The Energy Bible

Throwing Good Money After Bad

2011-12-06T09:25:00.001-08:00

The above expression has always struck me as a bit esoteric. Its an expression I have seen and heard a lot and yet the meaning of it never quite seems to fit the words themselves. The best definition I have seen of this expression is as follows: "To spend more and more money on something that will never be successful." The best example I have seen lately of this expression comes, not surprisingly, from our friends in the coal industry.

It seems that Kentucky Power Company, a privately held power company serving the eastern counties of Kentucky has proposed spending $980 million of the public's dollars in order to update its 800 MW Big Sandy Power Plant near Louis, Kentucky in order to meet the recent regulations on air pollution which are finally being enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

We have to admit that this is a good news/bad news type of story. The fact that coal-based utility companies are finally being held accountable for the tons of pollutants they have been putting into the atmosphere is a very good thing. We are thrilled that the EPA is, at last, being allowed to do their job by the Obama administration given that they were completely hog tied during the administration of George W. Bush, the oilman. Still, nearly a billion dollars spent on a single power plant that will only be marginally less polluting after this is all done? Isn't this a perfect example of throwing good money after bad, and in this case, a whole lot of good money?

I realize that a billion bucks probably is not what it used to be, but that's one thousand million dollars and that's still a pretty good chunk of change. Why isn't Kentucky spending that money on a renewable energy plant, either wind power or solar power, instead of trying to retrofit an old coal plant that has already seen too much use. Kentucky has plenty of sun and given the incredible price drop in the cost of solar panels in the last couple of years Kentucky Power could build one heck of good solar power plant or wind farm for what its planning to spend to put lipstick on one very ugly pig!

Solar has gone through an unprecedented decline in costs in recent years and solar plants are going up all over our country. One big solar project currently under construction is the Topaz solar project in San Luis Obispo County, California. This plant will be a 550 megawatt plant and will cost $1.2 billion to construct, only a little less than what Kentucky is proposing to spend just to clean up an already well aged coal plant. The solar PV plant will put out no pollution, zero, have no significant environmental impact, will not contribute to global warming and will last at least 50 years. When you look at all energy costs (see Dr. Paul Epstein's recent Harvard study on coal costs) the energy from a solar or wind plant will cost less than the energy from the coal plant. Moreover, solar photovoltaic plants are incredibly straightforward in design and require very few people to maintain them. The maintenance costs alone would be a fraction of what they would be for a coal plant. Wouldn't that be a better deal for the people of Kentucky!

The numbers are about the same if Kentucky were to look at building a modern Wind Farm instead of fixing an old coal plant. Eastern Kentucky has plenty of wind resource. A large wind farm could easily provide the same amount of electricity at less cost than coal. Costs for modern wind turbines have also gone under significant decline and the current cost of a megawatt of wind energy appears to be just a little over $1 million per megawatt. That means that for a couple of hundred million less than they are now planning to spend to clean up the old coal plant Kentucky could have a totally non-polluting wind farm that would last much longer than a coal plant and produce the same amount of energy. Once again, it would put out zero pollution, no contribution to global warming and could move Kentucky into the modern energy era. Once again, a better deal for the people of Kentucky!

There is a saying that there is nothing so powerful as an idea who's time has come. I would like to believe that is true since renewable energy is definitely an idea who's time has come. However, it may be the case that it has run up against an even more powerful force, the power of human inertia, the tendency of senseless humans to keep on doing what they have always done even when it no longer makes any sense. The plans of Kentucky Power strike me as a perfect example of inertia. They are going forward with spending massive amounts of public money on coal, even when coal no longer makes any sense, either for the people of Kentucky or the people on our planet.

The time has come to realize that if we are really going to stop global warming we are going to have to do something about coal. Coal is without a doubt the single biggest contributor to global warming. It is not enough to build new solar farms and wind farms. If we are going to escape the ravages of a too warm planet, we must eliminate coal from our energy vocabulary. To do that we have to stop throwing good money after bad and start replacing, not repairing, the thousands of coal-fired energy plants that are killing us and our planet.

True Costs

2011-03-26T14:54:00.000-07:00

The last twelve months have been a critical and hopefully enlightening period in the energy world. It has been a period when the true costs of our current energy policies became abundantly clear. Let's take a quick look back at three events that occurred in the last 12 months which should impact our thinking about energy policy:

The Gulf Oil Spill

On April 20th in 2010 the BP oil platform called Deepwater Horizon which was drilling a well at about 5000 feet under the water erupted in a huge explosion which killed 11 men and seriously injured 17 others. Within a couple of days the well platform had melted and collapsed into the ocean. However, a piece of equipment called a blowout preventer which was supposed to cut off the oil flow in the event of a catastrophe such as this failed to work and oil began to spew from the wellhead. The preventer had never been tested at these depths.

For weeks, then months, the world was transfixed by videos showing oil pouring from the wellhead into the ocean. The amount of oil leaking from the well became a topic of much contraversy with BP, for obvious reasons, radically underestimating the true amount of the spill. At a minimum, according to the Department of Energy, the well was probably leaking around 2,600,000 gallons of oil per day and this went on from April until July 15th when the well was finally capped. The spill devastated the gulf fishing industry and covered more than 320 miles of coastline with oil slicks and tar balls. The cost of this spill is impossible to determine. To BP alone the combination of payouts, law suits and stock leases is estimated to be over $50 billion dollars. The impact on gulf fishing and tourism is estimated to be at least $4 to 10 billion dollars. Its hard to put a price tag on the ecological impact of the spill but millions of plants and animals were killed and hundreds of miles of coastline massively impacted.

San Bruno Pipeline Explosion

The 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion occurred at 6:11 p.m. PDT on September 9, 2010, in San Bruno, California, a suburb of San Francisco. The accident occurred when a 30inch diameter steel natural gas pipeline owned by Pacific Gas & Electric exploded in flames in the Crestmoor residential neighborhood 2 mi (3.2 km) west of San Francisco International Airport near Skyline Boulevard and San Bruno Avenue. The death toll was eight people. It took more than 200 fire fighters to bring the fire under control. The ensuing fire destroyed more than 38 homes and seriously damaged many others. The fire damage was estimated at in excess of $38 million dollars. PG&E will probably be in court for years to come with law suits.

The Fukishima Nuclear Accident
On March 11, 2011 a devastating earthquake struck northern Japan followed by an even more devastating tsunami. The combination of the two caused massive failures at several of Japan's nuclear plants, particularly the coastal Fukushima nuclear plant. As of this writing four of the plant's nuclear reactors have experienced significant damage. At this time reactor number #3 is leaking significant amounts of highly radioactive water into the ocean and into the atmosphere. The radioactivity has already impacted food supplies in the region and has the potential to spread to huge populations in Tokyo. The Japanese nuclear program is one of the most well established in the world. The plants were built with a knowledge that earthquakes are frequent in the area and Japanese nuclear experts said the plants were built with multiple backup systems and could withstand anything nature could throw at it. The nuclear experts were wrong!

Considering True Costs

At Energy Bible we are constantly working to find accurate data which will allow consumers to make intelligent decisions about energy policy. It is often a frustrating process. Nearly all the data comes from some type of energy lobby and is designed to show that their form of energy, whether it be oil, gas, nuclear energy, solar energy, wind energy, etc. is the cheapest. Probably the most accurate data comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration which has some good charts comparing different types of fuel for home heating, but the data is still pretty limited in scope.

