Look at it this way: If the science turns out to be right and human caused GW/CC keeps on getting worse, transitioning to renewable energy may be the only thing that saves us from an environmental catastrophe. If GW/CC does not happen, we would still benefit from the wonderful economic, societal, and environmental advantages that renewable energy offers.
Some of the advantages of renewable energy:
One big advantage is that renewable energy makes economic sense. People used to think renewable energy, like wind and solar, was more expensive and not affordable. But things are changing. Electrical energy from large solar arrays and wind farms is already cheaper than coal fired and natural gas energy in many areas. And the costs of wind and solar are coming down fast, while coal and natural gas are going up as more of their hidden costs get included in the price.
Also consider that we won’t have the on-going costs of refueling wind, solar, geothermal, wave, tidal, and other renewables, the fuel is free. We would have just the relatively low costs to build and deploy equipment like solar panels and wind turbines, and then some minimal operating costs.
Renewable energy also would mean more stable future costs because of no fluctuation in fuel prices that have to be accounted for with fossil fuels.
Also know that the energy invested in building some renewable energy projects, like a wind farm, is recovered in only about 6 months, from there on it is a “plus”. The energy invested in building coal and natural gas power plants takes many years to recover, if at all.
And a recent “life cycle cost” study finds that electricity from renewable energy is much more efficient to produce. One unit of energy invested in a coal power plant construction, operation and demolition yields 9 units of electricity. One unit of energy invested in wind farms produces 44 units of electricity. And one unit of energy invested in solar farms produces 26 units of electricity.
Renewable energy would be a reliable domestic energy source far into the future. A recent study concludes there is more than enough wind energy off the east coast of the US to supply all the energy needs of all the east coast cities.
Also solar and wind farms are relatively small and dispersed. So a natural or man-made disaster at one of them would not bring the whole system down, unlike centralized fossil fueled power plants. And wind and solar farms would take up very little of food production land, just using the marginal areas or dispersed right out among the crops.
Another positive aspect of converting to renewable energy is there would be no more of the awful despoiling of the Earth from mining, mountain top removal, drilling, pipeline and coal sludge leaks, and air pollution associated with the production, transport, and burning of coal, oil, and natural gas. In contrast, renewable energy facilities can be easily dismantled, the area restored, and materials recycled, when their useful life is finished.
And then the development and deployment of new renewable energy technology would stimulate our economy, and many new solid jobs would be created from it. An older study estimated that investing in renewable energy development would yield about three times more new clean jobs than existing dirty fossil fuel jobs lost. In fact that is already happening, the study was correct.
Also consider that if fossil fuel energy sources didn’t have so much of their costs hidden, called “external costs” which are not directly paid for in the cost of the fuel, the positive economics of renewable energy would be much clearer. Some researchers say that the real cost of a gallon of gasoline is closer to $15.00, which we pay indirectly without knowing it. The hidden costs of burning gasoline, diesel, oil, coal, and natural gas come from dealing with the cleanup of oil spills and coal ash storage failures, health problems from breathing polluted air, contamination of drinking water, damage from gas pipe line explosions and oil train wrecks, wars and foreign involvement needed to keep the world’s oil flowing, guarding against terrorist attacks on the concentrated fossil fuel infrastructure, disaster preparedness, the costs of stabilizing an uncertain energy source, etc. And then there are the big disasters that are likely coming, such as the mega storms, fires, flooding, droughts, famine, and fighting that climate change will cause.
Also there is the distinct possibility of petroleum fuel shortages, which could make the price for them sky-rocket again. One line of reasoning says that as the easier-to-produce conventional petroleum is used up, it will take more and more fuel to produce new fuel from the remaining unconventional petroleum. In other words it takes some of the fuel produced from petroleum, like gasoline, diesel, and kerosene, to produce more gasoline, diesel, and kerosene. And that trend could eventually lead to the fuel producers needing a large amount of the fuel they just produced to produce more fuel. That would result in less fuel left over to run our cars, or for farm equipment, trucks, trains, or for jet fuel.
