From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Fri Jun 01 2001 - 19:32:31 MDT
At 04:25 PM 6/1/2001 -0700, Anne Marie Tobias wrote:
>We had ultra high efficiency, thin film plastic
>solar cells in the lab at Carnegie Mellon three years ago. Where
>are they? You think GE, and the fossil fuel guys are gonna let
>that one by without messing with it?
Three years is kind of short to go from laboratory to production. Also,
what is the life-cycle economy of these solar cells? If they really make
economic sense, we will see them soon enough.
You are one of the vast majority of people who don't realize that the "Big
Oil" companies are actually "Big Energy" companies; the majority of
"alternative energy" companies (solar, wind, geothermal, wave, etc.) are
also owned by the very same oil companies people like to demonize. Big Oil
doesn't care if you use alternative energy, because they own those
companies as well and make money either way; the conspiracy theory is
ridiculous. But when these companies are tasked with providing cheap
energy to the masses, they pick the most economical means reasonably
available out of their arsenal of possibilities.
>Why did the energy crisis suddenly blossom, when
>fossil fuels strongest advocate entered the white house? Why
>is that man unwilling to give California representatives more
>than 20 minutes of his time... The largest economic engine in
>the country, and the president won't talk to the governor...
>What's wrong with this picture.
Errrr...the energy crisis started in 1999, and has been building for a long
time. The U.S. only has a limited number of viable economic energy choices
(coal, nuclear, geothermal) and in the short-term, only coal and
nuclear. Since people are dismissing nuclear immediately without further
consideration, fossil fuels are the only alternative. Regardless of the
background of the president, what other choices *but* fossil fuels are
people going to give him? Given the plethora of problems inherent with
fossil fuel power generation in the U.S., it is not surprising that we are
facing problems now. And no, the alternative energy sources not listed
above are not options for industrial power consumption, as the cost of
energy is a major part of the cost of goods; an average difference of a few
cents per kWh makes a huge difference to the economy.
As for California (where I reside), they are fully responsible for their
own mess; political stupidity built a fine house of cards indeed. This is
not a Federal matter for the most part, so what can the president do? He
should stay out of that morass. Should the taxpayers in other States that
implemented sane energy policies have to subsidize the stupidity of this
one? I think not. Gray Davis is authorizing the building of small
co-generation facilities and a couple small power plants amounting to
Megawatts and trumpeting them in front of the media, when the shortfall in
California is growing by Gigawatts annually. This is exactly why
California will continue to have a problem while other states have energy
to spare (which they are more than happy to sell to California). The
chickens have come home to roost.
> As long as there is more profit in being stupid, why would'nt
>you ever expect the people in power to do all they can to kill
>the smart. It's just good business.
Smart power is irrelevant. Economical power is everything. It just so
happens that most of the cheapest sources of power are also the
cleanest. Unfortunately, politicians (and the environmentalists that
support them) have done their best to prevent the usage of our best
choices, so we end up with coal by default (the worst choice). It
certainly isn't the choice of "Big Business", which is paying more for
power than they theoretically need to (coal is a relatively expensive power
source). We can wax eloquent about theoretically nicer power sources, but
if adopting them signficantly raises the cost of power, forget about it. A
few cents per kWh can be the difference between feast and famine
for modern industry and they already pay more than they reasonably need to
as it is.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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