The challenge is that understanding the real costs of energy alternatives is not simply a matter of looking at fuel pricing charts and traditional cost comparisons. Even the best government or industry data on energy costs doesn't begin to scratch the surface of the true costs of our addiction to non-renewable forms of energy. One of the images that has stuck in my mind from the recent nuclear disaster in Japan is from an interview NBC news did of a woman pouring through the rubble of what used to be her home town in Japan. The interviewer asked her what she was most afraid of, and despite the fact she was sitting in the midst of immense devastation, her fear wasn't another earthquake, it wasn't another tsunami, it was the fear of the unseen radiation coming from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

How do we put a price on that kind of fear? How do we put a price on the millions of plants and animals destroyed in the BP oil spill? How do we put a price on the fear of millions of homeowners in California who live near a PG&E gas line? I really have no idea but it seems to me we have to try. We have to find some way to take these things into account when we make practical decisions on energy policy both locally and nationally. We have to look at the true costs of continuing our current dependence on non-renewable energy!

Passion, Politeness and Politics

2011-01-10T10:01:00.000-08:00

On Saturday morning (January 8) I was going through my normal morning routine of slowly dragging myself into consciousness with the aid of significant quantities of caffeine, and reading the morning paper. Two things in the paper that morning struck me. First was a quote from a top aide (an ex radio talk show host) to newly elected Representative Allan West of Florida. The aides quote was "If ballots don't work, bullets will". The idea that one of our Representatives would endorse such a point of view was shocking to me.

The news that morning also contained an article about the sad state of affairs in Pakistan where recently the Governor of Punjab, Salmon Taseer, was assassinated for having failed to support the blasphemy laws of Pakistan which basically allow any citizen to accuse another citizen of blasphemy against Allah and then have them summarily executed. What in many ways was even sadder then Taseer's execution was the reaction that followed it. The man who assassinated Taseer, Malik Qadri,, was then treated as a hero by radical Muslims throughout the country and the Pakistani press, in fear for their own lives, refused to counter it.

I think my reaction Saturday morning was probably typical of most Americans. I found the whole state of affairs in Pakistan sad and worrisome, but part of me thought, thank God that can't happen here. I was wrong. It can happen here and is happening here! By now most of you are aware that later that Saturday morning U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, a federal judge and 17 other people were either killed or wounded by a clearly unstable man named Jared Loughner.

Following the assassination FBI Director Robert Mueller said "hate speech and other inciteful speech" presented a challenge to law enforcement officials, especially when it resulted in "lone wolves" undertaking attacks. He's right! I am constantly shocked by the vehemence and vitriol that is taking place in the media. From Fox News to MSNBC the degree of polarization and viciousness in the media is truly disturbing. We have experienced a little bit of it ourselves in some of the emails we get here at EnergyBible.com.

The primary purpose of our Web site is to inform the public about renewable energy. But we have never shied away from advocacy when we felt it was in the public interest. At times we have been strongly critical of the Republican Party for its positions on global warming and energy policy. At times we have been critical of the Obama administration for its opinions on the use of mythical "clean coal". Whether to the left or right we have always attempted to base our points of view on sound, scientific data and we have always encouraged our viewers to share their views both for and against.

The ability to engage in rational discussion of critical issues is at the heart of all successful societies. That is why the violent act this Saturday is so serious. I have no idea whether this particular gunman had viewpoints on the left or the right. It seems highly likely to me that the guy was just plain nuts. However, in the vast numbers of comments I have seen on the Web and in the traditional media, what no one seems to question is that public opinion in our country has become excessively vitriolic and vicious. So what are we going to do about it! Here are a few simple suggestions:

Be Polite - There are few things that will do more to stop this nonsense than simply being polite to one another. If you take great care to listen carefully to those around you and avoid insulting anyone when expressing a point of view it will not only go over better but the person might actually listen to you the next time you have something to say.
Be Truly Informed - Read a newspaper, better yet read several newspapers. Watch PBS and any other non-partisan news show you can find, though admittedly there are not many left. Avoid like the plague on both TV and the Web, Fox News, MSNBC and any other demagogic show masquerading as news. They are not there to inform, they are there to propagandize, and to make a whole lot of money doing it. If you know the opinion of a news source before you ever read it, don't read it!
Be scientific- I could have said be rational but every crazy demagogue out there from Limbaugh to Beck to Olberman swear they are presenting rationale arguments. So when you can, follow the rules of the scientific method. Create a hypothesis, test it by getting objective opinion from multiple sources who have no stake in the outcome, and challenge all premises.
Be Calm - Passion has its place, but when trying to develop a point of view on any critical issue, the odds of finding the correct answer are better if you set aside your passion and just try to work through the issue. If you can't avoid being passionate then be passionate about the process of getting the most accurate data from the most sources.

Those are my admittedly passionate recommendations!

Dan Daniel

Editor, EnergyBible.com

Magical Thinking and the Republican Party

2010-11-22T08:57:00.000-08:00

Everyone engages in a little magical thinking from time to time. I personally have engaged in a ton of it at times. For example, at one point in my life I constructed a very nice fantasy involving the re-emergence of fairies from the middle ages. They were ever so useful. There was the Coffee Fairy who would bring me fresh coffee every morning. There was the Tax Preparation Fairy who would magically calculate my taxes every year with the outcome always ending up in a big refund. There was the Dishes Fairy who ..... well, you get the idea. Unfortunately, like Linus and the Great Pumpkin, my fairy people never actually did appear and so now, years later, I am still forced to deal with the dreary tasks of every day life.

At least I have the comfort of knowing I am not the only one engaging in magical thinking who has been disappointed. During our recent 2010 elections here in California it became increasingly evident that the Republican Party and its now embraced off-shoot, the Tea Party, are even better at engaging in magical thinking than I am. A recent Pew Poll of Republican Party members released in October found that "A 53%-majority of Republicans say there is no solid evidence the earth is warming. Among Tea Party Republicans, fully 70% say there is no evidence."

What is particularly interesting about this poll is that it actually represents a major retrenchment from polls taken just a few years ago (2007) when only 31% of the Republicans said global warming didn't exist. It seems that in this age of hyper-partisan politics even science is in play. Based on recent comments from the Republican leadership it appears many leading Republicans are approaching it from another perspective. According to John Shimkus of Illinois, God not science should be the source we should be relying on. At a a climate hearing last year he said "The earth will end only when God decides it's time to be over. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood.". Shimkus may be right but in the meantime I think I will buy a wet suit because first, I have a hunch God wants us to clean up our own messes, and second, the actual scientific data is pointing in the opposite direction.

I don't claim that scientists are infallible, just that when taken as a very large group they tend to be right most of the time. Currently many of them have begun to change some of their thinking about global warming. Unfortunately, it is not in the direction our friends in the Republican Party would like to see things go. It turns out that scientists are finding that global warming may be much worse than they originally thought. In particular, the antarctic is warming at a rate that is truly alarming.

According to a new report from the U.S. Geological Survey and the British Antarctic Survey the ice shelves in the southern part of the Antarctic Peninsula appear to be disappearing because of climate change. This summer's loss of ice was much worse than any of the scientists had predicted. "The loss of ice shelves is evidence of the effects of global warming," says USGS scientist and lead author Jane Ferrigno. Since 1998, the ice lost from just one of the five ice shelves in the study totals more than 1,500 square miles, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island.

Its not just the antarctic that is at issue. Global temperatures in the first half of the year were the hottest since records began more than a century ago. Scientists from two leading climate research centres have also recently released what they described as the "best evidence yet" of rising long-term temperatures. Their report looked at 11 different indicators, each one based on between three and seven data sets, dating back to between 1850 and the 1970s. Peter Stott, the head of climate modelling at the UK Met Office, said despite variations between individual years, the evidence was unequivocal: "When you follow those decade-to-decade trends then you see clearly and unmistakably signs of a warming world".

