This month's Power Engineering Magazine had a big surprise in it. Instead of reporting solely on progress of EPA legislation, various plant cleanups and oil spills, and the newest, most fanciful steam turbines, Mr. Russel Ray wrote a full-page report addressing what he calls "disruptive" and "burgeoning" technology--"Distributed Energy Resources" or DER.
Distributed Energy Resources is another term for energy turned into electrical power that's not generated and distributed from a central power station. These energy resources include solar panels and wind generation, which are both becoming economically viable for individuals and companies alike. There has been a radical surge of use into these technologies, arguably reducing the need for central generation.
It's Mr. Ray's opinion that this surge is not something to be worried about, that statements like this one from Jon Wellinghoff, "Solar is growing so fast it's going to overtake everything!" distort the nature of where the US power generation market is headed.
This is partly true, and partly false. Wellinghoff is correct that we will continue to see a rise in the availability, efficiency, and economy of solar power as we move forward toward 2020, and as such will see more use. Mr. Ray is also correct, since it would not seem that we as a nation are ready to move on from our power grid just yet, and that renewables certainly will not take hold overnight.
But I detect in Mr. Ray, especially in this episode of Power Engineering, a vivid fear that what he says may actually not be true. Throughout the rest of the article Mr. Ray provides reasons why DER will not overtake centrally generated power any time soon, citing even the failure in German legislation to implement an effective renewable grid without causing energy spikes or shortages.
But if history has taught us one lesson, it should be this: humans will follow the path of least resistance, especially when it comes to money. There is no reason to assume that DER won't overtake centralized power generation if it becomes so cheap and affordable as to justify a setup, and significant return on investment.
Mr. Rays advice to Power Engineers is that we should not expect a move away from central generation. My advice is this: Power Engineers should jump ship and head for the DER train, because it isn't slowing down anytime soon.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Friday, May 30, 2014
The Polar Vortex Wasn't Caused by Climate Change?
According to this article from the CATO institute, a scientific study has recently been released disputing the White House's claim that climate change has lead to the Polar Vortex of this last winter.
I quote:
"We wonder just what it will take for the White House to publicly admit that it was grossly wrong. At the very least, it needs to disavow a widely-disseminated YouTube video featuring Holdren explaining the link between last winter’s polar vortex and human-caused climate change. There is no such link. Of course, this won’t happen, as Holdren was simply engaging in a publicity stunt relying on tenuous science to scare up support for President Obama’s Climate Action Plan. The President is hell-bent on an endless string of executive actions aimed at manipulating the energy market and reducing our energy choices along the way."
Read the full article here:
http://bit.ly/U2715d
Reducing our energy choices? That's a trip. How could they be reduced any further than they already are? The fact that most people are forced to buy power from one electric company, plus the fact that the power grid is large, cumbersome, and inefficient, doesn't make a lot of market choices for the consumer. Some power utility companies are even trying to stem the progress of individual, renewable, solar energy investments. Take a look at the issues the state of California has been having with SolarCity.
SolarCity installs solar panels on your house for free, with the goal of charging you less for power than the standard electric utility price. Read more about SolarCity.
I quote:
"We wonder just what it will take for the White House to publicly admit that it was grossly wrong. At the very least, it needs to disavow a widely-disseminated YouTube video featuring Holdren explaining the link between last winter’s polar vortex and human-caused climate change. There is no such link. Of course, this won’t happen, as Holdren was simply engaging in a publicity stunt relying on tenuous science to scare up support for President Obama’s Climate Action Plan. The President is hell-bent on an endless string of executive actions aimed at manipulating the energy market and reducing our energy choices along the way."
Read the full article here:
http://bit.ly/U2715d
Reducing our energy choices? That's a trip. How could they be reduced any further than they already are? The fact that most people are forced to buy power from one electric company, plus the fact that the power grid is large, cumbersome, and inefficient, doesn't make a lot of market choices for the consumer. Some power utility companies are even trying to stem the progress of individual, renewable, solar energy investments. Take a look at the issues the state of California has been having with SolarCity.
SolarCity installs solar panels on your house for free, with the goal of charging you less for power than the standard electric utility price. Read more about SolarCity.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
The Free-Market Argument for Gasoline, and The Available Alternatives
In my last post I noted that laws exist in the auto industry that discourage external competition and favor inefficient, pre-existing methods and companies in the oil and auto industry. In this post, I want to step away from the political side of the argument for a minute, and look at the practical side.
