Elf Sternberg

It depends actually.

In electrical power generation, one dollar invested in conservation is worth about seven in generation. As a result, if you are a power utility, you make *more* money when people use less power than you do if they use more. The more power plants you have to build, the less money you make.

That's one example, but it doesn't have anything to do with the price of gas.

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urox.livejournal.com

How is it possible to make more money selling less? If you have a flat rate you charge at, you make X dollars per plant's ability to produce Y watts. More plants mean more multiples of X dollars.

Or are you referring to the cost of non-peak load (which then can be put into a battery and delivered during peak time which is still a total of y watts produced and charged preventing you from building more plants.. so still capitalistic)?

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duskwuff.livejournal.com

Producing power isn't a fixed cost. You've got some workhorse plants that can make you cheap power, and then you've got some peak-power plants that'll give you a bit of extra "oomph", but cost a pretty penny to run. (Nuclear power is an example of the former; natural gas, of the latter.)

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More than likely because if generation demand stays the same, no large investments need to be made to build more power plants except to replace ones that are worn out.

This document (http://www.powerauthority.on.ca/Storage/31/2687_Empire_Club_Published_Speech.pdf) goes into more detail.

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Bush has actually been pro-nuclear power, despite his oil industry connections. It's not entirely his fault that progress toward converting our power grid to nuclear energy has been slow. It's speeded up during his administration -- just not enough.

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mouser.livejournal.com

http://www.nanosolar.com/blog3/

I'm doing some math wrong somewhere: If it's "10 acres of land to serve a city of 1,000 homes", that's about 20x20 feet per house. It might take time, but if you need space for it, it does seem like there should be some type of incentive.

Maybe actual solar roofing would be the thing to do...

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jenk

Virtual offices and replacing your lightbulbs with flourescents aren't exactly goverment initiatives (at least, they ought not to be). But our President can lead the way, by example and by exhortation.

Especially since the President actually has a shorter commute thatn most employed Americans - he actually lives where he works.

Now if he'd implement a telecommuting plan for White House staffers, or encourage more transit...

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yamazakikun.livejournal.com

OPM does have a government-wide telecommuting program (http://www.telework.gov/). And the government chips in up to $110 (I think) a month for vanpool or public transportation costs.

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yamazakikun.livejournal.com

(For the second sentence, it's probably obvious given the context, but I'm talking about benefits for government employees. For the private sector, employers can offer the same out of pre-tax salary.)

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Al Gore is talking about conservation... even promised over a year ago that his Energy-hog of a home was being improved to use less energy, and tried to sidestep the issue by talking about purchasing carbon-credits - promoting his own company that manages purchasing of carbon-credits, of course.

But now, more than a year later, his home is using 20% more energy than it was at that time...

Talk is cheap.

What we need is cheaper energy, and letting capitalism do it's thing.

If business are allowed to do what they do best, they will advance our technology and standard of living at the same time as solving problems like finding other sources for hydrocarbons for plastics. Let them profit, and EVERYONE prospers.

Drill in ANWAR. Drill off the coast. Drill in the Dakotas. Build more refineries and Nuclear power plants domestically. That's the short term solution, giving us time for long term solutions.

But if you only focus on long term solutions, you'll never find your way out of the woods... unless you are a socialist and believe that throwing tax dollars at the problem is the way to find a solution... because that is all that will be left if capitalism isn't given the chance to find the long term solutions because it's being choked by too many regulations and taxes.

But no... you'd rather support Jimmy Carter Jr.'s bid for presidency and socialist reform.

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I think you missed the earlier post about how drilling in ANWR will take 7 years to do anything at all, and will only reduce the price of a gallon of gas by 2 cents. The cumulative effects of all your proposed policy changes would probably amount to a reduction of 10 or 15 cents a gallon. And how much will gas cost in 7 years? Oh, probably about double what it is today. Maybe even more, if we have truly hit world peak oil production already.

Conservation however, can start tomorrow and see benefits the next day.

Letting capitalism alone to do its thing however, results in Love Canal and coal mines where miners die every day as human sacrifices on the altar of the almighty dollar. Companies "doing what they do best" without regulation kill people. Their shareholders would *demand* the murder of competitors if it were legal. Your commitment to absolute capitalism sickens me, as it makes you nothing but a short-sighted monster.

