Scotland, Wind Turbines, Politics and the Economy...

[Tony_Muldoon]

I would have to agree with Sean here. Even though some energy forms are less "efficient" than others...given some types are far cleaner than others, its worth it for a cleaner future to pursue these technologies very aggressively, even at a loss. Because the start is indeed the key.  If every project was either continued or chopped based on its first few prototypes, we would have never have modern automobiles or planes or computers for that matter,  because the first several versions of them really sucked.  The same lee-way/forgiveness has to be put in place in for any new technology...especially when it has such a worthwhile goal.

No one is talking about curtailing research into wind or other green technologies, let alone chopping prototypes. What sane people are doing is questioning the logic behind putting prototypes into production, when they are so inefficient they need massive subsidies in order to get made at all.

On the BBC’s excellent Coast programme there was a report of a potential new form of energy creation.  As the tides move sea water into and out of estuaries the salinity of the water changes markedly, depending on the state of the tide.  Using osmosis incredible pressure can be trapped and released and turned into energy.   New ideas are out there and I wish that more of these subsidies were going to pure research rather than shoring up a technology that doesn’t work yet.

[Bill_McBride]

I would have to agree with Sean here. Even though some energy forms are less "efficient" than others...given some types are far cleaner than others, its worth it for a cleaner future to pursue these technologies very aggressively, even at a loss. Because the start is indeed the key.  If every project was either continued or chopped based on its first few prototypes, we would have never have modern automobiles or planes or computers for that matter,  because the first several versions of them really sucked.  The same lee-way/forgiveness has to be put in place in for any new technology...especially when it has such a worthwhile goal.

No one is talking about curtailing research into wind or other green technologies, let alone chopping prototypes. What sane people are doing is questioning the logic behind putting prototypes into production, when they are so inefficient they need massive subsidies in order to get made at all.

On the BBC’s excellent Coast programme there was a report of a potential new form of energy creation.  As the tides move sea water into and out of estuaries the salinity of the water changes markedly, depending on the state of the tide.  Using osmosis incredible pressure can be trapped and released and turned into energy.   New ideas are out there and I wish that more of these subsidies were going to pure research rather than shoring up a technology that doesn’t work yet.

If I remember correctly, the Spanish experiment in subsidy was a disaster, with the actual cost of a KWH, after cost of production and subsidy, was 3X what the utility sold it for!

[Craig Van Egmond]

Got this in e-mail the other day...


The  Green  Thing

Checking  out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older  woman that she  should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags  weren't good for  the environment.

The woman apologized  and explained, "We didn't  have this green thing  back in my  earlier days."

The clerk  responded, "That's our problem  today. Your generation did not care enough  to save our  environment for future generations."

She was right --  our  generation didn't have the green thing in its day.  Back then,  we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to  the store. The  store sent them back to the plant to be washed and  sterilized and  refilled, so it could use the same bottles over  and over. So they really  were recycled. But we didn't have the  green thing back in our  day.

We walked up stairs, because we  didn't have an escalator in  every store and office building. We  walked to the grocery store and didn't  climb  into a  300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.  But  she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.
   
Back  then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away  kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy  gobbling  machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power  really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got  hand-me-down clothes from their  brothers  or sisters, not always  brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right.  We didn't have  the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had  one  TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a  small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a  screen the  size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen,  we blended and stirred by  hand because we didn't have electric  machines to  do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to  send in the mail,  we used wadded up old  newspapers to cushion  it, not Styrofoam or plastic  bubble wrap.  Back then,  we  didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We  used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised  by working so we  didn't need to go to a health club to run on  treadmills  that operate on  electricity. But she's right.  We didn't have the green thing back  then.
   
We drank  from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of  using a cup or  a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor  blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole  razor just  because the  blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing  back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus,  and kids  rode their  bikes to school or walked instead of turning  their moms into a  24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical  outlet in a room, not an entire bank of  sockets to power a dozen  appliances. And we didn't need a  computerized gadget  to receive  a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles  out in space in  order to find the nearest pizza joint.
   