Free-market advocates of gasoline, including the oil companies, will contend that gasoline is the fuel of choice for us because it has the most energy stored within it per unit weight, which makes it the most efficient fuel of choice for a car. This explanation is a little simplified, but that's the gist of the argument.
As an illustration of this, think about the energy given off from burning one pound of shelled peanuts in a bucket, then think about the energy given off from burning one pound of peanut shells in a bucket. In one bucket you have only peanut shells, and in another bucket you have only peanuts. Both will burn. However, one will release more heat than the other, even though they each have only a pound of peanut-matter in them.1
Therefore, many free-market advocates like myself, who argue that the continued use of gasoline is a result of the free-market and people's choices wherein they choose the option out of several available options to them will argue that because so many people choose gasoline as a continued fuel of choice that means it's the most efficient in the long run, and therefore the most worthy market fuel. "The market has spoken" so-to-speak.
This, however, is oversimplified thinking.
Sure, people will on average choose the most the most gain for the least loss anytime they can, and if that means gasoline is it, then that's what they will choose. But this doesn't account for the market regulations that are keeping us stuck with gasoline in the first place. As I've noted previously, market regulations generally destroy the incentive for new auto manufacturers to come on the scene and come up with better ways to do stuff, including more efficient fuel systems than gasoline, because they enable already existing automakers who specialize in the status-quo to stay on the top.
The old saying "Why change what works?" seems very applicable here. If you run an automobile company, and you're making great profits selling more-or-less the same old cars as you always have and just adding a few new bells or whistles every year, why change anything? Your market rule isn't even being threatened, so you don't have to and people will just keep buying from you! But if a savvy entrepreneurial type comes along with a way to turn rocks into energy via E=MC2 then you have a different problem altogether. You'd better come up with a new type of engine, or else mini-Einstein is going to be getting 5,000 miles to the pebble of energy and steal the entire market from you.
We don't have a way of turning a pebble into 5,000 miles of travel quite yet, but there's an easy and readily available way of turning otherwise inanimate matter, like trash, wood, logs, and waste into energy via a process called gasification.2 In gasification, wood and other solid waste is turned into highly flammable clean burning methane and hydrogen gas.
The practical cost of creating a gasifier on your car that could turn trash or wood into fuel is very low relative to the cost of running your car on gasoline for the rest of its life. For a video of a converted gasifier Honda running, click here.
There's even talk about boron powered cars. The book "Prescription for the Planet," by Tom Blees, outlines an argument for a zero-pollution boron powered car wherein refueling it could cost pennies on the dollar compared to a gasoline powered car.3
The last available alternative to gasoline that I'd like to mention is the electric car. It's no secret that electric cars are becoming more and more popular. Naturally so, for as the technology advances, so do the prospects of viable electric cars. More and more people are ready to simply plug in their car at night, and let the power grid do the rest. Some electric cars get the equivalent of 500 miles to the gallon in gasoline.
With all these viable technologies, it's a wonder why gasoline ever took off in the first place. I'll continue to delve into that question as the days go on.
-Notes-
1. The peanuts themselves will release more energy than the shells, since they contain most of the oil per pound, and the oil is the most energy-dense part of the goober.
2. For a demonstration of gasification, glance over at the links on the side and you'll see a video from a YouTube user about turning solid matter into liquid fuel.
3. See an abstract of the argument for Boron-powered cars here. Though I don't endorse Blees' public policy with regard to energy policies, he has done some solid research on the Boron car which is worthy of being recognized.
Free-market advocates of gasoline, including the oil companies, will contend that gasoline is the fuel of choice for us because it has the most energy stored within it per unit weight, which makes it the most efficient fuel of choice for a car. This explanation is a little simplified, but that's the gist of the argument.
As an illustration of this, think about the energy given off from burning one pound of shelled peanuts in a bucket, then think about the energy given off from burning one pound of peanut shells in a bucket. In one bucket you have only peanut shells, and in another bucket you have only peanuts. Both will burn. However, one will release more heat than the other, even though they each have only a pound of peanut-matter in them.1
Therefore, many free-market advocates like myself, who argue that the continued use of gasoline is a result of the free-market and people's choices wherein they choose the option out of several available options to them will argue that because so many people choose gasoline as a continued fuel of choice that means it's the most efficient in the long run, and therefore the most worthy market fuel. "The market has spoken" so-to-speak.
