I was waiting to give a paper at an AAAS annual conference (obviously, my paper was the reason for good attendance). The guy ahead of me was giving a paper on the economics of wind turbines. I had vaguely notice in the LA Times proposals for investment in these things. The ads were careful to say you needed an income of $250,000 - or a net worth rather more than that. If you qualified, you could reap lucrative rewards from government tax breaks.
He estimated that each wind turbine cost $27,000 - hidden in the tax breaks, and never appearing in any balance sheet. My thought was forget them as an energy source except in special locations. The economist had other ideas. His recommendation was that the tax break system should end. Instead, there should be direct subsidy by the Federal government. The fact that the electricity produced was prohibitively expensive apparently didn't occur to him.
That was 20-30 years ago. I assume that during this time, the cost of a turbine has gone up, but the efficiency of the turbines will also have gone up. I wonder what the cost of a kilowatt is now?
The economist's advice was taken. If you install a wind turbine, California will now pay half the cost along with giving a tax credit of 7.5%.
I don't know how the new wind-farms are financed.
The put the solars out in the desert. Didn't help.
Solar hot water heaters are in the yellow pages in Florida. They are also used, I understand, all over North Africa. But, so far, as a replacement for coal, oil, or nuclear - no luck.
Fuel cells don't produce power, though from the excitement they cause, one would think they are the definitive answer to non-renewables. The answer to their use at the moment is Bah! Humbug!
In Southern California. now the daily temperature is down into the 60's - practically freezing. (We may even get some rain in the next few days.) So playing with these toys isn't crucial. But, in the North-East and Mid-West they can't heat their homes with fantasies. Babies with pneumonia aren't a pretty sight.
So, the alternatives aren't particularly practical. They may become so in due course, but at the moment - Marley's ghost has nothing to offer.
Bah, Humbug!
Harry
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Karen wrote:
Harry, you are such a Scrooge: Bah, Humbug on all these new fangled energy projects!Light bulbs weren't that great when first invented. Telephones are much improved, some would say not for our benefit. Everyone agrees the auto is a better vehicle for transportation that the family mule, though a mule's emissions problems didn't impact as wide an area as airborne carbons do now and it could be recycled. We don't even want to start a thread about how much better medical science is that how it was practiced initially. Your arguments below against newer developments into sustainable energy projects seem to reflect the bottom line that if it doesn't work for me, right here in my own backyard, then it is doomed to failure. Sure, the new ideas are still being developed and will probably be best used as backups in the energy grid, but we need all the backups we can use. I haven't noticed too many people in California voluntarily riding their bikes to work, using oil lamps at home unless forced to by blackouts. Call me a Pollyanna, but I think that attempts to broaden our base for energy sources should be considered. No matter that they've just discovered huge wells of natural gas off the coast of India, (1) or that there may be a pipeline through northern Russia for its oil in another decade, we have to look at the needs of the future, not just living off the past. PacificCorp built a wind farm between Portland and Pendleton, Oregon in 3 months last fall. Works great and annoys just the birds, not the cows. PGE built a smaller-sized urban power plant in 6 months, and it immediately began acting as a supplement to the bigger plants. Some cities have tapped into their underground aquifers to heating city buildings, saving taxpayer money. It all adds up, and the supplements are accomplished quickly without huge voter or corporate commitment. So they weren't smart enough to put wind farms out in the countryside in S. California. The ones between the Bay Area and San Joaquin Valley have been in place since when, the 70s? Wouldn't those poles cycling in the wind be a nicer view interruption than oil rigs off the Southern coastline, say, that long stretch south of LA known as Camp Pendleton where nobody cares what the view is anyway? I am not aware of any windmill pollution or spill dangers. Since Pendleton is an Army base, there shouldn't be aircraft landing conflicts. And if they can't succeed with solar in lovely San Diego, then someone just had a bad business plan. Too much of the delay in building new nuclear power plants is the argument about retooling them and what tax credits can be had or denied. Then they take forever to construct and have to be recertified every 5 years (I think, still), a very time-consuming process. It's not the R&D, it's the profit line that is cramping the future of energy. Bush's energy vision is in the past. Individual states are moving ahead in spite of him, not following his leadership (2). Coal may be plentiful, but pulling it out of the earth is devastating large swaths of coal country, polluting rivers and drinking water for many communities. We have to have other options besides these old fossils. To quote Tufts Prof. Agyeman on sustainability, "It isn't rocket science; it's plain common sense. It's not about no growth, but a different kind of growth. It's about using more of our unlimited mental resources and less of our limited natural resources. It's about not using up our natural capital such as wilderness areas, forests, a fish stock or an aquifer, but living off the harvest and other ecological services they provide." (3) Karen East of Portland, West of the Windmills 1. Big Gas Fields Found in Indian Waters @ http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/13/business/worldbusiness/13GAS.html. 2. On Global Warming, States Act Locally @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36696-2002Nov10.html 3. From Responsibility to Sustainability @ http://www.msnbc.com/news/783068.asp Harry wrote: If there was any place that solar power could work, it's in Southern California, where sunshine is the rule rather than the exception. Yet, solar power failed here in spite of government subsidy and complete relief from property taxes. That eventually it may become less expensive, or non-renewables might become more expensive may change things, but that's not now. Even if one forgets the cost, there is still the environmental impact. Both solar and wind take up enormous areas to produce the same energy as a modern power station. Wind makes lots of noise and people a mile or more away are bothered by the continuous onslaught on their ears. There seem to be only two probabilities - coal and nuclear. The US has coal that could last us for several thousand years. It can be sent through a pipeline too, if necessary. Nuclear is a best bet. The technology we are using is 3-4 decades old. New nuclear furnaces apparently don't require coolant or containment shells. Fuel cells are the biggie at the moment even though they produce no power. (Haven't these people learned anything at school?) If important people are beginning to discover the uselessness of Kyoto, could we say they are following a prescient George W. Bush?
****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
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