----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Pensinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2001 12:09 AM
Subject: Re: Europe, the US, and Environmentalism
>
> But why does it surprise you that we could save that much?
Because, when the price of oil went up by about a factor of 4 in real
dollars (IIRC) in the '70s and early '80s, the use of energy only slowed its
growth. A 11% drop without a significant increase in price was hard to
understand. But, I did a bit more research and found that there was about
15 GW offline in April compared to the usual 3 GW (May's data were not in.)
Combining this with the reduction of supply from the Northwest resulted in a
decrease in the total supply. BTW, I checked LAX's weather for May of this
year and last and found that the average temperature for this year was
actually cooler than last.
>It wouldn't surprise me at all if, with a concerted effort over a year or
two, we saved
> twice as much as that on a regular basis.
Well, historically, voluntary efforts don't amount to much...outside of
wartime. If people don't cut their energy use when prices go up, why should
we expect them to do it when prices stay close to the same. Now, I've heard
that some rate increase has been allowed, so that should help with
conservation, but it would take about 2x for much to happen.
Also, you have to realize that less than half of electricity use is
domestic. Indeed, the dot.com fallout may also have contributed to a
lessening of demand. But, we cannot count on a dip in the economy for
energy conservation, because we do
I'll take your word for it that our
> society is more energy intensive than that of Europe, but twice as
intensive?
Per GDP, we use about 40% more energy. It is built into a lot of things
that we do. Part of it is the fact that energy production is more energy
intensive than other industries. Part of it is the energy intensity of our
other businesses. Part of it is the layout of our cities. Part of it is
the type of appliances we own.
These things can be changed over time, but not overnight.
> I think it's that we are much more wasteful, and the evidence is
everywhere
> you look from the lights blazing in every room of some houses, to the
stores
> and homes chilled to a comfortable 70� F when the temp outside is nearly
half
> again that, to the computers and TVs left on constantly, to the empty SUVs
> crowding our freeways.
Well, one should ask the question why? Part if it is that energy costs more
in Europe. The cost of keeping lights on in my house is trivial compared to
the cost of everything else. When a mortgage on a small house in California
is $2000/month, an extra $10.00/month on the electricity bill doesn't seem
like a lot.
Part of it is also the fact that the US is a lot more spread out than
European countries. Another part is that the US climate is not as even as
Europe's. In London, for example, 90 degree (about 32C) weather and 0
degree weather (about -17C) are very rare. In much of the US, they are a
regular occurrence. When I was in Holland, the 90 degree weather was rare,
as is prolonged snows.
And, part of it may be the fact that the US is a much more individualistic
country, and people feel that others have a right to spend their money as
they wish. Given all that, I don't see how a voluntary conservation program
is going to make a huge difference. Now that natural gas prices have fallen
like a rock, and once power generation stations get on line, we should see
usage increase again.
>Now I expect that the U.S. Americans on this
> list are more conscientious than most, but I wouldn't brand ourselves as
> typical. In general we are very wasteful and for us to cut back a bit
> wouldn't hurt us a bit.
>
Do you actually expect that, if the price of use remains low and easily
affordable, that we will change our habits because its a good idea?
>
> That _is_ a cynical attitude, and I don't agree with it in the least.
OK, let's look at the facts. At
http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/index.html#numbers
we have some numbers on electricity usage. In 1999, California used
approximately 275 Terawatt hours of electricity. Assuming per capita usage
is constant, that will probably result in about 300 Terawatt hours in 2010.
Also, from my estimates, electricity is about one third of total California
use. Since electricity is the major recyclable source, let's concentrate on
that. There has been an initiative in '96 to put renewable energy on the
grid, with funding auctions in '98 and '00. As of July '01, there will be
a new capacity of about 220 MW. Using a slightly optimistic duty cycle,
that's about 1.2 Terawatt hours. Another 500 MW are supposed to come on line
by the end of this year. Personally, I'd guess this would be spread out a
bit more. Finally, another 170 will be on line over a span of time running
to Dec 03.
So, overall, there is about 4.5 Terawatt hours on line over about 6 years.
Allowing for new initiatives and staggered phase in, let us allocate 4 years
to things coming on line. Extrapolating, we'll get about 11 Terawatt hours
on line in 10 years.
We'll need, however, about 100 to be another 10%. Plus, hydro does not seem
to be increasing, so its probably a bit more. We're off by about a factor
of 5.
To put it simply, 30% of California's electricity will have to come from
solar, geothermal, wind and biomass, while we would expect only
>Many of the people on this list have argued that we are a "great" country.
In 1961
> our national leader set a (~) ten year goal that was absolutely out of
this
> world. We beat it by a year.
Sigh, the old "if we could go to the moon, why can't we?" really gets to me.
I'll try to calmly explain why.
1) The technology for the rockets was already known. It just had to be
scaled up. Many many engineering challenges had to be met over a span of 8
years, but it was a doable problem in '61.
2) The moon program was done on a "cost plus" basis. Money was not an
object. 5.3% of the federal budget was spent in '65 on NASA, with the bulk
of this going to the moon program.
(see http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/Apollomon/Apollo.html)
3) Only 6 flights to the moon were made.
Contrast this with the fundamental problems involving renewable energy.
With billions being spent on it, there still seems to be no evidence of
being on the steep part of the technology curve. Technology is not magic,
those of us in science and engineering tend to try out best, but some
problems are extremely hard and cannot be solved by willing the technology
to work.
> If someone were to tell us that all the oil would be gone by 2010, do you
think that >the lights would go out that year?
Just oil, or coal, natural gas and nuclear too. It would be a shock, but we
probably could survive the switch to those powers with just a strong
recession as the result. If we had to count on renewable energy for
worldwide energy in 10 years, I'd guess that we'd have a long term world
wide depression that would make the Great Depression look simple.
Out of curiosity, do you think that there is a reasonably priced source of
renewable energy that is being hidden? Do you think that the engineers and
scientists are just not trying? It sounds to me that this is wishful
thinking engineering. If it isn't, I'd appreciate being shown how.
Dan M.
I
> don't.
>
> Doug
>
>