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I think you missed the earlier post about how drilling in ANWR will take 7 years to do anything at all, and will only reduce the price of a gallon of gas by 2 cents.

That's B.S. that I choose not to believe.

Oil companies can get crude at less than $40 per barrel by drilling domestically as opposed to buying it for ... what is it now? $135/barrel? ... from the monopoistic OPEC nations who refuse to increase production to a point where the price will come down.

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Case in point: Gasoline 13 miles to the south of me (in tijuana) is only $2.54 per gallon today (cheaper if you convert to Pesos before going to the gas station)... it's $4.60 at the cheaper pumps here in San Diego.

Why? because Mexico pumps their own crude, refines it domestically, and doesn't have to import any oil from other nations. In fact, oil exports is their second largest source of income (second only to cash being sent back from Mexican citizens working in the United States... but that's a whole other can of worms!)

We should be pumping our own as well, and not importing one single drop from other nations. We need more refineries, too.

We have more oil reserves than all of the Middle East and Central American reserves combined... if only we'd tap more of it instead of caving in to the NIMBY's and eco-terrorists.

We used to be the most prosperous nation on earth. Used to be a time not so long ago when a single father could support an entire family on 1 income. Then Jimmy Carter happened.

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We should be pumping our own as well, and not importing one single drop from other nations. We need more refineries, too.

Please note that US oil consumption outstripped production in the 60s. Consumption is now *many* times production. This is the reason that the oil embargo worked back then. Just imagine what would happen today?

Oh, and the number of miles driven by Americans is now twice what it was in 1980.

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In the 60's we didn't know about ANWAR's reserves, The horizontal drilling techniques to get at the oil in the Dakotas was too expensive, and offshore drilling was a novelty.

The number of drivers may have doubled since the 60's, but the known reserves have increased at least 20-fold from that decade. Sadly, domestic oil production has been fairly flat since the late 70's, thanks to the Windfall Profits Tax that Carter implemented which unfairly restricts domestic oil companies from doing business.

...but I'm guessing that you LIKE paying $5 a gallon?

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No, I don't like paying $1.45 a litre. Nor do I like paying at least $90 a month in insurance. Plus car payments, whatever they might be. Which is why I don't own a car and I live 4 blocks from work. My wife pays $98 a month for a transit pass that gets her to work faster than it takes to carpool.

I'm doing my bit to decrease demand for oil, thus reducing its cost (like what happened back in 1980). Me and all the others like me are probably keeping the price of gas under $6 a gallon for you guys. You're welcome.

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I work 24.6 miles from where I live, not local to mass transit, and my vehicle also needs to occasionally pull a trailer... so yes, it's a small SUV (Jeep Liberty). I don't like paying $50-$60 per week for fuel just to commute, but I don't have any other choice.

As for your high-and-mighty concept of single-handedly keeping the price of oil down, again I call BULLSHIT.

The eco-idiots who insist on keeping local sources of oil from being tapped are the reason for the HIGHER prices, as well as being the reason that it's too costly for independant inventors or small entrpeneurs to find alternatives.

Here's a concept that you probably won't accept:

Making oil cheaper today leads to helping small businesses and inventors profit, which leads to faster and cheaper development of new sources of energy, which in turn leads to less oil being consumed down the road.

But you'd probably rather restrict small business and inventors from even getting off the ground by telling them that they can't use oil today. Is that what you're saying?

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I don't like paying $50-$60 per week for fuel just to commute, but I don't have any other choice.

Awww poor muffin. You were *forced* to buy a big house with a lawn in the suburbs. You had *no choice*. Your friends and family would have shot you to death if you hadn't.

Do you think that I must be fantastically wealthy to own a home so close to work? By the sounds of it, you could afford a place across the street from the office by just giving up that commute.

Making oil cheaper today leads to helping small businesses and inventors profit, which leads to faster and cheaper development of new sources of energy, which in turn leads to less oil being consumed down the road.

If that were true, then the price of gas today would be $0.15 a gallon. We've had over a hundred years to get your theory straight.