But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

[Kalen Braley]

This subsidy talk is a bit amusing.  You can look at almost any product in the economy and it likely has one subsidy or another.

Oil is subsidized, electricity is heavily regulated to keep rates reasonable, natural gas...ditto, even many "energy" crops....there are lots of example in the energy biz that get plenty of help from Joe blow taxpayer.

Everything we have around us is based on dozens of years of research...someone had to pay for that!  The problem is corporations and governments are all focused on the now, and what are we doing this quarter, instead of having the long term vision that our fore-fathers had for a better tommorrow by planning for decades in advance.  This is slowly eroding away in our current political environment and the repercussions are going to be massive.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Kalen your facts are wrong. There are tax policies on how one deducts costs to drill and produce  oil and gas. There is a depletion allowance of 15% for those whose resource is being depleted by production, rather than pay straight ordinary income. Part of that leaves this year when the new passive income tax in the health care package kicks in. There are no/zero subsidies of any kind on Oil or Natural Gas in the USA.

[Alex Miller]

I'm actually taking an Energy Economics course right now and enjoying it immensely.

Bob mentions tidal (and wave) energies as being a promising alternative. I happen to agree and while it's not THE answer, there's been plenty of movement forward in efficiency and cost effectiveness of these technologies. They also happen to have as little environmental impact as windmills on land and are much easier on the eyes.

To take the important info from a recent DOE snippet "it could generate about 15% of U.S. Energy consumption," which is not an insignificant amount of power, especially since we are always looking for more efficient uses of energy as well, so that percentage could theoretically rise.

http://www.energyboom.com/emerging/doe-reports-united-states-immense-wave-and-tidal-energy-resources


The fact is the more of an investment that is made into renewable energies now, the smoother the transition in the future. While many would expect energy costs to rise dramatically if we aren't able to make the transition to nuclear, wind, solar, tide, etc... costs will not be the issue. At least in the short term coal's role as a Backstop Technology to oil will allow energy provider to continue to keep costs down at the expense of polluting the environment.
 

Like the graph shows, if we can decrease the cost of renewables now, the long term effects are huge.

[Kalen Braley]

Kalen your facts are wrong. There are tax policies on how one deducts costs to drill and produce  oil and gas. There is a depletion allowance of 15% for those whose resource is being depleted by production, rather than pay straight ordinary income. Part of that leaves this year when the new passive income tax in the health care package kicks in. There are no/zero subsidies of any kind on Oil or Natural Gas in the USA.

TIger,

We're talking semantics here.  Any kind of cost reduction or transfer of money from gov't to private industry is a "subsidy" because it has the effect of lowering the costs to produce energy X resulting in (hopefully) lower prices to the user.  So even if it comes in the forms of taxes or accelerated depreciation on oil rigging, its still for all effective purposes a "subsidy".

But I don't doubt that the powers that be try to "label" it differently for PR reasons.

[Bill_McBride]

Got this in e-mail the other day...


The  Green  Thing

Checking  out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older  woman that she  should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags  weren't good for  the environment.

The woman apologized  and explained, "We didn't  have this green thing  back in my  earlier days."

The clerk  responded, "That's our problem  today. Your generation did not care enough  to save our  environment for future generations."

She was right --  our  generation didn't have the green thing in its day.  Back then,  we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to  the store. The  store sent them back to the plant to be washed and  sterilized and  refilled, so it could use the same bottles over  and over. So they really  were recycled. But we didn't have the  green thing back in our  day.

We walked up stairs, because we  didn't have an escalator in  every store and office building. We  walked to the grocery store and didn't  climb  into a  300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.  But  she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.
   
