House Passes Renewable Energy Credits

The House of Representatives today passed a bill to extend tax credits and other incentives for renewable energy. The bill is extending some of the key tax credits for solar energy and wind energy that have been in place fore years and were set to expire at the end of this year. It would be nice to hail this as a major victory for the renewable energy movement but unfortunately the bill is doomed. Bush has already announced he is going to veto the bill because the credits are paid for by eliminating $17 billion in tax incentives that Bush had managed to push through for his cronies prior to 2006 when both the House and Senate were Republican controlled. It is one of those sad but true facts that nothing that threatens Bush and Cheney's oil buddies is ever going to make it into law. We are just going to have to wait them out.

What I find surprising is that most of my friends and colleagues seem surprised that the economy is in shambles and oil prices have shot into the stratosphere. I mean really guys, what did you think was going to happen. We elected two oil barrons from Texas and put them in charge of our country! As my teenage daughter would say ...Duh!

The only silver lining I can see in all of this, and I am sure it is at the heart of the Democratic strategy, is that it will put Bush into a position of having to veto a bill that the American public wants. Its not like it matters to him since he is a lame duck (very lame) but it might remind the electorate the consequence of continuing to put people in office who are supporters of big oil and uncaring about the health of our planet. This is not something that is going to make life easy in the next election for McCaine and the Republicans.

Ya gotta wonder how the Republicans are going to justify their position. I mean, how can you possibly defend keeping tax incentives for the oil companies when they are raking in money so fast they don't know what to do with all of it. For example ExonMobil earned $40.6 billion in profits last year, the biggest profit ever recorded by any company ever and yet they are trying to argue that they need tax credits because otherwise they wouldn't have any incentive to drill for oil! At 110 a barrel just how much incentive do they need! I have a feeling the American public is not going to have a whole lot of sympathy for their position.

The real question here is what is the best next step. One option would be to work out a compromise bill in the Senate but I suspect that will be difficult to do. In fact there's a good chance it will never make it out of the Senate in any form given its potential damage to the Republicans. I suspect the most likely scenario, and probably the most practical given the political situation, is for a new bill to be generated which maintains the renwable energy credits without taking away the oil company's tax breaks. That at least might stand a chance of being signed by Bush and would allow the renewable energy industry to move ahead. Failing that we will just have to hope that the electorate shows a how lot more sense in November than they did 4 years ago.

Energy Star Updates

Was busy yesterday doing some updates to the Saving Energy section of the Website. That section contains the Energy Star Ratings for home appliances including kitchen appliances, home heating and cooling appliances, home electronics, lighting and home office equipment. The ratings are done by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the DOE and as far as I am concerned the program is one of the few really useful programs the federal government is still providing.

The ratings are regularly updated so yesterday was my day to update all of the ratings tables on the Web site. You can also find these tables at the government site, http://www.energystar.gov/. I put them on the Energy Bible site because my basic principle on this site is to bring all of the information on renewable energy into one place rather than making consumers plow through hundreds of public and private Web sites to find out what they need.

The great thing about the Energy Star program is that it provides an incentive for both appliance manufacturers and home builders to do a better job in making their appliances or homes energy efficient. Many new home builders now publicize the fact that the homes are installed with Energy Star rated appliances. And most equipment manufacturers will advertise the models which have earned an Energy Star rating.

The one thing to keep in mind when looking at the Energy Star ratings is that they are ratings within a single appliance category. They do not compare efficiencies between devices. Suppose, for example that your oil furnace is just about worn out and you need to replace it. It is all well and good to look at the Energy Star ratings to see what is the most heat efficient oil furnace. However, you will probably end up far better off if you consider the economics of a completely different type of home heating system such as a geothermal heat pump or wood furnace. For this type of comparison look at a comparison chart like the one we have in our Bio section at http://energybible.com/bio_energy/comparing_fuel_costs.html.

Nonetheless, if you are in the market for a new appliance of any kind please do check out the Energy Star ratings in the Saving Energy section of the Web site. Thanks!

Home Heating Costs - Yikes!

Its February in New York and I am about to go downstairs and stoke up the fire. I have a pretty decent wood stove with a catalytic converter and a built-in fan. It does a great job of heating the main room of the house and there is something about having a fire at home that just feels good. But until this morning I didn't fully appreciate just how much that fire is saving me money as well.

I have been working this morning on a new section for the Energy Bible on home heating costs. I was leveraging a nice little chart that I got off of a Department of Energy Web site that shows the comparative BTU's for different types of fuel sources such as heating oil, natural gas, electricity, wood, etc. Its a useful chart because otherwise comparing the potential costs of different fuels is difficult since they all use different units of measurement when you buy them. For example, heating oil and propane are measured in gallons but wood is measured in cords, coal in tons and natural gas in a special metric called therms. Without a chart like this determining your best fuel option is rather difficult.

