I read they were purchasing Rhodesian coal (this really dates me, I know!), and by being polite, actually getting to speak to the head of purchasing. By continuing my politeness, we had a very interesting conversation. I don't know if it had any impact or not though (LOL).
For people (not Amy) who are not involved in this sort of thing, some understanding.
It is very easy to register opinion via the internet, so Congresspeople tend to discount it somewhat. It takes more of a commitment to hand write and address a letter, so they pay more attention to those (a lot more attention).
The letter need not be perfect, it merely needs to express your feelings. Genuiness counts more than perfection and knowledge. They will turn to the experts for the latter.
One idea, is to have a letter writing house party, invite your friends and neighbors, have some light refreshments, and write your senators, congresspeople and state legislators too!!
It can actually be as much of a social evening as a political evening (which means fun!!).
patrick
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Ned Ford Posted 2:54 pm
18 Aug 2006
Whether energy intensity is a measure of efficiency is debated. One argument is that it includes export of manufacturing. We no longer burn coal to make steel, but instead buy steel from Asia. But global energy intensity has paralleled the U.S. trend almost exactly. So that argument is fragile. Dr. Skip Laitner did an analysis of 1970 vintage technology and 2000 population and found that by that measure the U.S. had achieved as much as three quarters of it's added energy capacity over the period from improvements in efficiency. Energy intensity would indicate only a little over half of all the added energy capacity, so there must be some other way to measure it.
But the absolute measure is less important than the fact that we are presently cutting almost the same amount of growth by improving efficiency as we experience in real growth of energy consumption. In other words, without efficiency our growth would be double the current rate. This means that we need merely double this rate to completely eliminate growth of CO2 emissions. Doing this would save hundreds of billions of dollars per year for the U.S., within a decade.
This is not especially hard to prove. Some states are already doing this in the electric sector. All that is needed is for more people to look at efficiency seriously enough to be able to advance these arguments consistently and clearly until the point gets across. Rising energy prices have opened the door to making this an effective approach.
I don't know if there's a size limit here, so I'll cut this off, and try to post more later. But efficiency is presently being added to the U.S. energy infrastructure at approximately 1.8% per year. All renewables combined are being added at approximately 0.3% per year, and that includes a lot of ethananol and forest products which are probably not really sustainable energy resources.
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Samantic Posted 11:00 am
19 Aug 2006
What they don't have is a bully pulpit or a lot of media coverage. Would someone take them up on all the good thinking they've been doing and go national with it already? Or rather not do what happened to the Center for Appropriate Technology, which was to have it become an invisible piece of the machine.
How does one go global with "localism"? We need a champion.
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bookerly Posted 5:00 pm
19 Aug 2006
It is certainly true that Americans could afford to make the switch to local power without destroying everything. But, just using "local" power does not automatically stopping global warming.
I have a fear that if America did switch, it would consider it's job done, and feel no responsiblity for the poorer parts of the world.
What will happen to them if gobal warming makes their lives miserable and they are too poor to help themselves?
patrick
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