Back  then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away  kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy  gobbling  machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power  really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got  hand-me-down clothes from their  brothers  or sisters, not always  brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right.  We didn't have  the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had  one  TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a  small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a  screen the  size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen,  we blended and stirred by  hand because we didn't have electric  machines to  do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to  send in the mail,  we used wadded up old  newspapers to cushion  it, not Styrofoam or plastic  bubble wrap.  Back then,  we  didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We  used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised  by working so we  didn't need to go to a health club to run on  treadmills  that operate on  electricity. But she's right.  We didn't have the green thing back  then.
   
We drank  from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of  using a cup or  a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor  blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole  razor just  because the  blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing  back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus,  and kids  rode their  bikes to school or walked instead of turning  their moms into a  24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical  outlet in a room, not an entire bank of  sockets to power a dozen  appliances. And we didn't need a  computerized gadget  to receive  a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles  out in space in  order to find the nearest pizza joint.
   
But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Bravo!    I'm about to turn 70  and can verify everything your source is saying, Craig.   Everything grows at geometric rates. 

[Tony_Muldoon]

The fact is the more of an investment that is made into renewable energies now, the smoother the transition in the future.

You’re graph is very pretty but at least have the sense to realise the reason why the world is in a mess right now is because of poor investment decisions.   It wouldn’t have happened if we’d had LESS investment in bad choices and more investment in sound ones.

What is needed is not just MORE but smarter investments in  Green energy, infrastructure,  etc, etc etc.

Wind around the extensive coast of GB&I has the potential to provide more than 15% of our energy needs.  There is such a rush by politicians to jump on the green bandwagon that no one is questioning whether the large sums of money currently being spent are giving us a decent return.  Our government has signed us upto a target that commits the consumer and taxpayer to pay for inefficient technology.  It is amazing the numbers of wind turbines that are in the pipeline and the visual blight will just get worse.  They will sit there for a long, long time unused and unrepaired due to this fools rush to wrap ourselves in a feel good thing.

I would much rather the government committed MORE funds to research to bring efficient technology along faster.

[Alex Miller]

The fact is the more of an investment that is made into renewable energies now, the smoother the transition in the future.

I would much rather the government committed MORE funds to research to bring efficient technology along faster.

I should've been clearer, but this was in fact what I was trying to say. Implementation of current technologies does nothing to make them a better alternative from an economic standpoint, but better technology is what would shift the cost of renewables curve down and allow for a transition sooner rather than later.

[Tom Birkert]

Alex,

Out of interest, don't natural gas, shale gas and nuclear get factored into the equation?

Wind power simply does not work to provide energy as needed by the population. They require permanent conventional power back up due to their intermittent nature, the environmental cost of them is huge (piling concrete in fields, bird deaths, noise pollution) and they quite simply are a testament to the folly of agenda / policy led decisions.

Tidal power, hydro electric, geo thermal are all far better than wind power but renewables can not replace conventional power, no matter how much the ideology might want them to.

The Spanish obsession with wind power cost money and jobs. We should take heed.

The whole climate change act is one of the biggest disasters in history. Making people pay more taxes for no discernible difference.

I have every faith in human intelligence and development that any changes that happen in the climate - which are beyond our control - we will be able to adapt to and mitigate. That is if we haven't wasted all our money on wind farms before that!

[Adam Clayman]

It's laughable if people think Electric Cars or Wind Power are new technologies.

[Alex Miller]

Alex,

Out of interest, don't natural gas, shale gas and nuclear get factored into the equation?

Wind power simply does not work to provide energy as needed by the population. They require permanent conventional power back up due to their intermittent nature, the environmental cost of them is huge (piling concrete in fields, bird deaths, noise pollution) and they quite simply are a testament to the folly of agenda / policy led decisions.

Tidal power, hydro electric, geo thermal are all far better than wind power but renewables can not replace conventional power, no matter how much the ideology might want them to.

The Spanish obsession with wind power cost money and jobs. We should take heed.

The whole climate change act is one of the biggest disasters in history. Making people pay more taxes for no discernible difference.

I have every faith in human intelligence and development that any changes that happen in the climate - which are beyond our control - we will be able to adapt to and mitigate. That is if we haven't wasted all our money on wind farms before that!