My home is heated with #2 fuel oil and its cost has gone through the roof in the last year. I knew it was bad but I didn't realize how bad until I used the chart and some government data to see what the run up has been. According to the DOE the cost of fuel oil has gone up 94% in just one year! If you ever needed proof the the post peak oil crises is already upon us there it is. And its not much better for other types of fuel. Propane for example has gone up 52% in one year.

I see these numbers and wonder what the heck those of use who live in northern climates are going to do in the long run. It would be naive to think that the price hikes are over. Heck, this week a barrel of oil just went to over $100 per barrel and many analysts think it could be between $150-$200 by this time next year. Its not like we can look to the government to bail us out given that the oil boys, Bush and Cheney, are in office for another year. Moreover, a bail out is only a temporary solution for a government that has just ballooned its national debt like crazy in the last seven years. I strongly suspect that we will truly begin seeing the start of a national migration to warmer climates given these costs but that is not something that can happen overnight. Housing prices area hitting new lows and the inventory of houses is completely overloaded. Many people couldn't sell if they wanted because they would take a huge loss. So what is a person to do?

Well, it does strike me that heating with wood is one option. I ran the numbers this morning and at current national prices ($3.40 for fuel oil and $190 for a cord of wood) the cost of heating with wood is less than half the cost of heating with fuel oil assuming one has a reasonably efficient wood stove. A thousand gallon of oil costs $3400 and the equivalent heating capability using fire wood (a bit over 8 cords) would only cost you $1,546. That is a pretty dramatic difference and it is only going to get bigger as fuel oil and other home heating fuel costs continue to rise.

Take a look at the analysis in the Bio Energy section of our Web site and see what you think. With the charts I provided you can quickly compare any heating fuel such as oil, natural gas, electricity or propane with the cost of heating with wood. I bet the numbers will surprise you as they did me.

Power Line Controversy

It was only yesterday that I was ruminating as to why it seemed like there weren't more protests over high speed power lines (as opposed to all of the protests against wind turbines). Therefore it was to be expected that I open up the paper today and there it is, an article about a protest against, you guessed it, high voltage power lines. It's not that I am surprised to be proved wrong, but I keep hoping it will take longer than this. Oh well!

Anyway, the controversy is about a project to run a power line from Oneida County in northern New York to Orange County in southern New York. The project is a significant one, its proposed cost is $570 million but we all know it will be a lot more than that once the inevitable cost overruns kick in. The fact that utility companies are pushing for more power lines is not necessarily anything new. Energy demand continues to increase in the U.S. given our unbridled energy consumption. No what struck me as interesting about the proposal was the argument the utility company put forth for doing it. Their primary argument for creating the new transmission line was that it would allow them to better develop renewable energy resources in northern New York which has good access to hydropower and better potential for wind energy. They argue that by going to renewable energy resources the overall cost of energy for the region will be reduced.

I have to admit that I am a bit torn about this proposal. That probably has something to do with the fact that my trust level when it comes to utility companies is something less than zero. It would be just like the utility companies to justify their plans using a "green" argument and then once all the dust has settled build a bunch of coal energy plants in northern New York. At minimum I would demand that in return for the rights to run the power lines the utility company be required to actually build the alternative energy plants. And I would make it a very, very binding contract given their penchant for weaseling out of legal commitments.

At the same time I have long ago concluded that the U.S. is going to need to completely rethink its plans for the national utility grid as we enter the era of post peak oil and natural gas. The reality is that when you are importing oil or natural gas using a fairly sophisticated highway system (and a pathetic rail system) then you can put your electric plant anywhere in the U.S. you want that is convenient given the electric grid. However, as we move towards renewable energy sources like wind, solar and hydro you have to put your plants where the energy sources are and the power grid has to be adjusted to fit this.

When I attended the Solar 2007 Conference in San Diego last October one of the more interesting presentations was on the topic of Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) plants for generating electricity. These plants are straightforward, well proven technology, and unlike many renewable energy approaches, already at a level where they are competitive with traditional approaches to generating electricity such as natural gas or coal. However, one of the key points the speaker made was that before we could leverage these types of plants the structure of the electric grid in the southwestern U.S. would have to be re-thought because these types of plants need to be in positioned in desert areas where there is lots of sun, lots of heat, plenty of cheap land and some type of power grid. So when you look at it, the idea of re-routing transmission lines or creating new ones to better leverage renewable energy is probably a good thing. I am a big believer in trying to generate energy locally whenever possible but I have a hard time believing that local projects will be sufficient to handle high density parts of the U.S. such as the northeast and southern California. Therefore any realistic solution probably calls for a power grid. It just needs to be the right kind of grid!