Ethanol made from corn is similar to the above. Some studies say it takes more fossil fuel energy to produce ethanol than there is energy in the produced ethanol. In contrast, easy-to-produce renewable energy sources will never run out.
Then consider that if we were using a “harmless” energy source such as renewables to allow us live a more pleasant life, we wouldn’t have to feel as guilty about it. And there would no longer be any energy limitations on our efforts to make things better.
How do we go about transitioning to renewable energy sources?
To start with we need to reduce our personal consumption of fossil energy in our daily activities. Some studies show the average carbon emissions per person in the USA has been about 20 metric tons per year. The world-wide per-person average has been about 4 metric tons. We could painlessly get our carbon emissions way down to an environmentally sustainable level, at least an 80% reduction. It is doable.
On a small scale, a few pioneers have been able to make that 80% reduction in their own households by “doing the green thing”. In my case I took it on as an interesting do-it-yourself project. I installed some solar thermal panels, enough to get hot water completely free 10 months of the year. I installed some solar PV panels to charge a small battery bank for supplemental (and backup ) power. I can run my TV, computer, refrigerator, and other small items off-grid with it if necessary. I arranged to buy my grid electrical power from wind farms. And I also use that wind generated electricity to run a heat pump to help heat my house, which I supplement with a wood pellet heater. I enrolled in a “peak time rewards” program where I get rewarded for reducing my grid power usage during high load periods.
I also got a lot more efficient with the energy I do use with energy efficient appliances and lighting, and I keep the use of them to a minimum. My small hybrid car (Toyota Prius C) can get better than 50 mpg on most trips. A plug-in hybrid car I drove for awhile was getting 80 mpg on short trips. I recently bought a low cost used electric car (Nissan Leaf) for local trips, and do most of it’s battery charging with some solar panels and inverters I rigged up. (And with the electric Leaf there are no more inconvenient stops at the stinking gas station handling a filthy nozzle, then standing in line to hand over ever more of my hard-earned money to the rich oil industry barons.)
Other things helped: I tightened up my small house, added more insulation, and installed a white metal roof on it when it needed a new one. I eat mostly simple foods, and not much meat. I minimize purchasing frivolous stuff, get a lot of “bang for the buck” from what I do buy, and recycle what I can when I’m done with it. I retired early from full time work, so no regular commutes, and now work mostly from home. I do a lot of bike riding for fun, and it keeps my weight way down for better health. I even built a 3-wheeled electric bike that does 35 mph and goes 40 miles on a charge, it would be great for commuting.
There was no loss of any quality of life from what I did by employing green technologies and strategies, in fact it got better in many ways. I can’t say if I’m saving any money or not, but that wasn’t the point. There are other ways to measure the value of something than just monetarily.
There would be a lot more needed to get a nation-wide 80% reduction than just what I did, but at least it shows that nearly anybody can do things which would help get us started down the right path. Simply changing routines to be more efficient would be helpful. Solar panels for hot water are no big deal to install in many situations by hanging a few of them on a sunny south wall, and they have a short pay-back period. Grid-tied PV solar panels are being set up on home roof-tops, car ports, and back-yards everywhere, as well as on commercial, educational, and institutional buildings.
In some states, just a few clicks at certain web sites can convert you over to wind or solar generated grid electricity (like http://www.clearviewenergy.com/ but watch out for scams ). Household size battery packs are now available to help provide grid stability. Another way utilities can reduce the gap from dark days or a lull in winds is to use “demand response,” which involves paying commercial, industrial, and even residential customers to reduce electricity demand during those hours.
For transportation, much more efficient vehicles are readily available. Going from a 20 mpg SUV or pickup truck to a 50 mpg hybrid car makes a big difference in CO2 emissions, electric powered cars for local trips even more. Bio-fuels made with clean processes are becoming available for freight and agriculture uses, and the costs are reasonable compared to fossil fuels when external costs are factored in.
On a larger scale, our attitude and awareness needs to change.