Instead, the equation obviously goes industry + oil = profit. Industry + more oil = more profit, and thus to make more money, industry uses more oil, which turns into "in order to stay competitive we must use more oil than the next guy" in a very short period of time. Which would certainly explain why America is addicted to oil and why it's now using more oil than it ever has before. A very casual (http://maps.unomaha.edu/Peterson/funda/Sidebar/OilConsumption.html) Googling (http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html) could tell you that (http://www.iags.org/futureofoil.html). That same set of links would also demonstrate that US oil production would have to triple to meet its own needs today (nevermind its growing future needs), and there's no way in hell that will happen.

But don't worry. I have no intention of "preventing small business from getting off the ground" by telling them they can't use oil. The world's supply will probably be gone in 50 years (100 if you're wildly optimistic about that, and honestly believe that we haven't already reached peak production) anyway, so I won't have to do anything at all. Believe me that when that day comes, I would really rather not have the opportunity to say "I told you so". I would much rather that people like you would listen today, instead of covering their eyes when the writing is on the wall in the form of a huge blinking neon sign. I would much rather that society made a smooth transition away from oil, rather than the coming bloody revolution of desperate, starving, unemployed, homeless suburbanites forced to stay home from their jobs and the supermarket by $10 a gallon gas.

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Wow... that was no surprise answer there. I should give up my house, give up my car, give up modern technology altogether... as long as the result is a greener alternative.

Hey, maybe we should all go back to living in caves and foraging for our food? I know, let's all go back to living in the ocean as single-celled orgnisms... no.. wait... maybe we should never have existed to begin with. yeah... that's the answer.

NOT!

Who's got their head stuck in the sand now?

I guess I'm done arguing with someone who has no chance of seeing my point of view.

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It took me a while to come up with a response that wasn't abrasive. But you won't like it anyway.

You've been told by the President himself - that cost won't get any lower than it is now, no matter what. And he's been best buddies with the king of the world's largest oil producer since they were little kids!

And we've come to the conclusion that you're not willing to give up your big house in the suburbs far from work despite the rising cost of continuing to travel back and forth between the two.

But you know what? If you make that choice, you have exactly 0 right to complain about it. You're not forced into this situation, you made a choice. Now live with it. Like a grownup.

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That's B.S. that I choose not to believe.

Translation: You choose to stick your head in the oil sands.

PS: Good luck with that.

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I'd rather think intelligently than blindly follow bullshit science.

Good luck to you with your head in the trees.

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antonia-tiger.livejournal.com

With the tech available now, large-scale nuclear plants, properly designed, built, and operated, have to be part of the answer.

That, alas, means you're going to have tough regulation. I, for one, don't trust the corporations without it. Suing the ass of them after another Three Mile Island isn't going to magically ensure the safety of what has already been built.

And we still have to do everything else.

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tagryn

Agreed. I think there's a visceral NIMBY reaction against nuclear on the part of many environmentalists, and I regard it as something of a touchstone for how serious they are about global warming: if they absolutely rule out nuclear, it tells me where their priorities are vis-a-vis global warming.

France has an remarkable nuclear program that could be a model for other developed countries. The trick is always what to do with the waste; the Yucca Mountain plan might be the best of poor options.

For the USA, I think the short-term answer lies in some mixture of nuclear and coal (the latter simply because the USA has so much of it) while waiting for further breakthroughs in solar to make it truly affordable/competitive with other sources.

I'd be OK with more drilling if I thought it would make a genuine difference, but I think the current price spike is being driven largely by speculation and lack of refinery capacity (plus increasing demand in China and India) rather than a lack of oil per se.

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For the USA, I think the short-term answer lies in some mixture of nuclear and coal (the latter simply because the USA has so much of it) while waiting for further breakthroughs in solar to make it truly affordable/competitive with other sources.

Ground-based solar will never be anything more than an auxiliary power generation system, owing to the existence of objects blocking or screening out energy from the Sun (the biggest of which is the Earth itself). Space-based solar, on the other hand, might one day be our civilization's primary power generation system.

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Suing the ass of them after another Three Mile Island isn't going to magically ensure the safety of what has already been built.

I'm pretty cool with an industry whose most famous American accident killed nobody.

(in fact, nuclear power generation accidents have killed Americans -- but only inside the power plants themselves).

The most famous nuclear accident anywhere in the world killed a few hundred people, which is small potatoes by the standards of worst industrial accidents anywhere.

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doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com

And rendered an entire city uninhabitable for decades...