Simple Ideas

I strongly suspect that one of the things that keeps us from making more progress on the energy front is that energy implies technology and technology implies, to most of us, extraordinary complexity. Many of us find technology so scary and feel so technologically inept that we figure some more powerful entity such as the government or industry has to solve the problem. Unfortunately we know how good a job they have done on that so far! Some energy issues are complex, but for the most part I think that actually nearly every major energy issue we have can be addressed through simple, fairly commonsensical (is that a word?) approaches.

I came across a great common sense sort of approach the other day on one of the energy forums on Yahoo. I would like to tell you which one but I belong to so darn many of them that I am not sure which one it was. But here is the idea. Stretched across this country are an enormous number of high voltage power line towers. Most towers are roughly 140 feet tall and run from the power plants (think coal and nuclear plants) to local power sub-stations. The suggestion I heard on the renewable energy board was straightforward, why not stick a wind turbine on each of these power transmission towers.

Let's think about it a moment. The Pro position goes something like this:

1. The towers are already very tall so we would be able to harness significant wind energy in most cases.
2. The towers inherently have the ability to transmit the electricity the wind turbines would generate.
3. Because the tower is already in place the cost of the tower would be eliminated making the wind turbine implementation very cost effective.
4. There would be no land or land rights to worry about because that would already have been taken care of by the power company.
5. The transmission tower designs are standardized so it would be easy to design a wind turbine mounting system to fit the existing towers. This would allow for mass production which would also make the system more cost effective to produce.
6. And finally, the oft cited (though lame) argument against wind energy, aesthetic appearance, would be eliminated. High voltage towers are already ugly! Sticking a wind turbine on top isn't going to make them any uglier. In fact, it might be an aesthetic improvement.

By the way, while we are on that last point, have you ever noticed that the energy companies never get hammered about high voltage power line towers spoiling someone's view. That only occurs when we talk about an alternative energy solution like wind turbines. I suspect this says a lot about the marketing power the traditional energy companies wield.

I am sure there are some Cons to this idea that the power utilities could come up with. For starters power might have to be temporarily rerouted while the wind turbines are added, though that strikes me as an incredibly minor inconvenience. Perhaps there could be some vibration issues though given how massive the transmission towers are I find it hard to believe that a wind turbine with a good vibration dampening system would present much of a threat. I am sure there are many locations where the wind speeds are too low to make it worthwhile. So fine, do it in the areas where there are good wind speeds. But overall, I just don't see a lot of negatives for this idea.

If you can come up with any pros or cons I haven't thought of please comment. Also, if anybody has ever seen an example of a utility company doing this let me know. I did some googling on the topic once I heard the idea but haven't found anything. Inquiring minds want to know!

More tomorrow!

Taking the Plunge

OK, I've finally gone and done it, taken the plunge into the blogosphere. My wife, who by the way has far more sense then I will ever have, has been after me for months to create a blog for the EnergyBible.com Web site that I created and manage. I have been more than usually resistant about it, not because I don't have things to say about my favorite topic, Renewable Energy, but because I am not known for being overly consistent when it comes to personal projects. For example, as I am typing at my desk I can look across the room and see the balsa wood model airplane that I started and which has been sitting on my shelf for months half way finished. Consistency just isn't my thing and I figure a blog on an important topic like finding solutions to the world's energy crisis has got to be consistent!

On the other hand the EnergyBible.com web site has been a project that I have been consistent with for over a year so maybe I am not as bad about that as I think I am. In any event, I am going to give it a try and see what happens. I figure the worse case is that nobody views the blog and I will have had a chance to vent, which is not exactly rare given that I have two teenage kids, but I am hopingit is good for my heart if nothing else.

As a quick and dirty background I am a recently retired 50+ geek and longtime educational technologist who has decided to use some of his new found free time to try and engender a little activism around the topic of renewable energy. I began the energybible.com Web site about a year ago and have been steadily plugging away at it since then. I did it because, to be honest, I looked at a lot of the Web sites that dealt with the topics of renewable energy and frankly thought most of them sucked. Many were slapped together non-profit sites that were understandably weak due to lack of funding and any discernable Web savvy. However, the biggest problem I saw was that the alternative energy sites tended to focus on just one kind of energy solution such as solar or wind. If there is any one thing I am convinced of after mucho years of research it is that no one approach to conserving and creating energy is going to do the job once all the oil goes away (which by the way is a whole lot sooner then everyone thinks!).

So there you go. That's my background and a bit about why this blog has been launched. I expect to do a fair bit of ranting on this site since to some extent that is what blogs are about but I am also hoping to make this blog, and the energybible.com site as informative as possible. I am assured by my wife who has had a blog for many years that people in the blogosphere are not shy and so I am likely to get a reaction to some of my blogs which is fine with me. The more discussion the better as far as I am concerned.

More to come!