This, however, is oversimplified thinking.
Sure, people will on average choose the most the most gain for the least loss anytime they can, and if that means gasoline is it, then that's what they will choose. But this doesn't account for the market regulations that are keeping us stuck with gasoline in the first place. As I've noted previously, market regulations generally destroy the incentive for new auto manufacturers to come on the scene and come up with better ways to do stuff, including more efficient fuel systems than gasoline, because they enable already existing automakers who specialize in the status-quo to stay on the top.
The old saying "Why change what works?" seems very applicable here. If you run an automobile company, and you're making great profits selling more-or-less the same old cars as you always have and just adding a few new bells or whistles every year, why change anything? Your market rule isn't even being threatened, so you don't have to and people will just keep buying from you! But if a savvy entrepreneurial type comes along with a way to turn rocks into energy via E=MC2 then you have a different problem altogether. You'd better come up with a new type of engine, or else mini-Einstein is going to be getting 5,000 miles to the pebble of energy and steal the entire market from you.
We don't have a way of turning a pebble into 5,000 miles of travel quite yet, but there's an easy and readily available way of turning otherwise inanimate matter, like trash, wood, logs, and waste into energy via a process called gasification.2 In gasification, wood and other solid waste is turned into highly flammable clean burning methane and hydrogen gas.
The practical cost of creating a gasifier on your car that could turn trash or wood into fuel is very low relative to the cost of running your car on gasoline for the rest of its life. For a video of a converted gasifier Honda running, click here.
There's even talk about boron powered cars. The book "Prescription for the Planet," by Tom Blees, outlines an argument for a zero-pollution boron powered car wherein refueling it could cost pennies on the dollar compared to a gasoline powered car.3
The last available alternative to gasoline that I'd like to mention is the electric car. It's no secret that electric cars are becoming more and more popular. Naturally so, for as the technology advances, so do the prospects of viable electric cars. More and more people are ready to simply plug in their car at night, and let the power grid do the rest. Some electric cars get the equivalent of 500 miles to the gallon in gasoline.
With all these viable technologies, it's a wonder why gasoline ever took off in the first place. I'll continue to delve into that question as the days go on.
-Notes-
1. The peanuts themselves will release more energy than the shells, since they contain most of the oil per pound, and the oil is the most energy-dense part of the goober.
2. For a demonstration of gasification, glance over at the links on the side and you'll see a video from a YouTube user about turning solid matter into liquid fuel.
3. See an abstract of the argument for Boron-powered cars here. Though I don't endorse Blees' public policy with regard to energy policies, he has done some solid research on the Boron car which is worthy of being recognized.
The Energy Monopoly
Yesterday I put forth some reasons why it's possible the existing automobile industry benefits from laws in place which are designed to support the safety of our citizenry, but may unintentionally bring wealth to those who support the status-quo, and hurt the financial safety of our citizenry. Today I'd like to put forth some more reasons why the present state of energy in our country is beneficial to the existing powers in the automobile industry, as well as existing powers in the energy industry. When I say the energy industry in this post, I'm strictly referring to suppliers of oil, natural gas, and fossil fuels, not power plants or other means of electricity generation. I will get to those power suppliers at a later time.
You know the names, BP, Shell, Exxon, these are the oil companies that we're all familiar with.1 (For a list of the 25 biggest oil companies in the world, click here) Is it possible that oil companies, as well as automobile companies, benefit from laws which already exist that stem production in the area of alternative fuels? If auto manufacturers benefit from the plethora of laws that perpetuate the status quo in their sector of the transportation industry, as my last post posits, then we can take for granted that oil companies stand to benefit as well, since more than 95% of the transportation industry is powered by oil and fossil fuels.2
This means that oil companies are raking in extra cash on a daily basis, maybe even more cash than is due them, as a result of laws that are supposed to keep consumers safe. Would you've ever thought that your state's seat belt laws, airbag laws, and other laws of similar nature would be what's keeping you filling up at the pump and paying $60 or more a tank, instead of having an alternative, more cost-effective, more economic way to get around? Me neither, yet the connection seems to be there.