So I try to stay current on these issues, and am currently taking a course regarding this very subject. I'm open and up for debate, but I'm happy to express my views since it's all so fresh on my mind.  

Wind and solar are towards the bottom of my personal list of viable alternatives. Nuclear, while not renewable technically, is certainly clean and viable and while the destructive power of the material is already evident, that doesn't mean it's not the way to go. France is an excellent example of what nuclear power can provide. An interesting side to nuclear is the molten salt reactor (there is a new TED talk about it and an even better hour long video on youtube), but I do not have the scientific background to say whether it's viable or not, and it's currently still under debate.

I believe tidal and wave power hold great promise too, and after all hydroelectric is an old power source. While solar is still not cost-effective, there is still opportunity for improvement, but the fact remains that like all of the electric cars on the road, a great deal of energy and resources are put into making solar panels or batteries. So much so that investing in current solar technology does very little to move us forward. Wind, while totally renewable is far less predictable and therefore less affordable. Currents and waves however (we're talking water not electricity) are far easier to predict and because of the density of water compared to air, can generate a lot of power.

Natural gas and shale get factored into the equation of course, but coal is fairly unique because the cost/BTU, aka the cost per amount of power output, is substantially lower than natural gas, wind, solar, et all. The next 10-20 years are the most important (aren't they always  ) since the cost-effective clean options, nuclear, tidal, and wave take at least a decade of planning and building while in the meantime the expensive alternatives, wind and solar can be built quickly but for a price. I don't know what the answer is because there are so many forces at play and so many different bets to be placed. Whatever the route, the goal is to bring the cost of clean energy down enough to compete with oil before coal becomes the best option.

Another quick note to consider (and boy I get to use my population demographics and analysis class here now!), is that the global population is beginning to stabilize and should begin to top out in the next 50 years. The International Energy Agency predicts energy consumption will continue to increase by 2% per year. That rate would lead to a doubling of energy consumption in 35 years, but this is a foolish prediction. The rate of population growth in the last 2 centuries will probably never be seen again in human history (who knows though? Bottlenecks, amirite?) but while we are at a global population of 7 billion today, even robust projections do not predict the world population rising above 9 billion mostly thanks to decreasing birth rates and to a very small extent poor diets (my generation is supposed to live shorter than that of most on this board  ). Efficiency has been able to curb the rate of growth of energy consumption relative to the rate of growth of the human population. If the human population does not grow at the same rate, we can also hope for some stability, and eventually a decrease of energy consumption in the future (though not for a while, and not a decrease from current consumption). I still think social security will be a bigger problem than affordable energy in 15 years though, if that makes anyone feel any better. (Note: It probably shouldn't)

[Kris Shreiner]

Bill M. ,

Great post! The idea that we're so much more advanced today is misguided. If you want to know the greenest human beings to ever walk the planet...it was our American Indians and other tribal folks that lived like they did. Totally light footprint approach to EVERYTHING they did. Didn't pollute to any significant degree, respected the natural reasources and only utilized what they needed, very little waste. How does today's world society square with those attributes?



We do need to explore new energy technologies, and inefficient models, even failures, are to be expected; this is the price of invention. I do agree that the new technology should be refined and perfected on a smaller scale FIRST, before we embark on costly government endorsed programs that are of questionable merit and return on investment.

Cheers,
Kris

[Lou_Duran]

It's laughable if people think Electric Cars or Wind Power are new technologies.

My my, brother Clayman; getting so dismissive in old age.  Who was it that said "He who laughs last laughs best."?

