Dear Martin, It is good to bring up a discussion on energy. Personally I would stress a lot more the need to reduce our dependency on energy in general and not only from fossil fuels (very urgent) and use "renewables" only to help us in that transition. As you mention, it is also important to assess the true sustainability of what nowadays is proposed as "renewable". I can not consider dams or most of the current biofuels being a sustainable solution. Something similar goes for photovoltaic cells. Forgetting for a moment about greed and lobbying, even if gas and oil companies would have the unlikely will or must to do a one to one energy match I can only imagine the amount of solar panels and wind turbines that would take to satisfy the current consumption trend. We will probably soon run in a "peak" situation of some mineral availability not to mention the mining activity needed to get the material to build them. Maybe the one to one energy match you suggest would be better done by planting trees or better, forests. Photosynthesis seems so far the most efficient mechanism for converting solar energy in a "valuable" form and technology might not find a better way then that obtained through billions of year of evolution. Forests offers all sorts of valuable type of resources and "services" (habitat, CO2 sink, food, fertilization, fuel, building material, beauty, leisure, climate regulation, water filtration) beside their intrinsic value, and they are truly sustainable and self maintaining. As far as how to bring these ideas to attention or practice you might try to join in this effort folks at the Post-Carbon Institute (http://www.postcarbon.org/reader/) for example or maybe start getting into the world of permaculture design approaches. There's also a lot we could start doing as individuals and communities (bottom-up approach): tools and knowledge are already available, we just need to commit to the shift. Kind regards Francesca
________________________________ From: Martin Meiss <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, August 24, 2012 7:27 PM Subject: [ECOLOG-L] An idea for energy policy Hello, ecologgers, I recently had an idea which is surely not new, but which I have not heard in the national discussion of US energy policy. Most of us would agree that it is important to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, which means that we must develop alternative, preferably renewable, energy sources and reduce energy consumption. Here is my suggestion for achieving this: Insofar as the federal and state governments control gas and oil drilling and coal mining activities (by granting of licenses, etc.) they should require the operator to simultaneously develop an equivalent amount of renewable energy or demonstrate programs to reduce consumption by an equivalent amount. Thus, if a company wanted to drill on government-controlled land (or offshore) and the well was projected to deliver X amount of energy over its lifetime, the company must also develop X units of energy from renewable sources (wind, solar, tidal, ocean waves, etc.). If the well turns out to yield more energy than projected, its production would be shut down until the company increased the amount of alternative production or conservation. If strict one-for-one matching of renewable energy is not practical (as the gas and oil companies would certainly claim), then some acceptable ratio could be negotiated. I realize that there are some problems with this approach, but I think they have solutions. For instance, most fossil energy companies probably lack expertise in alternative energy production. They could address this by partnering with companies that do have the expertise, or in the early stages of the program, companies could meet their requirement to produce renewable energy by investment in research on conservation or how to develop renewable energy sources. I also realize renewable energy sources also have negative environmental impact (e.g., windmills kill birds, damns mess up rivers). This is why there should also be emphasis on conservation. This could be implemented by giving companies more credit energy conservation then for renewable production. The ratio of value of conservation vs. the value of renewable production could also be negotiated, and could vary in different areas of the country where different conditions prevail. Such a policy would have a great advantage: while it would be government mandated, it would not put the government in the position of picking "winning" technologies. Rather companies would have wide flexibility in how to invest, thus harnessing the creative power of the free enterprise system. I would like two things from ECOLOG subscribers: 1. Critique of this idea, pointing out problems, proposing solutions, and suggesting improvements. 2. If people think the improved idea is worthwhile, suggestions for how to bring it to the attention of economists and policy experts for further development, and how to inject it into the public debate. Thank you very much for your interest and contributions. Martin M. Meiss