OK so given the most current data the scientists have provided it seems the world is getting warmer. What are we going to do about it? It appears the Republican strategy is not only to deny the problem but to try and make it even worse. This year the California Republican party, egged on by some very wealthy Texas oil millionaires, decided to try and repeal or at least postpone the current California environmental laws (AB32)that could have at least minimized the increase in global warming pollutants. Unfortunately for the Republicans, those wild and crazy California voters rejected this proposition (Proposition 23)and decided to continue fighting global warming.

I am sure this was a big setback for the party in Red, but I think I see their problem. The Republican strategy of magical thinking where they simply imagined all of the scientists were wrong and that global warming would magically go away was simply not enticing enough for the average voter. I mean if you are going to create an imaginary world at least create a really good one. Personally I would suggest that it involve strong doses of Pamela Anderson, a repeal of all taxes, and most importantly, the resurgence of the Coffee Fairy!

Dan Daniel
Editor, EnergyBible.com

The Real Problem with Nuclear Energy

2010-01-22T13:40:00.001-08:00

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision which struck down the existing laws limiting contributions from corporations is bound to have some immediate impact. Look for lots of campaign commercials from the Nuclear lobby promoting your friendly neighborhood nuclear power plant (along with continuing absurd commercials about the mythical "clean coal"). The doors are now wide open for big corporate energy interests to campaign and we doubt that they will waste any time beating down our virtual doors. However, it is my fervent hope that the public will think twice about buying the pitch for more nuclear plants. Increasing our use of nuclear energy would be very bad policy, though not necessarily for the reason most citizens think.

When most people think about nuclear energy the first thoughts that come to mind probably have something to do with Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, or other glow-in-the-dark scenarios. Nuclear waste also frequently rears its head as a concern given that nuclear waste is dangerous for thousands of years. However, it may be that the biggest thing we should be worrying about (though it doesn't make for a good movie of the week) is the whooshing sound of dollars leaving our wallet, because when looked at carefully it quickly becomes clear that nuclear power plants are just too darn expensive.

An excellent explanation of this provided yesterday by Elliott Negin, the media director for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C. in an article that appeared recently on the GreenTechMedia web site. Negrin points out that there have been no new nuclear plants built by utility companies since 1973. The energy companies don't want them because they know how expensive they are. A bit of history is in order. As Negin points out "In the 1960s and 1970s, the industry proposed to build some 200 plants, but as construction costs escalated, only about half were finished. Taxpayers and ratepayers were left footing the bill -- about $300 billion in today's dollars -- for abandoned plants, cost overruns for completed plants, and stranded investments that were higher than the wholesale market price for power. "

The Nuclear lobby has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to approve the building of 26 new nuclear power plants. The cost of these plants would be extraordinary, probably in the range of $7-9 billion dollars apiece. What makes this a bigger concern is that the nuclear power companies are asking for taxpayers to finance these risky investments despite the fact that prior investments led to hundreds of billions of dollars of loss. The Nuclear Energy Institute, which is the lobbying arm for the nuclear industry has petitioned the commission to provide over $100 billion in loan guarantees so they can build the nuclear plants. Folks, this is not chump change. We are talking Iraq war kind of dollars here. Moreover, we are looking at loan guarantees that the nuclear companies could very easily default on. The GAO, the Government Accountability Office estimates that the risk of the nuclear companies defaulting on these loans is at least 50%. I can't imagine any business guaranteeing loans with a 10% risk, much less 50% risk. This is just bad business!

The argument put forward by the nuclear industry is, of course, that the demand for electricity is growing and nuclear plants do not contribute to global warming. Both arguments are true, but what they are not telling us is that there are far better alternatives for getting the renewable energy we need, lots of alternatives.

Let's start with solar energy, for example. As of January 2010 solar has rapidly emerged as an increasingly competitive way of generating commercial electricity. The current cost of a kilowatt-hour of solar energy is hovering around 19 cents per kilowatt hour which is still a bit above nuclear energy costs. However, the cost of photovoltaic panels has dropped by half in 2009 while at the same time the efficiency of the panels went up. Once commercial electric plants begin incorporating these cheaper panels most experts believe PV electricity costs will drop to around 9-11 cents per kilowatt hour which would make them very competitive if not cheaper than electricity from nuclear power plants.

Solar energy can also be generated using solar heat, particularly if the plant is built somewhere in the southwest US where temperatures are high. Solar thermal plants have become far more efficient as the technology becomes refined. There are many solar thermal plants in development that rival nuclear plants in scale. Many of these plants will also address one limitation of solar energy which is its intermittent nature. Recent breakthroughs in the storage of solar thermal energy using molten salt now allow the solar thermal energy to be stored overnight so that the plants can generate energy 24 hours per. This will make them even more viable alternatives to nuclear power plants.

Wind energy is yet another alternative to nuclear power. Large utility scale wind turbines are being manufactured in increasing numbers and as a result are becoming bigger and more cost effective. Over the last 20 years, the cost of electricity from utility-scale wind systems has dropped by more than 80%. In the early 1980s, when the first utility-scale turbines were installed, wind-generated electricity cost as much as 30 cents per kilowatt-hour. Modern wind farms are now producing energy at closer to 4-6cents per kilowatt-hour when you account for the Production Tax Credit. In turn most nuclear power plants are producing energy at somewhere between 11-14 cents per kilowatt-hour when you account for the cost of storing depleted nuclear fuel. Wind farms produce electricity at far less cost and do this without generating any carbon emissions, no radiation risks and without the long-term problem of disposing of nuclear waste. When you look at the whole picture wind energy becomes a no brainer!

Despite these economic hard times are choices for generating cleaner and less expensive energy have never been better. That makes it all the more important that we choose wisely. Give it some thought!

The Clash of Cash for Clunkers

2009-08-03T15:26:00.000-07:00

There has been much excitement of late in the press regarding the "Cash for Clunkers" program which has proven so popular that it has run out of money in just a few weeks. From an energy standpoint the program would appear to be a major win all around. Consumers switch from gas guzzlers to high mileage vehicles, the auto industry gets a much needed boost, and the administration can point to at least one set of economic incentives that seems to be capturing the genuine interest of the public. What's not to like?

Actually, I suspect there are a few things not to like. The concept of trading in old low mileage junkers for modern high mileage cars is promising. However, so far, a lot of that promise was wasted. Why? Because the new cars we are helping to subsidize with our taxpayer dollars are often nearly as bad as the cars they started with. With this program one can get a $3500 subsidy for getting a car with only a 1 mile per gallon difference from the old clunker. Now how is that going to have any significant impact on our gas usage in this country? In fact to get a $4500 rebate you only need to do 2 miles per gallon better than your old car. Big whoopee!

If we really want to see this program have a significant impact on gas usage in this country we have to shoot higher than that. What we have right now is really a thinly veiled program for subsidizing the auto industry. That in itself has its merits, though given the fact that our own auto companies don't produce a lot of high mileage cars who we really are subsidizing is the Japanese auto makers. There is no requirement that the trade-in be an American car which I find rather surprising, particularly given the fact that the government owns two of the three major US auto companies. I suspect Japan and Korea could claim protectionism but give the fact that the US government is essentially in the auto business that claim seems a bit thin.

There is also a lot of question in my mind as to what happens to all of those gas guzzling clunkers. The government plan calls for the engines and drives trains to be destroyed though the rest can be used for parts. This makes me wonder if in fact a lot of used car types won't just go get an old engine from the junkyard, one with equally poor mileage, and just replace it. There are a lot of car enthusiasts who would love to revive these old cars which would put us right back were we started from. Hmmm,maybe I am looking on the negative!

OK, so lets look on the positive. The program has run out of money after only a couple of weeks. However, the Democrats are eager to refund it for another $2 billion given that, in their mind, it has been a success. The Republicans of course are opposing it, nothing new there. However, there seems to be some movement within the Republican party to re-vamp the program rather than kill it outright, including requiring higher gas mileage for the trade-ins. This may be one of the very, very few instances where we find ourselves wanting to side with the Republicans.