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And rendered an entire city uninhabitable for decades...

Indeed, which is why power-grid nuclear reactors should be put in containment domes. As all modern ones are, and have been for the last three decades. Chernobyl was a 1950's-era design, and futhermore one which was being badly abused by its crew in pursuit of very poorly thought out safety tests.

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antonia-tiger.livejournal.com

And the Chernobyl stats suggest that low radiation doses are safer than the current linear model suggests. That makes it a good model for ordinary industrial safety--the radiation levels the workers are exposed to--but it isn't convenient for the nuclear haters. They forget we evolved to live in a naturally radioactive world.

A lot of the low-level waste that scares people is less radiocative than Aberdeen. Is global warming responsible for the floods and storms? If it is, if our CO2 spewing obsession with fossil fuel is behind it, the anti nuke lobby want to kill more people than Yucca mountain ever will.

(In a post collapse society of ignorance, which ignores the warning signs and dies (and the "and dies" is an exaggeration), the area can't support many people. Besides, won't there be demon stories to keep the next generation out?)

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Why aren't politicans talking about conservation yet?

Conservation is useful, but it is not a long-term solution. As civilization progresses, so does its energy generation. If we try to conserve our way into the future, we will find ourselves generating less and less energy as a percentage of total world energy generation, and hence will slip from our Great Power status (because power is based on wealth which in turn is largely based on energy generations capabilities).

McCain's nuclear proposal is the most intelligent thing I've seen from a national politicians in a long while. At least he grasps that Man's future is a nuclear one, and that America has to stop trying to live in the energy past. It's been our superstitious rejection of atomic energy that has been behind most of our energy problems for the last quarter-century, and the chickens that are coming home to roost in the form of soaring oil prices.

If we'd gone nuclear, as we originally planned to in the 1950's and 1960's, the oil prices would affect us only in terms of motor vehicle operation, and our response would be to rapidly convert our vehicles to electric.

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As civilization progresses, so does its energy generation.

That's funny, California has managed to keep its energy consumption stable for the past 20 years or so, in spite of a growing population.

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As civilization progresses, so does its energy generation.

That's funny, California has managed to keep its energy consumption stable for the past 20 years or so, in spite of a growing population.

20 years is too short a time scale. Compare the per-capita energy generation capacity of the United States at 50-year intervals, from 1750 to 2000, and you will see a dramatic increase at each step.

Do you really believe that in 2050 or 2100 we will only be generating about as much energy as we do today? Or even less?

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In 2100? Most certainly. There won't be any oil left by then, no matter *who* you believe with regards to oil production predictions. And a couple hundred years after that, all the coal will be gone too.

So we have a choice. We can fix that now, or we can wait until people are rioting in the streets over the price of gas...

Oops.

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Do you really believe that in 2050 or 2100 we will only be generating about as much energy as we do today? Or even less?

In 2100? Most certainly. There won't be any oil left by then, no matter *who* you believe with regards to oil production predictions. And a couple hundred years after that, all the coal will be gone too.

I didn't ask if we will only be generating about as much energy as we do now (or even less) from fossil fuels. I asked about energy in general. Why wouldn't at least some countries go to nuclear power generation (as France and Japan have already done) and then develop fuel cell powered vehicles to practicality?

Even if America sticks with fossil fuels and shrinks, this won't matter much to the world because, if we do this, the rest of the world won't be following our example any more in 50-100 years. It will be following the example of the winners, as it always does.

So we have a choice. We can fix that now, or we can wait until people are rioting in the streets over the price of gas ...

Or, we can go to a nuclear-and-solar energy grid with fuel-cell powered vehicles, and simultaneously continue to increase our standard of living while avoiding rioting in the streets. Somehow, I suspect that this will be more popular than slowly shrinking our economy while awaiting our inevitable doom (since no matter how well we "conserve," fossil fuels won't regenerate on any time scale useful to human beings.

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antonia-tiger.livejournal.com

You're only looking at one part of conservation. There are all sorts of ways to build houses to use less energy, before you even start on renewables.

Conservation--real energy conservation--won't be popular in Arizona, because living in that climate, at those population densities, uses a lot of energy. Rip out the suburbs that need air conditioning. Let the grass wither and die. Don;t let the wearing daylight heat into the house through those huge windows. Don't pump the scarce water.

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