In my younger years (when I really "knew" that I had most everything but my golf swing figured out), I was fortunate to befriend a much older man who was once "the fixer" for one of the two companies which joined to form Frito-Lay.  By this time the company had become quite large, sophisticated, successful, and full of hotshot MBAs from all the best schools.   Modern, perhaps a bit full of itself, the company relegated the "old farts" like my friend which it couldn't run off to relatively low-level staff positions.  This man, effectively the operational voice (and hammer) of the most senior level executives including the founding CEO for many years and who possessed an immense wealth of institutional wisdom, was cast to bleachers populated by young, new backbenchers like me. Over the three years of our association we probably reviewed 20 or more "new" initiatives, several of which changed major operations costing tens of Millions of $.  Ray would say, yeah, we tried that one in region x back in 19yyy, found it to be a waste of time for reasons xyz, in z months.  I would present the downsides to senior management (over time earning the reputation of not being much of a "team" player, as well as their respect for my technical abilities and forecasting skills) without citing that the "New" was really "old", and not very good at all.  Like in golf, it really comes down in many cases to those damned fundamentals.  We are still talking about Hogan; we will be converting carbon to usable energy for at least until the cows come home, good intentions, lofty dreams, and the exhuberance of youth notwithstanding.  

[Bob_Huntley]

Kris,

I know very little about the Indian tribes of North America but something about some of the tribes of sub-Saharan Africa. Not having a wheel, some of their practices of dragging and burning were not very green at all.

Bob

[George Pazin]

If you want to know the greenest human beings to ever walk the planet...it was our American Indians and other tribal folks that lived like they did. Totally light footprint approach to EVERYTHING they did. Didn't pollute to any significant degree, respected the natural reasources and only utilized what they needed, very little waste. How does today's world society square with those attributes?

Everyone's dream...for everyone else.

[Adam Clayman]

Lou, Thanx for the story.

 I remember the day GM announced they were going to make an electric car (circa '1995?) It smacked of treating people the way politicians do, as idiots.

Shorting their stock from that point on was a real desire.

[Kalen Braley]

Kris,

That's an apples and oranges argument.

You're trying to compare at most a few hundred thousand people, organized into mostly small groups in tribal fashion that had tens of thousands of square miles at their use, (with no limitations), and who could spread out with minimal interaction with others...


...vs tens of millions of people in the same area with an almost infinite amount more rules in terms of regulation of what they can and cannot do, with tens of thousands of square miles being off limits, to a population that can readily travel where a flight can get you anywhere in that area in 2-3 hours, and a water supply that is now being used to feed hundreds of millions.

Huge difference in the methods/idealogies to manage those two completely different groups!!

P.S.  And i'm just talking about the Western US.  Throw in the entire US and multiply those population numbers by 10.

[David_Tepper]

New documentary in wind farms:

http://urbanacitizen.com/Main.asp?SectionID=3&SubSectionID=5&ArticleID=159113

Review of "Windfall" in the NY Times:

http://movies.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/movies/windfall-a-documentary-on-wind-turbines-by-laura-israel.html

[Lou_Duran]

Bill M. ,

Great post! The idea that we're so much more advanced today is misguided. If you want to know the greenest human beings to ever walk the planet...it was our American Indians and other tribal folks that lived like they did. Totally light footprint approach to EVERYTHING they did. Didn't pollute to any significant degree, respected the natural reasources and only utilized what they needed, very little waste. How does today's world society square with those attributes?
Cheers,
Kris

If I may ask, how did you develop your beliefs regarding the American Indian?  From what I've read, they typically would exploit the land they occupied and just moved-on when it was exhausted.  "Light footprint approach"?  I bet the weaker tribes which were annihilated and displaced didn't think so.  If you're interested in the subject, try reading "Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History" by S. C. Gwynne.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Gents good to see a debate with no name calling on here, Alex apologies for getting you wrong and thanks for your subsequent entries..

Chris romantic ideas like yours are not new. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage

I’m scared now I’ve reached a stage in life where I’m quoting Hobbes  but describing their life as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"  sums it up.

Do you believe their motivations as peoples were any different than our own?  I don’t and I also believe that the desire for progress has brought us more benefits than downsides and we are lucky to live now. I am confident that we can produce cleaner, cheaper, energy going forward.   It does bring into question how effective our democracies are about choosing which way to go on these issues.

[Tony_Muldoon]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16893018

The debate is slowly becoming public.