This program requires some major rethinking. Why not create a sliding scale where nobody gets anything unless there is at least a 10 MPG increase in mileage and only pay above $2000 if there is a 15 MPG improvement. That way buyers will be forced to look at cars with mileage in the 30's and 40's per gallon which will almost surely mean very small cars, hybrids or efficient diesels, all of which would represent an improvement that would actually matter. Also, lets actually junk those cars, all of the car, not just the engine. That way there is less incentive for car enthusiasts to try to salvage the old junkers which frankly we don't want on the road anyway.

If none of these ideas prove politically feasible how about something that would really make a difference. Take the $2 billion dollars and give it to NREL to research building better batteries for electric cars. Then we wouldn't have to worry about MPG ever again!

Editor

The Truly Scary Thing About Palin

2008-09-03T10:10:00.000-07:00

Ever since the surprise nomination of Sarah Palin as John McCaine's running mate the press has been filled with stories relating to her lack of experience, her position on abortion and even absurdly irrelevant discussions of her pregnant teenage daughter. All of this has served to distract the public from what may be the strongest problem with Palin as a Vice Presidential candidate, her badly misguided positions on energy policy. Recently CNBC did an extensive interview with Sarah Palin including a frank discussion of her positions on energy policy. We reviewed this interview as well as numerous presentations by Palin on the topic of energy and renewable energy and frankly found it shocking, though not necessarily surprising. After all she is the Governor of Alaska and Alaska gets 80% of its oil revenues from oil and natural gas companies. Nonetheless, in this CNBC interview, had we not known we were listening to the governor of Alaska, we would have guessed that we were listening to a highly paid lobbyist for the big oil companies. She is that pro big oil!

Palin has long been a strong advocate for drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). When asked about her position on this she said "We need to drill, drill, drill." She has even suggested that she thinks she can persuade John McCaine to approve drilling in the Refuge even though this was one of the rare areas where McCaine disagreed with Bush. She is a big promoter of off-shore drilling and seems to discount any impact the drilling would have on the environment. When the interviewer asked her what the environmental consequences of all this drilling would be she discounted the problem by bascially dissing the environmentalists. She said that the environmentalists were wrong when they said the Alaskan oil pipeline might hurt the caribou herds. She said the herds were fine and therefore drilling in the Arctic Refuge would not have any negative impact. This was a scarily simplistic answer to an important but complex problem, something we have seen all too often from the Republican candidates. Many scientists believe that the oil pipeline did, in fact, impact the caribou herds significantly and that drilling in the arctic would cause even more damage to wildlife because of the nature of the terrain. For an excellent discussion of this see this article from the San Francisco Chronicle appropriately titled "The Last Refuge".

The interviews with Palin are worrisome not only for their content, but for the overall attitude they convey. Palin is not only pro oil, she appears anti-renewable energy. In the interview she acknowledge that her state had vast resources of renewable energy such as wind and tidal energy, and then in the same breath says ""These renewables are not proven to be economic or reliable". Not reliable! Tell that to the millions of people around the world that get their energy from solar, water and wind energy. Not economic! Tell that to the smart people in the energy industry like T. Boone Pickens who are making a nice little fortune creating and selling renewable energy.

Its not only what Palin says that is disturbing it is what she doesn't say. It appears that the term "Global Warming" is not even in her vocabulary. She says "Drill, drill, drill" but she might as well say "Warm, warm, warm" because the inevitable consequence of drilling for more oil is putting more carbon into the atmosphere. Palin was once asked about global warming, she told the conservative Newsmax.com that, while it would affect Alaska more than any other state, "I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made." How out of touch can you be!

We strongly urge our readers to take a look at this recent interview with Palin and hear first hand her comments on energy policy. You can find the interview on YouTube at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GE11URmmnc.

A Good Stove is Hard to Find!

2008-07-30T10:36:00.000-07:00

This has been one of those weeks where our readers have been keeping us plenty busy. Frequently people write to us with questions about energy and the environment, that is what we are all about after all. Most of the time we can just point to an existing article or get a quick bit of advice from one of the experts that kindly volunteer their time to help us keep you informed. However, this week we got a couple of stumpers that took a bit of time to research. One question had to do with the relative cost effectiveness of electric boilers versus traditional fuel oil boilers. Proved to be a really interesting question which is going to result in a new article in our Saving Energy section. More on that later in the week.

Another question was a request from a reader who was working on a bio-methane project on a farm and wanted to find a methane stove. Seemed like a simple request at first but turned out to be a lot tougher than we thought.

Finding fuel for cooking has long been a major issue in developing countries. Fuel for cooking has become increasingly scarce. In Africa continued drought has killed many trees and plants which were used for fuel. It has also killed off many of the cattle which provided cow dung which was often used for fuel. In other countries deforestation has also eliminated many fuel sources. Moreover, the use of these traditional fuels for cooking inside a home often results in excessive in-door pollution which can severely damage health and increase the spread of disease. Accessible, non-polluting cooking systems are badly needed.

One option which has proven remarkably successful has been low-cost solar stoves. These stoves can be very effective at both cooking and boiling water for sanitation and are being distributed world-wide through the U.N and other humanitarian agencies. To find out more about these types of stoves check out our article on Solar Cooking article in the Solar Energy section of our Web site.

Methane stoves are another excellent option. They are being widely used in many parts of India, Asia and Central America. The approach is ingeniously simple. Often the methane digester is simply an old truck tire inner tube which has been filled with animal waste. The tube is sealed and left in the sun and before long anaerobic digestion occurs and it begins to fill with methane gas. The gas can then be channeled to a stove and used for cooking. One of the best descriptions of this process can be found on a site which describes a methane project in Costa Rica. There is even an instructional video that shows you how to do it. You can find it at: http://www.ruralcostarica.com/biogas-video.html.

In doing research on this topic we found lots of information on how to make methane digesters. What we were not able to find was a company that manufactured small stoves designed to run on methane. We saw a couple of blogs that suggested that regular gas stoves could be used but that the intake orifice on the stove needed to be adjusted for it to work properly. Given that we don't have a resident stove expert on staff, and we haven't a clue what an intake orifice is (at least one on a stove). Therefore we decided we would reach out to all of you to see if any of you have ever come across a methane stove. If so write to us and we will be sure to pass it on to our readers. Also, if any of you are actively involved in any bio-gas projects we would love to have you share your experience with us. Meanwhile keep those letters and emails coming! Keeps us out of trouble:)

Dan

Renewable Energy and the Web

2008-06-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

I am always impressed whenever I go to create the News section of EB just how much innovation is going on out there. Sometimes it really gets me thinking. One of the things that grabbed me this week was the information we came across on Enphase energy which has developed a new type of inverter for solar systems called a micro-inverter. Instead of providing a single inverter for all of the solar panels, it has developed a small micro-inverter which attaches to each solar panel individually. This allows the energy signature of each solar panel to separately managed and monitored. This struck us as a significant advance in solar energy, particularly if they can get the costs down on the product (don't have pricing data on it yet) because it allows the solar system owner to really track what is going on with their system at a discrete level. Solar panels are incredibly reliable components but occasionally they do go out. When this happens it might only show up as a slight drop in voltage on one of the strings depending upon where it is placed in the sequence. A homeowner could easily miss it altogether. By allowing it to be monitored individually it would be easy to notice when an individual panel failure occurs.

Another advantage of this type of system is that it allows the power curve for each panel to be monitored separately. Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) can be used with each panel. This function ensures that there is an optimal balance between volts and amps so that the maximum amount of watts of energy is produced. By doing this analysis at the level of each panel rather than all of them at once each panel can be optimized resulting in better overall performance. It is not yet clear whether or not the improved energy output is more cost effective than a single inverter but as component costs come down it seems likely that this is a better approach to power management.

