So, how about the push to generate renewable energy where possible and transport it where needed, like generating solar (PV or thermal) in the SW and wind in the central states?

Would a local system really work for NYC as it exists today, even operating efficiently?

of a problem, there is only one striking at the root." (--somebody smart)

Thank you Tom & Sean and Co. for continuing to strike at the roots of some of the most pernicious problems we have.  

I used to work for a public utility commission -- I used to tell as many people as possible "Look, we're going to make the utility bastards rich one way or another.  Why don't we make them rich for doing the right thing rather than for helping destroy the world?"

Like the insurance industry that has devolved into a health care financing racket (as in RICO), utilities sit athwart progress and would rather count their high ROI profits while the world burns than they would do anything that takes them out of their comfort zone.

Save your community: Cut greenhouse gas emissions 5% per year.

Thanks so much, Sean, for writing this.  I have been frantically shouting these things for the past year, and find myself on opposite sides from Sierra Club and NRDC, among others, when I keep insisting that gigantic, wilderness-killing "solar farms" are an enormously and needlessly destructive way to manage global warming, and that local, renewable energy (combined with comfortable conservation like passive solar and high-tech efficiency) should be the initial 85% of the equation.  After that, we can see where we stand and if we need to kill a million acres of pristine desert habitat to keep McMansions fully consuming at maximum utility profit marginal rates.  Why are these Big Enviros totally selling out our ecosystems to "save" our ecosystems?

By saying in your comment, above,000000000000000000 that "utilities aren't the problem, regulations are," you miss the critical point that utilities own and operate our government.  Big Energy lobbyists actually write our legislation, including the insanely destructive ripoff of the 2005 Energy Policy Act (helloooo Enron!), which is perpetrating this massive, massive destruction of private homes, public lands and wilderness to heavily re-centralize our grid, right when it is necessary and finally possible to almost entirely de-centralize it!

We need to speak with one voice about capital financing for residential/commercial solar/wind systems (CA is experimenting with low-interest municipal loans paid back through the propty tax system, but it is all voluntary for cities); about 100% buyback programs (ditto for CA but AB 1920 is silent as to utilities being required to pay us "peaker" rates); and all the other guarantees, incentives and subsidies that Big Energy is taking our of our pockets.  All that money should be diverted back to LOCAL, RENEWABLE SOLUTIONS ON PREVIOUSLY DEVELOPED LAND.  

There is already an enormous grid infrastructure in place, as noted, and an enormous amount of developed land in "prime solar resources" (ditto with wind).  By generating at point of use, plus significant excess, we greatly reduce the load on those wires and can afford then to feed excess to that grid for harder regions/structures.  Use our Mars Rover and cellphone technology people to improve our efficiency/conservation/generation capacities, and we are set.

As noted above, much of the problem is the press.   They REFUSE to write coherently about the issue, and instead try to paint those of us on the right track as loony malcontents.  It is so frustrating!

So, thanks again for raising this, and please KEEP TALKING ABOUT IT, and take as much political action as you can.  Lots of letters, calls, and lobbying from US will put pressure on legislators to do the right thing or be publicly embarrassed then voted out for selling out to utilities (including municipal utilities like LADWP, one of the most rapacious of them all!).

the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.

Solar energy comes from a transmitter -- 93 million miles away.

Hydrocarbon energy comes from miles inside the earth.

Wind energy can be local but most often it's on a farm -- miles away.

Water -- miles away.

J. Bailo Participant Texeme.Construct()

It IS about fuel Sean.

And turning to a distributed generation/storage grid.

The cleanest backup fuel for the grid?  Biogas, second is natural gas.  And both of these fuels are easily stored and distributed, on already existing gas pipelines.  Biogas is more easily and efficiently generated in a distributed manner.  Less transportation of farm waste and biomass, and the organic fertilizer byproduct.

Distributed generation of this type using solid oxide fuel cell/turbines is 70% efficient.  And nearly all the remaining 30% can be used as cogenerated heat.

This mode of backup allows the rest of the grid load to be met completly by fuel-less GHG free renewables, wind, solar, water.

So how could laws be changed to enable a smart grid to accept and manage these power sources, and use storage to minimize energy use?

How could subsidies be distributed to make this happen as quickly as possible?

I worry that cogeneration projects added onto coal or nukes will be an excuse to continue using these sources, until the payback for the projects is reached.  Smart coal and nuke operators would cooperate with your company to divert attention from alternatives like a renewable distributed smart grid and storage/conservation.

When the more reactionary utility operators see the beauty of cooperation with cogeneration efforts, diverting renewable energy revoltion, and bribe politicians to pass lobbyist written laws; it might just tend to hurt renwable energy rather than help.

Then there are the more progressive utilities like Xcel (1000 home smart grid building in Colorado, extensive wind farms, and even utility scale battery wind power storage)and Wisconsin Electric (voluntarily paying 23 cents per kwh to solar panel owning customers for their power sold back into the grid).  Maybe these utilities should be the ones that green politicians listen too?

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I beg to differ - it's all about efficiency.  Even renewables aren't infinite, and it's in our interest to use all of them efficiently.

Re: biogas and SOFCs, they are certainly options, and we need every horse in the race.  SOFCs at 70% are perpetually 5 years from commercialization, but it is a neat technology.  The more important thing to note is that you can hit over 80% efficiency with plain old vanilla cogen using much cheaper and more robust technology.  Which isn't to say that new tech doesn't have it's place, but simply that we shouldn't presume that we need to wait for technology to act (or, conversely, that if we had a better mousetrap, the world would beat a path - after all, the same barriers that apply to cogen will apply to SOFC).

Final point: you really can't do any kind of cost effective cogen on an existing central power plant.  They're too big, and too remote.  Consider: a 500 MW coal plant (which, in the grand scheme of things, is on the small side for central coal) uses about 3.5 million pounds of steam an hour.  If I converted that into a cogen plant, I'd have to find someone who could use that much steam.  For perspective, the entire NYC steam loop peaks at about 2.5 million in the middle of winter (and that is, after Paris France, the second biggest district steam system in the world.)  Thus, you just don't have big enough thermal loads to convert those central stations into very significant cogen players (although, to be sure, every point of efficiency we can squeeze out of those beasts is to our net benefit.)  But then there's also the remoteness.  Big coal and nuclear plants tend to be built where the people aren't, for rather obvious reasons.  And you can't run steam pipe very far.

Bottom line is that in a rational world, those plants wouldn't have been built that big, in that location.  Moving to a local system could potentially strand those assets and leave their owners losing a lot of money.  To which I say "welcome to competitive market discipline".  (I dream, of course.)

I'm not suggesting any mandates at all (I'm far too much of a free-market-o-phile for that!).  I'm simply suggesting that we remove the regulations that drive capital towards suboptimal energy assets, and away from cleaner, cheaper options.  If an industrial is then willing to put their capital at risk to build the project, that's wonderful.  If they're not, someone like our company will.  But in all cases, by fixing the regulations we will find that the economic proposition for all local energy investments are better than the presently are (and proportionally worse for the central stuff).  Capital will then flow, without any mandate.