I am sick and tired of hearing the tag line that energy saving technology, renewables, or going "green" to help "save the environment" is some wonderful new trend of good will. Ad campaigns, news reports, and corporate press releases make it seem like employing these technologies is some act of charity from the large corporations (who sponsor their programs by the way).The fact of the matter is that these technologies are essential to our survival. We have to employ them or we, as a nation, and as a civilization, will face disaster.
According to the Energy Central Insider, "A new report by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC)?says that by 2015 the country will need an additional 141,000 megawatts to accommodate an expected 19 percent increase in electricity usage."
Keep in mind that means we need 141,000 Megawatts, enough energy to supply power to 100 million homes, in only 8 years!
Now, obviously part of this number has to do with retirements of old coal plants and other fossil fuel generators. However, much of the new power is expected to come from coal and natural gas. Very little will come from nuclear power, and not enough will come from renewables.
The most disgusting element of this report is that it is not discussed in horror by the press and by Congress. All this talk in Congress about going green does not stop "reality" from being relayed by energy forecasters and utilities whose job it is to make sure that all our i-pods and i-phones and i-toasters are powered up every single day.
While the President says that we must not let Iran go nuclear, we have a far greater challenge that deserves more action. We cannot let power consumption grow by 19% in 8 years. We have to deploy energy efficient technologies. We have to start thinking about our consumption. The utilities are tasked with keeping the lights on. We are the customers that rely on electricity and cannot maintain our lives if there are regular blackouts or brownouts.
We should all write our representatives in Congress and tell them about this report. Ask them what they will do to make sure that energy consumption does not rise by 19 percent in 8 years. Tell them that if they let this happen, they will have failed the United States of America.
If you garner anything from this article, it should be that "green" is an archaic term. It has no meaning anymore. Energy efficiency and renewables should instead be called "smart" energy or "advanced" energy. We have no other choice but to improve energy technology, so we shouldn't commend corporations or individuals because they didn't make stupid decisions about their energy use.
In fact, here are some energy efficiency/renewable energy ideas that should be employed immediately and make total economic sense.
1) Airlines should keep the no-smoking light off. We all know we can't smoke on a plane anymore. Why should we waste millions of gallons of jet fuel to keep these lights on for the duration of thousands of flights each day? Just tell us at the beginning of the flight that we can't smoke, and explain why the light is off.
2) Okay, this is about water conservation, but in other parts of the world, there are two flush cycles for toilets. One for liquid waste, one for solid waste. Why haven't we required this existing technology while we are waste billions of gallons of water, exacerbating drought in many parts of the country?
3) Why don't all ovens have timers? Did you ever leave the oven on too long? Our ovens should require that we put timers on for everything, and when the timer ends, the oven cools down. Then we manually have to start the oven again. This would not only save natural gas, heating oil, and electricity, it would prevent perhaps thousands of house fires each year.
4) Even though the housing market has cooled off a bit, developers are still building new condos and neighborhoods without considering new efficiencies. Why can't the government have a carrot and stick approach where subsidies are provided to developers to add efficiency improvements, while at the same time raising efficiency standards for all new homes and buildings? We all know that developers don't pay the energy bill after they sell a home, so where is their incentive to reduce the impact of community expansion and sprawl?
5) Can we please have some offshore wind farms? Other countries have done it, and we can't seem to get a single one completed because everybody cries and whines about what amounts to toothpicks on the horizon.
There is plenty more where that came from, but that should get you started on our quest to make SMART decisions with our energy use rather than GREEN decisions. There is no "green" anymore, just progress, innovation, and of course, patriotism.
And the basis for your diatribe, the NERC forecast, is something that no one in the know takes seriously. The fantasists at NERC predict every single year that electricity use is going to rise at a much faster rate than it does. They do this because they are a vested interest.
I wish I had an updated hard copy of a graphic I used to love and share, which showed NERC forecasts every year from the early-70s thru the late-80s, and each year their predictions for future years went off into the wild blue yonder, and every year (with historical data) the actual growth was much more modest.
Of course, Dominion loves NERC. Dominion uses NERC-like data to make its case for the power line in NoVA.
You want to stem demand for electricity? Let prices rise and let businesses feel the pinch from rising power costs. Washington Gas felt an unprecedented drop in (weather-adjusted) gas use in the winter of 2005-6, when post-Katrina natural gas prices went through the roof. "Demand destruction" it is called. It can make sales of more efficient electric motors, more efficient air conditioning, and retirement of 2nd and 3rd refrigerators in basements and garages happen like nobody's business.