The part about the Enphase inverter that I like the best is that it is Web connected. You can simply log on to to their Website and look up a page that will show you the output of your panels in real time. This strikes me as way cool! It seems to me this has got to be where things are going to go in renewable energy. It is part of the trend we have seen in making the output of a solar system more visible. For some time now inverters have come with displays that can provide detailed information about how your solar panels are performing. More recently, a few inverter manufacturers have made the display devices wireless so that you can mount the display somewhere convenient rather than down in your basement where the inverter probably is located. Moving the display to the Web was the logical next step.

Logical and potentially quite powerful, not only for the individual, but particularly for communities. One of the real trends in renewable energy in Europe has been the move to communal efforts to establish renewable energy. Many communities in Europe have joined together to buy a commercial windmill or a renewable energy system and then share the generated electricity throughout the community. In essence citizens are taking the future of energy in their community into their own hands, often when their governments are not responsive (something those of us in the U.S. are all to familiar with!). For a great discussion of this approach I highly recommend Greg Pahl's book "The Citizen-Powered Energy Handbook" which you can find in our main book section.

It seems to me that putting energy output on the Web would be a huge boost to citizen powered energy efforts because it makes the result of an energy investment so completely visible. At any time a member of the community could log on to the Web and see what type of output their windmill or solar system is providing. They can see the benefit immediately and tangibly. Compare this to the average state utility. Somehow I can't see Con Edison letting me see the output of the electric generators at their local coal-based electrical plant. Could be interesting though, modern home inverters on renewable energy systems actually tell you how many pounds of polluting carbon you are offsetting by not using energy from the grid. Think Con Ed will tell you how much carbon they are putting in the atmosphere?

Now that we have entered the post-peak oil era people are starting to take their energy use a bit less for granted. Making that use easily visible via the Web will make that even easier. Here's an idea; why don't we pass a law requiring all government buildings to use Web based monitor's for their energy systems and then we can see which agency is wasting the most energy. Could be fun!

A Sad Shad Story

2008-05-22T07:41:00.000-07:00

Seems like energy issues are everywhere in the news these days, but sometimes the real impact of energy policy is seen, not in the headlines, but in off-beat local stories that make these somewhat abstract issues hit closer to home. I had this experience last week when following a story in one of our local newspapers. I've been living in the Hudson Valley area of New York for about 15 years and one of the things I like about living here is the abundance of local spring and summer festivals that come around every year. Some of them, like the popular Clearwater festival have some national recognition. But my favorites are the really small festivals focused around popular local happenings. One of the best was a little festival held at Croton Park on the Hudson River every year in April when the Shad start their run upriver to spawn.

The festival is called Shadfest, but this year it was a rather different event. That's because this year there weren't any Shad at the Shadfest Festival. Yep, this year it was a "Shadless" Festival so to speak. Why, because the Shad populations have declined so precipitously that the festival managers decided they didn't want to further endanger the fish population by serving them at the festival like they usually do.

In a certain sense not serving Shad at the Shadfest is true to the purpose of the event since because the festival was started 19 years ago by the environmental group Riverkeeper as a way of drawing attention to the health of the Hudson River estuary. Needless to say that its health is more than a little suspect given the decline in the fish populations in the river. A study commissioned by the Riverkeeper which was just released found that there was a 90% decline in the American shad populations in the river over the last 20 years. In the 1940's it was estimated that the shad populations were over 30 million, but now the whole population is estimated to be around 3 to 4 million and only about 200,000 of these come up the Hudson to spawn. At this point the entire species is at risk of disappearing from the river. Biologists from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) are particularly concerned that the shad comprising the spawning stock (adult fish) have become smaller and younger, and mortality has increased to excessive and unacceptable levels. Meanwhile, juvenile production dropped to an all time low in 2002 and has not recovered.

There appear to be two primary causes behind this drop in population. One is extensive overfishing on the Hudson. As a result the DEC is in the process of changing fishing regulations so that it is a catch and release program only. This sounds like a common sense action to help the populations, though it is probably coming about 10 years too late. However, the other major cause of declines in the shad population is going to be a bit tougher to solve. That is because the other part of the problem are the numerous power plants on the Hudson River such as the Indian Point nuclear power plant. These power plants suck in huge quantities of water from the river for their cooling systems. When they do this they suck in the eggs of the shad which are then killed by the turbulent water flow. Local environmentalists have long advocated putting filters on the water intakes to help prevent this but the power plants have fought any such regulations. It seems 150% profits per year are not sufficient so the only choice is to save a few cents by killing off the fish populations.

Unfortunately the decline in fish populations on the Hudson is not limited to the shad alone. Last week, Riverkeeper released a study saying that 10 species of Hudson River fish are in decline. The report said shad, alewife and blueback herring are facing disappearance from the river. Riverkeeper aims to get the state to force the five power plants that pull water from the Hudson to cool their equipment, and inadvertently destroy fish larvae and eggs in the process, to switch to technology that uses 95 percent less water and, therefore, kills fewer fish. Indian Point is among the power plants that the group cited.

We support the Riverkeeper organization in trying to get the power plants to behave in an environmentally responsible manner. As much as we tend to talk about global warming on this site the environmental damage from coal and nuclear plants is not limited to just temperature change. Problems like this are yet one more reason why changing over to energy generation approaches such as wind and solar is so needed and so urgent. The cost of continuing to generate energy from coal and oil is, in every sense, just too high!

Is Food versus Fuel Really the RIght Debate?

2008-05-02T07:06:00.000-07:00

The bio energy sector of the renewable energy market is under a good bit of fire these days. Seems like everyone, including Congress, is blaming bio fuels for the sudden increase in food prices. Not surprisingly the ethanol manufacturers have gone on the offensive (or is that defensive) in trying to counter this criticism. What's the truth of the situation?

There is no question that ethanol is one of the factors in the rise in demand for corn. According to the Department of Agriculture this year 22% of the U.S. corn crop will go towards producing ethanol rather than fuel. That's up 17% over last year. However, ethanol is not the only factor in the increased demand for corn. The biggest culprit is actually the increased demand for corn from China. Most of this demand is not for feeding the people of China directly, but instead for feeding their cows and pigs. Why, because the people of China and Asia have begun adding meat to their diets, something that used to be a rarity. Weather is also a factor in the current wave of demand. A drought this year in Asia reduced the supply of corn, wheat and soybeans. Imports increased to make up the difference. Finally there is the dollar itself. As the value of the dollar continues to fall on the currency market prices get higher.

As a result of the higher food prices Congress has begun to question the many incentives being provided to the ethanol industry. While this might be a good idea we suspect it is coming about four years too late and for the wrong reason. In our last two presidential election the Red states, most of which are large grain producers, managed to win themselves big government incentives for ethanol. Lost in the rush to win votes was the question as to whether or not ethanol is a particularly good approach for creating fuel in the first place. There continues to be much legitimate debate over the efficiency of corn-based ethanol. At best, according to industry spokesman, the fuel is only 1.25 efficient, meaning it only produces 25% more energy than it takes to make the fuel in the first place. However, recent studies that look at the full production cycle, including the cost of oil-based fertilizers to grow the corn in the first place, suggest that this number is optimistic and that ethanol could be a net negative (see our section on Food vs Fuel for more on this).

