What’s Taking So Long?

It’s recently come to my attention that many of you have questions related to energy that go unanswered.  I’d like to change that.  Starting today and continuing until I can’t do it any more, I’m going to answer your most perplexing energy questions every Wednesday.  To kick it off, I have some questions that came in Tuesday via Twitter…

First, I received an excellent question from Anson Burtch:

This question gets hotter the closer you are to Capitol Hill.  Of course, the answer is going to be different depending upon who you ask.  My particular specialty involves the development and management of market transformation programs, and my opinions should be regarded as such.

That said, we’ve all known for a long time that our resources are limited and that there are better ways to obtain the energy we crave.  I use the word “crave” intentionally, as we don’t really need as much as we use.  Opportunities for efficiency are everywhere, yet many still choose the old way of doing things.

I’d like to point out here that we’ve been mining coal here since the mid 1700s and drilling oil since the mid 1800s.  Most of the American energy infrastructure was built to depend primarily on these two resources.

The latest research shows that roughly a third of our energy is used by the industrial sector for things like manufacturing, agriculture, mining, and construction.  The transportation sector uses the second largest amount of energy.  The remainder is consumed by homes and businesses.

Most of our total energy use is spent making stuff, feeding ourselves and creating more energy.  Our nation is but a collection of energy user archetypes, each with his or her own reasons for not doing what it takes to make a clean energy future our reality today.

Consider how hard it is to walk down a grocery aisle without seeing at least one item that touts its own eco-friendliness.  There are a lot of things to evaluate when making purchases, and for many, the key items of note are the ingredients.   Since we’re talking about energy here, I’m going to ask that we instead think about how these items actually came to be.

For the amount of energy used to develop a crappy plastic egg-poaching gadget (which, by the way, includes a recycling symbol associated with a type of plastic no one recycles but people think it’s okay because it has a symbol), you could light a living room for the evening. Think about that… Now think about what you’ve purchased in the last week.

While you’re pondering, I’d like to tie in another question to this conversation that I received from the delightfully irreverent Jay Dolan:

The US government is offering more incentives than ever before to get people to use less energy and support the adoption of renewables.  They can’t seem to throw enough money at it, but they’re certainly trying.  Money is the only way the Feds can come up with to motivate the market to move – though regulations are passed all the time to push out inefficient and ineffective technologies.

See, this is bigger than the government covering an entire southwestern state with solar panels.  They can’t force this on us any faster than we let them.

We must not forget that solar panel manufacturing requires energy, too. The same goes for all those elements that make up the clean energy systems that Anson addressed.  We must also remember that, while technology continues to improve efficiency in said production lines, large-scale renewable energy systems are very costly investments.  When compared to conventional means of obtaining energy, the returns are lengthy and too few are willing to give away investment funds for good will.  That’s why the government is buying down the cost with as many incentives as it can afford…

If you tell me you want to make some kind of energy improvement in your home or business, 95% of the time I can find an incentive of some sort to buy down the cost.  We can make this more affordable.  The thing is, you actually have to make the improvement.

For many people, the only believable future is one that doesn’t include coal or crude oil.  With this thought, Martin Whitmore (the awesomely talented artist responsible for my header) is going to make me take this one step farther…

Scientists and engineers tell us it is possible to power our nation completely with renewable resources.  If we want renewable resources to power our nation, we need to remember that money makes the decisions these days.  True, the government and utilities are offering more incentives to lower the initial costs, but no investors are stepping up to take this on right now.

The reason, as Marty astutely noted, is because we consume too much energy to make it a worthwhile investment.  We need to cut back.

Really, this is the critical key…

We are responsible for our own energy use, whether this comes from actually flipping a power switch to consuming copious quantities of items that take energy to produce.  We are the only ones who can make this change happen faster, and we do this by making energy-smart decisions in every aspect of our lives…

I know.  It’s frustrating that this urgent issue isn’t moving quickly enough.  Believe me… every week I learn of a business owner or a municipality who knows what they can do to reduce their electric and gas use but won’t make the changes because they don’t have the money.  Really, though, I think they need a paradigm shift more than anything…

We are the reason this is taking so long.  How we actually fix it is going to be another post, since I’m definitely out of time. A few quick notes before I go:

• Next Wednesday, I’m going to tackle questions from Marty on cold fusion and Vic Roberts on the implications of carbon credit programs. Hit me up if you have thoughts you’d like me to include or address.
• If you have any questions you’d like me to answer in a future post, tweet @Renewabelle or get in touch with me one of a few other ways over here.
• If you have any follow up questions or notes you’d like to add, I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

Thanks for taking the time to read this.  I hope this information proves useful and that it finds you well.

RB