Rather than just accepting more carbon-belching fossil fuel power plant construction, we need to throw as much support as we can towards more development and deployment of renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, wave and tidal, etc. We must resist any more expansion of fossil fuel extraction and it’s transport infrastructure, and insist that capital be poured into renewable energy development.
Building up the nation-wide renewable energy system that we need will be a major endeavor however, requiring a large expansion of renewable energy collection capacity and distribution infrastructure. Of course we need to avoid letting the government pick and choose how to do it, we need to let the free market work. The government’s role is to establish goals, along with fair and effective rules for the markets to work within.
However here is a possible scenario, at least to get us started right away, as most of the technology already exists: A vast increase in the number of renewable energy collection devices like wind turbines and solar thermal and PV panels will need to be deployed in appropriate locations. Large scale energy storage systems, like pumped hydro, flow batteries, solar-thermal storage tanks, will be needed to deal with the short term variability issues of solar and wind. Load scheduling will help reduce peak demands. For the cold season, farm crops like edible beans for biomass, grown during the summer, harvested in the fall, and directly burnt during the winter would count as both energy collecting and energy storage.
Also new long distance HVDC electrical transmission lines to move the energy from where it is produced to where it is needed will be required. There are several HVDC lines already planned for the USA (but are encountering bureaucratic obstacles). Some new smaller, safer modular nuclear reactor power stations may also be needed to supplement renewable energy power and for emergencies, and should work well on the new HVDC grid. Small natural gas “peaker” plants and home generators, which can power up on short notice, will probably be needed for awhile to help get thru dark and/or calm times. Probably some petroleum fuel will still be needed for defense, industry, and emergencies, but could be tolerable if we reduce our routine use of them enough.
Renewable energy economics:
Studies show that if we start right away it is economically feasible to make the needed changes on a national scale and get enough of it in place within 25 years to be effective in mitigating GW/CC. To help get things going, in addition to what we can do ourselves, we need to get our elected representatives to create and pass legislation so the economic advantages of renewable energy would be more apparent. That should include doing away with the $20,000,000,000 a year in on-going tax advantages the fossil fuel industry gets, which would help level the playing field. Renewable fuels have had some advantages in the way of subsidies too, but unlike fossil fuels, they will soon expire. And even then their unsubsidized costs will in many cases be lower than the tax-advantaged costs of fossil fuels.
Some experts say we should also require a more direct payment of all the other hidden costs of burning fossil fuels, by putting in place a rising-rate carbon emissions tax. They say we pay to have our other wastes, like trash and sewage, be properly dealt with, so why not the carbon pollution from burning fossil fuels? The tax would address the external costs of burning fossil fuels that we pay thru other means. Some say that all the revenue from the tax should be returned directly to the tax payer, with each getting an equal amount back. That way those who reduced carbon emissions would make out, as they would pay less carbon tax than they got back in refunds, and so would start seeing a financial benefit right away. Those who didn’t reduce carbon emissions would come up short in their refunds, which would prod them to become more efficient. The carbon tax would enable and encourage natural market forces to reward efficiency and innovation.
All this would spur new economic growth right away from the development and deployment of the new clean energy systems we will be wanting sooner or later anyway. And who knows what other wonderful new things might come from it. It would be like what the space race did for us in stimulating the development of computers, satellite navigation, wire-less communications, etc.
Lets Get On With it.
Still you might think that expecting the USA to go full speed with the conversion to renewable energy and have it in place within 25 years is not likely to happen with all the obstacles in front of us. But once we start backing off on fossil fuel use, and begin to seriously deploy renewable energy, more people and financial interests will get involved when they see the value of changing how we do things. It would be a snowball effect, starting out small, but building up rapidly.
Because so much of what we do now is unsustainable anyway, things will change whether we like it or not. We need to steer the changes in a direction that we can live with, toward renewable energy. We have plenty to gain if we start right away, and nearly everything to lose if we do nothing. So let’s get on with it.
by JRB
updated 05/22/18
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