Millstone’s Recent Comments

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  What we need is more distortion . . .

  Good discussion, one thing I'm really wondering about ( and am going to look into ) is how the potential for efficiency varies across electricity consuming sectors.

  Generally I'm most familiar with the potential for residential improvement but have certainly read a good but about industrial consumers as well. Commercial improvements I'm less familiar with, but I know potential was there.

  Anyhow I see a number of problems with getting private capital involved in pursuing EE projects:

  1. As you mentioned earlier, the private company doesn't capture any of the long term benefits of their work. I can imagine a scenario in which the potential for profit seriously declines after taking care of the biggest players.

  2. Buildings have a much longer lifespan than cars, so thankfully they can be retro-fitted; however, there isn't much incentive to pursue serious EE imporvements if you can't wait out the long ROI. I'm not sure but I would bet there is an invserse relationship between amounts of energy consumed and average time spent in a building.

  3. Electricity still too cheap.

  For residential I imagine we could see demand for EE increase if building codes were strengthened and people could see the tangible benefits of improved EE around them. In particular I feel like many of the dwellings used as poster children for EE are simply not aesthetically pleasing to most people, which I suppose is a result of #3 whereby as cost increases concerns about aesthetics will fall.

  Really I think it boils down to cost and as you mention about the steel technology, the ROIs are getting shorter and shorter.

  As for the sexiness factor, I think it is inspired by all of the things mentioned so far. It has kind of school marm vibe going on, finger wagging, concerned looks and this on top of the sort of elitist attitude of "OMG you aren't using CFLs, you must use CFLs!"On Efficienciezzz ... posted 1 year, 3 months ago 23 Responses

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  Benefits

  I agree that people will most likely refrain from doing "more" to combat climate change until the threats from it become more tangible.

  I would also agree that there isn't a benefit from putting more GHGs into the atmosphere; however, there are a number of clear benefits to the combustion processes that put them there. To me that is kind of like saying "the smoke from this fire isn't good" when it is the only thing keeping you warm. Not exactly the same, I realize, but without ICEs and coal etc. we wouldn't be on the internet having this discussion.

  By the same coin, while burning fossil fuels costs money it also generates money.

  On the other hand I completely agree with you that the focus for the near terms needs to be on the profitable and easy solutions, the cliched low hanging fruit. I think the problem you run into there is a lot of the easy solutions are not at all "sexy", like grandiose visions of advanced solar, hyrdogen economies and others are.

  Energy efficiency (which I think you must be referencing as major part of your half) is decidedly square which is why I doubt you will see it used in greenwashing campaigns anytime soon. But we all know how much companies love touting their REC purchases.On Is tackling climate change contrary to human nature? posted 1 year, 3 months ago 6 Responses

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  Interesting discussion

  I spend a lot of my time trying to think of ways to keep things rolling without having to make people sacrifice much, so I think I'm on the other side of this but . . .

  So far I am being reminded of watching Soylent Green the other week, and not in a good way :) Which by the way made me curious about what kind of impact installing one of those electricity generating exercise bikes in every home/apartment would have.

  I appreciate the impact that conservation and sacrifice could have as tools to fight climate change but my belief is that they are not really going to be available until the stakes are much higher. Asking people to "turn back the clock" is difficult unless they feel that the wolf is at the door (eg WWII) or they are over a barrel (eg 70s OPEC).

  I think we are certainly approaching (if not there already) to having a general feeling of being over a barrel in regards to oil. So we're already seeing some people to turn to #1 in the sacrifice list. I think where you would run into trouble is getting the people who can afford to drive as much as they want to stop.

  With electricity I feel like we have a much longer time frame before, for example power outages, would really be acceptable to people in the U.S. I honestly feel if that was tried right now there would be riots in the streets. But we'll get there, hopefully not to power outages, but to sensible and responsible use.

  Now as far as the danger motivation goes, that to me is much farther off. But once the world has a taste of what the more severe consequences of climate change are going to be like, we'll likely see a lot of "climate gardens". On Low doses of radiation can cause harm; coal plants worse than nuclear plants posted 1 year, 3 months ago 67 Responses

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  It is losing jobs somewhat faster.

  A quick check of at the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that from 1990-2007 the manufacturing jobs sector looked like this (in thousands of jobs):

  US: 17,695 down to 13,884 or about 79% of 1990 jobs retained.

  CA: 1,937 down to 1,452 or about 75% of 1990 jobs retained.

  If the US as a whole retained the same percentage as California we would have lost another 411,000 manufacturing jobs.

  You make a good point about Silicon Valley but I would argue that it is more evidence of the uniqueness of CA's situation. Just like their fairly desirable renewable energy profile CA is now home to some unique industries like Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

  I am also left to wonder how much of an impact simply being subject to the brown-outs as a result of the Enron fiascoe had?

  I'm not sure this is quanitified but anyone who has a parent or grandparent who grew up either during the depression or one of the WWs knows them to typically be more frugal than the latter generations.

  But that doesn't mean I think we all need to experience a few years of brown-outs although if we don't build anymore coal, natural gas or nuclear power plants I bet thats what we'll get.On Energy efficiency, part 4 posted 1 year, 3 months ago 9 Responses

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  Well I think one thing is for sure . . .

  I suppose CA doesn't really need these natural gas plants after all. If supply is as tight as it is made out to be, it is no wonder people are using less, they are getting clubbed over the head with prices.

  You are likely justified in extolling the benefits of the energy efficiency programs specifically. But as David Bradish has posted above me and I have posted in your last few posts about CA, there is a lot more at work here than just effective EE policy.

  Following CA on EE might be a good idea, but unless you want to sell people on electricity price increases that will go far beyond what is already expected, I don't think their energy policy is on the whole that fantastic. Nor even feasible for many parts of the country, see renewable energy resource maps for a clue why.On Energy efficiency, part 4 posted 1 year, 3 months ago 9 Responses