Yes, ethanol may be contributing to higher food prices but it is certainly not the only factor. The real problem is that at best corn-based ethanol is only a marginally efficient fuel. There are other renewable energy alternatives that have proven themselves in the marketplace to be far more efficient and effective, particularly wind energy and solar energy, which right now lack government incentives. Congress has still not renewed the renewable energy tax credits for wind and solar despite the fact that they represent probably the greatest energy resource that the U.S. has. Nor has the government invested in supporting the development of electric vehicles which would then make it easy for us to leverage electricity for transportation. If we are going to wean ourselves off of oil and coal and protect the planet the country is going to have to move much more forcefully to support renewable energy solutions. Therefore we support government incentives for renewable energy. But let's provide the most effective incentive for the most efficient renewable energy sources.

We are now in another election year. Let's not make the same mistake this time around. Let's have a real debate on where to put our government's energy dollars. Let's think wisely about how the taxpayer's dollars are used so that it has the greatest impact. Support the candidate that has the best energy policy and encourage your members of Congress to support energy policies that are wise, not just politically expedient.

Investing in the Earth

2008-04-22T05:36:00.001-07:00

This morning I perused my newspaper (the New York Journal News) to get a sense of this year's obligatory Earth Day articles. Two articles struck me as particularly interesting. The first article that got me thinking was a local article which reported findings from a consumer research firm (Mintel) that found that consumers were willing to buy green products provided they did not cost 10% more than regular non-green products. My first reaction to the story was that it was presuming the negative. Why shouldn't most green products be even cheaper than regular products. For example, energy saving CFL lightbulbs clearly last much longer than traditional incandescent bulbs and use about one-third the energy. Over their lifetime that represents a significant cost savings. So why do we think of them as more expensive?

The reason we think of them as more expensive is that they cost a bit more up front compared to regular light bulbs. We think in terms of the short term cost, not the long-term value. It struck me that this type of valueless thinking is the antithesis of the values I was raised on. I remember once going to a Sears store with my father so he could buy a new hammer. I remember him pointing out to me that the Sears Craftsman hammers were more expensive than others but that it was important to think about the durability of tools and that an investment in a good tool would always pay off in the long run. It was a good lesson and one that sunk in. To this day I won't buy a cheap tool but insist on going with well-made, quality tools, even though they are more expensive.

What I find surprising is that we won't apply this same logic to products which are good for the environment. We put up a new article this week in the Solar Energy section of the EnergyBible which talks about Calculating Payback on solar photovoltaic systems. What the article showed was that a solar energy system can save homeowners lots of money while doing something good for the planet. What's the drawback, the same as with the CFL bulbs, it costs money up front. It requires an investment! It made me think of a neighbor who recently spent $20,000 to put up a new deck on his house. He argued that it would improve the resale value of his house, an understandable reaction in the rapidly declining housing market. However, I got to thinking that if he had used that same $20,000 to put up solar panels on his roof he would have also have improved the value of his property but in addition he would have dramatically cut his energy bills for the next 25 years. Seems like a no-brainer to me but clearly he didn't see it that way.

Investment was also the theme of another article I saw this morning, though this one was found, not surprisingly, in the business section of the newspaper. The article was reporting on a recent analysis by MP Morgan Securities in which the analyst recommended that investors dump stock in companies which required significant water supplies (power plants for example) in order to create their product. The premise was simple. The supply of water is no longer meeting demand given our rapid population growth so companies that rely on water are going to be at significant risk.

I make no claims on sainthood and so I have to admit my immediate reaction to this article was to conjure up an image of a Wall Street banker who is found deceased in his office, up to his armpits in mounds of cash, who unfortunately died of thirst because there was no water in the water cooler. OK, its a tempting scenario, but the point of all this is that while much of the public is hesitant to invest in a future which will protect our planet, many others who live in the investment sector are willing to invest in the probability that we will fail and that our planet will go down in ruin. It is a morbid way of looking at the world but it is real. There is money to be made in selling the planet short, or more precisely, short selling the planet!

I would like to think that the human race has more sense than this. That we will wake up, smell the coffee, and put our money to work protecting our planet instead of destroying it. However, I suspect it won't be Wall Street investors who make this happen. It will happen when individual investors large and small spend their money wisely, by investing in things that payoff in the long run!

Magnitude of Change in Energy Costs

2008-04-14T07:04:00.001-07:00

In this time in our history when there is so much happening on so many economic fronts it is often difficult to fully grasp the magnitude of changes that are going on around us. I believe this is particularly the case when it comes to energy prices. All of us realize that energy prices have gone up a lot in the last few years but since we are all very busy managing our day-to-day lives it is hard to fully comprehend the magnitude of the change which has occurred. Fortunately, every now and then the team at the EnergyBible.com comes across data which helps us to crystallize and gain perspecitve on the changes that are occuring. In this case the data is from our friends at the U.S. Department of Energy.

The chart we will be referring to can be found at this link: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epmxlfile4_1.xls. It is a spreadsheet put out by the Department of Energy and what it shows is the cost of coal and oil from 1993 through the end of 2007. When I looked over this chart it really began to hit me just how dramatically our energy costs have changed in the last 10 years. Moreover, it helps to show how different the level of change has been based upon the type of fuel.

This particular price chart contrasts the price of coal versus the price of liquid petroleum (ie. fuel oil). One of the nice things about this chart is that it provides the prices for both in terms of cost per million BTU. This is a good way of comparing coal costs to heating oil costs since each type of fuel is measured differently. Coal is usually measured in cost per ton and fuel oil is measured in cost per barrel. By looking at the cost per btu (heat energy generated) we can accurately compare the costs.

In 1998 a barrel of oil cost $13.55 per barrel or about $2.14 per million btu. In that same year a ton of coal cost $25.64 per ton or about $1.25 per million btu. From this we can see that the cost of coal was about half or 58% the cost of oil. Therefore, it should not be a surprise to us, though it often does, that the majority of the electricity we use in the United States comes from coal fired power plants, not natural gas or fuel oil plants. Even 10 years ago coal was a lot cheaper.

Let's compare that with the situation at the end of 2007. By the end of 2007 a barrel of oil had risen to $87.46 per barrel or about $14.19 per million btu. This represents an increase in cost of oil per btu by 663% in just 10 years! What's even worse is that this data is now quite low because oil prices continued to rise dramatically in the first half of 2008 and is now hovering around $110 per barrel. Don't let anyone tell you the energy crisis is not real and not serious. These numbers prove that it is!

Now let's look at the increase in the price of coal over that same time frame. At the end of 2007 coal had risen to a price of $36.07 per ton or $1.82 per million btu. This represents an increase of 45.6%. A definite increase but nowhere near as dramatic as that for coal. Now let's put two and two together. The facts are that the price of oil has increased by an incredible amount while the price of coal has increased only moderately. America has run out of oil for the most part and has to import it, but America has a good bit of coal left, probably enough to last at least 30 years. Given this data what are electric plants running on fuel oil (and possibly even homeowners) likely to do? The answer is obvious, they will switch to coal.

So here we are in 2008 looking at the likelihood that America's electric plants and possibly even homeowners are going to be highly motivated to switch to coal, which is by far the most damaging fuel to our environment and the greatest creator of global warming. Given the economic situation oil and natural gas are no longer reasonable choices as a way of creating electricity. The only other choice is to go with renewable energy resources such as wind energy, solar energy, or hydro energy. This shows that there has never been a time when it is more urgent to push our civic leaders and legislators to get serious about renewable energy. If not we are looking at a near-term future where our skies become polluted and our planet becomes excessively warmed by the black clouds pouring from coal fired electric plants!

The Cantwell/Ensign Energy Bill

2008-04-08T06:50:00.000-07:00

As we reported this week the federal tax incentives for both business and residential solar energy and wind energy are set to expire at the end of the 2008. Consequently there are several bills before Congress which are attempting to extend the renewable energy incentives. One bill has already been shot down because it proposed to pay for the incentives by eliminating some of the absurd tax incentives that Bush gave to his oil buddies last year. Fortunately a new bill has been introduced by Senators John Ensign and Maria Cantwell which has a greater chance of making it through. This bill, called the Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act of 2008, does not call for the solar and wind incentives to be paid for by the oil companies so it might get through.

One of the things we like about this bill is that it not only calls for extending the tax incentives, but it also calls for removing the $2000 cap. This cap has served to minimize the extent to which larger home owners will invest in renewable energy for their home. At a time when energy prices have gone through the roof (sometimes literally) it seems utterly ridiculous to put a cap on how much renewable energy a homeowner can be credited for.

Another thing we like about this bill is that it is broad in scope, and provides incentives for many kinds of renewable energy such as solar, geothermal, wind, biomass, hydropower facilities and much more. Extending the solar and fuel cell Investment Tax Credit for eight years also encourages tremendous development of these technologies.“ Senator Ensign was absolutely correct in saying “If Congress continues to drag its feet, many projects across the country will be a sad reminder of potential that was never met."

It is gradually beginning to dawn on some members of Congress that renewable energy means jobs, local jobs, and so support for Green initiatives seems to be growing despite the current administration's attempt to crush any energy initiative that would compete with the oil conglomerates. Studies have shown that the Production Tax Credit and Investment Tax Credit for renewable energy projects would help create 120,000 employment opportunities and bring almost $20 billion in economic investment into the country.

At last count Ensign and Cantwell’s bill has 6 Democratic cosponsors and 14 GOP cosponsors. It will need to have strong support from both sides of the isle if it is to have a chance of getting Bush to sign it. Therefore, we strongly urge you to contact your own senator and let them know you support this bill and want to see the renewable energy tax credits extended. The bill needs 40 more votes if it is to make it through. Help us find the favorable forty! Thanks!

Follow the Money

2008-03-22T08:50:00.000-07:00

It has been an interesting week in the world of energy. Oil got up to $112 a barrel and (on a personal front) my local fuel oil supplier just raised my #2 fuel oil price to $4.19 per gallon . That is triple what it was just three years ago. Not a pretty picture. What I find interesting is that all of the media energy experts seem totally baffled by all of this. I was watching CNN a couple of days ago and they kept commenting upon the fact that U.S. oil reserves are at a 5 year high and there is currently no shortage of supply. Standard economic theory would suggest this price rise just shouldn't be happening. It would be easy to just chalk it up to a single word "GREED" but I suspect the real answer is a bit more complex than that. I suspect closer to the truth is the fact that while the oil company's won't admit it (peak oil ... what peak oil) the people with the money have realized that oil is a commodity that is rapidly running out. This isn't a short-term play, this is a long-term play.

Commodities, including oil, have been on a roll lately and I believe that is because there are investors out there who have enough money to truly think in the long term. Long term financial strategies call for buying things that will run out while they are still cheap so they can charge exorbitant prices when the supplies start running out. Oil is now in that category and so is being boosted by long-term speculators. So don't let the oil companies tell you that we have not yet started to run out of oil. The guys with the big money know better. Just follow the money!

Natural Gas vs Heating Oil

2008-03-16T09:24:00.000-07:00

Every now and then people write to us at EnegyBible.com with questions which strike us as the kind of thing a lot of people might be asking themselves. When that happens we will talk about the question on this blog and add them to our FAQ. Here is the question we got this morning along with our response. We hope you find it informative:

The AFUE ratings indicated a higher efficiency for gas over oil. I am about to replace my boiler. Would switching to gas make sense: economically, environmentally?

Ric thanks for your message. You are asking a very common question and unfortunately it is not all that easy to answer. You are correct that many natural gas boilers have a higher AFUE rating then some oil boilers. However, it depends somewhat on what kind of oil boiler you are talking about. Some types of oil boilers, particularly condensing oil boilers, have AFUE ratings that are as high as for natural gas boilers. Therefore, in order to make a good decision you have to look at factors such as boiler maintenance and the price of fuel going forward. Most heating and cooling experts we have talked to feel that in general oil boilers require more frequent maintenance than natural gas boilers. We have found that for most homeowners it is very important to have good regular maintenance of their boiler for both efficiency and safety considerations. A properly maintained boiler is less costly in the long run. You might want to consider a boiler maintenance plan if your utility company provides this service, and most do. You can compare service plan costs from your utility company or companies for each type of fuel. If the maintenance costs are similar then this may not be a factor but we have found that in many cases natural gas maintenance plans are less costly.

Boilers last a long time so in our opinion we think the biggest economic difference over time is probably going to end up being the cost of fuel. Therefore in order to judge which is best you are left in the unfortunate position of having to prognosticate the difference in natural gas vs fuel oil prices for the next twenty years. If you were to look at it today the pendulum would swing strongly in favor of natural gas. Fuel oil prices shot up by 97% in 2007 as opposed to natural gas which rose about 11%. As we enter the era of post peak oil we think it is likely both natural gas and fuel oil will continue to increase in price. However, we believe the competition for oil resources will be greater than for natural gas and so it is likely that the proportional increase in fuel oil prices will be greater. This is however a best guess based on limited economic data so please take this observation with a large grain of salt.

From an environmental standpoint frankly both natural oil and fuel oil are bad for the environment. They both take trapped underground carbon and release it into the atmosphere which increases global warming. Both types of fuel add to air pollution and both disrupt the land when we drill for them. All in all when it comes to fuel oil versus natural gas it is a lose-lose proposition.

There are a couple of suggestions we would make since you are considering replacing your boiler. You did not specify whether or not your boiler was for water heating or home space heating. If it is the latter then we would also recommend that you put in a new thermostats at the same time you put in a new boiler. Modern digital thermostats can provide much greater control over how you use heating in your home and are very inexpensive considering the improvement they can make in your energy costs. If you are using the boiler only for hot water heating you might also want to consider going with a solar hot water heater. These types of water heaters have improved dramatically over the last twenty years and are an extremely effective way of reducing your energy costs. In addition they do absolutely no damage to the environment. Most systems cost between $4000 and $7000 and can pay for themselves in just a few years. In addition, many states now provide tax incentives and rebates for solar hot water heaters which can further reduce the cost.

That was our response to our reader's question. Let us know what you think!

Is Religious Environmentalism Taking Hold?

2008-03-13T08:17:00.000-07:00

In creating the EnergyBible.com Website one of our goals was to provide the broadest and most complete perspective on the issues of energy use and renewable energy. Towards that end we have included within the site information about moral and spiritual perspectives on the environment because we have found that for many of us issues such as global warming, energy use and environmental stewardship are not simply political issues, they are moral ones. So from time to time on this blog we will be talking about what is going on in the world of faith-based organizations as they, like us, struggle to find the best solutions for out planet moving forward. This week there was a lot happening on that front.

Most of the major religious organizations have been debating envionmental issues for some time. However, as the scientific realities of global warming have begun to sink into our consciousness many organizations are seeing pressure from within to begin to become more actively involved in addressing environmental issues. This was the case with at the Southern Baptist Convention this week . The Southern Baptist Convention is a conglomeration of Southern Baptist churches and they have a yearly meeting, which (just to add to the confusion) is also called the Southern Baptist Convention. This week at their annual conference 44 of their leaders made a significant departure from the Southern Baptist Convention’s official stance on global warming by backing a declaration calling for more action on climate change, saying its previous position on the issue was “too timid.”

In many ways this action represents a major step forward in the area of religious environmentalism. The Southern Baptist church is a huge organization with over 16 million members and is the largest denomination in the United States after the Roman Catholic Church. Moreover, the Southern Baptist Church has always been extremely conservative when it comes to environmental issues. This may be about to change given that its current president, the Rev. Frank Page, signed the initiative, “A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change.” Two past presidents of the convention, the Rev. Jack Graham and the Rev. James Merritt, also signed. These church leaders stated that “We believe our current denominational engagement with these issues has often been too timid, failing to produce a unified moral voice,”

As recently as 2007 the Southern Baptists passed a resolution which took a very skeptical view of global warming. In contrast, the new declaration says that “Our cautious response to these issues in the face of mounting evidence may be seen by the world as uncaring, reckless and ill-informed. ”The document also urges ministers to preach more about the environment and for all Baptists to keep an open mind about considering environmental policy. The leaders said that current evidence of global warming is "substantial," and that the threat is too grave to wait for perfect knowledge about whether, or how much, people contribute to the trend.

Because the Southern Baptist Convention is an aggregation of individual churches such announcments are not in any way binding upon the individual churches. This is not the Catholic Church we are talking about. Yet because many of the signatories were both present and past church leaders it is likely that many Baptist preachers and members will give such announcements considerable thought. That strikes us as a good thing. A basic tenet of the Christian faith, and for that matter of most faiths, is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I sincerely believe that most of us would like to live in a clean, pollution free world where no one suffers as a result of our mishandling of the environment. I also sincerely believe that most of us want to survive period! Global warming threatens all of this. We certainly would not want our neighbors doing things that might threaten our environment and therefore our own existance. Consequently we should avoid doing these things ourselves.

Exactly what is the best way to go about our lives such that we don't cause damage to the environment, our neighbors and ourselves is not always easy to see. It will require better understanding of the planet, of the environment and ultimately of our own nature. It was towards this end that the EnergyBible.com Website was created. As we continue to study and research the field of renewable energy and the environment, we hope you will share your own learnings with us so that together we can come up with the most effective solutions. Should you have any knowledge, experience or opionions that you think would be helpful please don't hesitate to write to us. We look forward to hearing from you!

Bigger and Better

2008-03-10T07:10:00.000-07:00

Its been a busy week here at the EnergyBible.com. We did a complete overhaul of the interface for the Website including making the overall physical dimensions a lot bigger. The reason is pretty simple. The site was originally built to support browsers with screen resolutions as small as 800 x 600 pixels. However, apparently most of you have been out buying big screen monitors and it had reached the point where the number of viewers at 800 x 600 resolution was less than 1% percent. So we redesigned the EB for 1024 x 762 resolution which gives us a lot more space for our content and means a lot less scrolling for our viewers.

We've also been busy adding fresh content to our site. Look for two new articles today in our Solar Energy section. The first is about the revolutionary new capabilities in solar outdoor lighting made possible by the combination of low-cost solar panels and liquid crystal emitting diode (LED) lights. These new type of outdoor lights are far brighter than solar lights of the past and come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and designs. Solar lighting is inexpensive, friendly to the environment and incredibly flexible. Because solar lights do not require any wiring they can be placed anywhere in your yard or garden you want. In reviewing the products that are now available for this article we were impressed by the tremendous variety in designs that manufacturers have come up with. Ligths are being created in all sorts of designs from ultra-modern looking walkway lights, New Orleans styled street lamps, to garden ornaments of everything from frogs to fairies.

Another growing application of solar energy is water pumping. By combining a single solar panel with specialized direct current (DC) pumps it is possible to move a great deal of water at very little cost. These types of systems have proven to be a huge boon to many parts of the developing world in Africa, India, and Asia where electricity for operating well pumps is scare or non-existant. Solar pumps have also caught on in the U.S., particularly with ranchers who need to get well water to their cattle. The solar pumps are far cheaper than using a wind mill and require very little maintenance. Instead of having to constantly move the cattle to where the wells are they can put in more wells and use a solar pump to run them. Solar pumps are also catching on in landscaping. Because they require no wiring they can easily be put into just about any pond or stream for use as fountains or waterfalls.

Check out these new articles and the new solar products we have found. Also, let us know about other areas you would like us to research. Our goal is to make the Energy Bible the most informative renwable energy site on the Web so help us keep the public informed by sharing with us your interest and experiences. Thanks in advance!

The Marketing of Fear

2008-03-04T05:40:00.000-08:00

I was watching the news on NBC last night and one of their stories was about some house fire that was being attributed to "eco-terrorists". The paranoid part of me would like to say this was just another attempt by the current administration to promote bad environmental policies by playing the terrorist card but unfortunately it is not that simple. The fact is that nearly every story NBC presented last night involved some form of fear mongering, or perhaps I should say fear "marketing". The story that followed was about obesity issues (kids not getting enough breakfast which lead to increased obesity) and the one after that was some fear generating story about the recession.

The whole experience got me thinking about what is the difference between the marketing of fear and just reporting on the news, which is after all the job of any news organization. In thinking about it I tried to contrast the mainstream NBC news (CBS and ABC would be no better) and that of the other news program I watch, the PBS News with Jim Lehrer. My conclusion is that it all comes down to time. In the half hour mainstream news each story last between 30 seconds and two minutes because when you take away the commercials the actual news time is only 15 minutes. In a couple of minutes it is only possible to roughly outline problems. There is never enough time to go into the complete details behind a problem much less to discuss possible solutions.

Compare this to the stories on the PBS news. Besides an initial news summary that last usually 3-4 minutes, the rest of the 60 minute broadcast is devoted to covering three or four stories in depth. Because there are few if any commercials each story gets abut 8-10 minutes of coverage. This usually allows enough time to not only present the problem being discussed but time to explore potential solutions that people are currently being explored.

I am always struck by how different the PBS news feels than the conventional news. The conventional news leaves me feeling distraught and worried. I know there is a problem out there but I don't have enough details to analyze it so it sits there like some cloud of doom, amorphous but scary. Since no solutions are ever discussed one gets a sense of hopelessness and despair.

On the other hand on the PBS news I am presented with the same problems but I am given a much better explanation about the details behind the problem. This allows me to engage my intellect and figure out where in the grand scheme of things this particular issue should fit. Are there solutions? Does it really impact me personally? Because I have details and because potential solutions are discussed I come to envision it as yet one more challenge in a life where challenges are to be expected. Not necessarily a good thing but something that I am resigned to dealing with. A far different sensibility than what the mainstream news organizations engender.

Why do I bring this up on my Energy Bible blog? Simple, the environmental media is often as guilty as the mainstream media in playing upon people's fears. Its not that environmental problems are not important or even critical, its that too often the environmental media has been equally guilty of presenting critical topics like global warming or energy with the same lack of detail and analysis that we see on the nightly news shows. As an environmental activist I see it as our duty not to engage in the same type of self-serving fear marketing as the traditional media.

I am convinced that the United States, and the world for that matter, are facing a demanding set of problems caused by decades of poorly managing our production and use of energy. The problems are complex and will not be solved quickly. That being said I have tremendous faith in the ingenuity of human beings and am confident that the problems are something we can address and there are thousands of people around the planet coming up with practical solutions to our energy problems every day. The Energy Bible Web site is dedicated not just to pointing out the problems, but to sharing these solutions. We try hard to provide complete information on each energy topic with enough depth that a person can make good judgements as to how to proceed. To us, this type of detailed and comprehensive coverage of energy issues and solutions is the antidote to fear marketing. We hope you agree!

House Passes Renewable Energy Credits

2008-02-28T11:42:00.000-08:00

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

2008-02-27T06:25:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-02-25T11:08:00.001-08:00

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

2008-02-23T08:08:00.000-08:00

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

2008-02-22T09:24:00.000-08:00

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:

The towers are already very tall so we would be able to harness significant wind energy in most cases.
The towers inherently have the ability to transmit the electricity the wind turbines would generate.
Because the tower is already in place the cost of the tower would be eliminated making the wind turbine implementation very cost effective.
There would be no land or land rights to worry about because that would already have been taken care of by the power company.
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.
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

2008-02-21T07:35:00.000-08:00

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!