I regularly hear other people voicing distress about the energy monopoly and how bad it is for our nation's economy. If these people knew that laws exist that favor "big auto" and "big oil" do you think they would recant their support for those laws? I would hope so.3 Unfortunately, one of the major foibles of our democratic majoritarian nation is that we oftentimes overlook the long-term consequences of a policy-change decision, in favor of the short-term benefits the policy-change decision can make for a certain group. We would do well to cede ourselves from doing this, and look to the legislation that's been passed in the energy industry as a case-in-point.
-Notes-
1. Oil has recently become synonymous, in large-scale energy generation, with natural gas and other fossil fuels. For the purposes of this essay, I will assume that oil refers to all these terms in tandem.
2. "Fossil Fuels Archives - IER." IER. Web. 20 May 2014. <http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/topics/encyclopedia/fossil-fuels/>.
3. There are also laws that work against the "big auto" and "big oil" partnership, which I will continue to address in the weeks ahead.
You know the names, BP, Shell, Exxon, these are the oil companies that we're all familiar with.1 (For a list of the 25 biggest oil companies in the world, click here) Is it possible that oil companies, as well as automobile companies, benefit from laws which already exist that stem production in the area of alternative fuels? If auto manufacturers benefit from the plethora of laws that perpetuate the status quo in their sector of the transportation industry, as my last post posits, then we can take for granted that oil companies stand to benefit as well, since more than 95% of the transportation industry is powered by oil and fossil fuels.2
This means that oil companies are raking in extra cash on a daily basis, maybe even more cash than is due them, as a result of laws that are supposed to keep consumers safe. Would you've ever thought that your state's seat belt laws, airbag laws, and other laws of similar nature would be what's keeping you filling up at the pump and paying $60 or more a tank, instead of having an alternative, more cost-effective, more economic way to get around? Me neither, yet the connection seems to be there.
I regularly hear other people voicing distress about the energy monopoly and how bad it is for our nation's economy. If these people knew that laws exist that favor "big auto" and "big oil" do you think they would recant their support for those laws? I would hope so.3 Unfortunately, one of the major foibles of our democratic majoritarian nation is that we oftentimes overlook the long-term consequences of a policy-change decision, in favor of the short-term benefits the policy-change decision can make for a certain group. We would do well to cede ourselves from doing this, and look to the legislation that's been passed in the energy industry as a case-in-point.
-Notes-
1. Oil has recently become synonymous, in large-scale energy generation, with natural gas and other fossil fuels. For the purposes of this essay, I will assume that oil refers to all these terms in tandem.
2. "Fossil Fuels Archives - IER." IER. Web. 20 May 2014. <http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/topics/encyclopedia/fossil-fuels/>.
3. There are also laws that work against the "big auto" and "big oil" partnership, which I will continue to address in the weeks ahead.
How Auto Manufacturers Benefit from The Current Auto Laws
As I mentioned in my last post, I hypothesize that auto manufacturers benefit from laws that support the perpetuation of the status-quo. Here is the federal National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration list of standards and regulations for building a road-legal vehicle.
It's a dizzying list for anyone who's not accustomed to reading the federal law code, which is most of us. From parts, to bumper specifications, to airbag features, to turn signals, there's pretty much no way to modify or improve your car without violating or risking violating something in the federal law code.
It's a little known fact that the automobiles being sold us today by the major manufacturers, Toyota, GM, Volkswagen, Ford, Jeep, Dodge, just about any other you can think of, are more of a product of legislators than innovative companies. That is to say, no matter how much those cliche car commercials boast about the rampant innovations of their newest model, the car itself--the end result--isn't an innovation built from the ground up to be the most efficient car possible. Rather it's innovations built with the hundreds of federal codes and restrictions to innovation in mind. Instead of being built from the ground-up, the ground up is established by the federal laws.
Major manufacturers have had decades to perfect their designs, and learn to manufacture parts in the cheapest and most efficient way possible. The federal list of standards and regulations for automobiles does not pose an economic problem for these manufacturers, because they've grown their companies in the system, they've been able to adjust to the laws one at a time and invest the money where, and when necessary to abide by the code.
Opponents of the free market often criticize it for allowing monopolies to exist. It's a fact that mom-pop shops and other business start-ups may have a hard time turning a profit if they can't sell as low as the other more established businesses can. It's ironic, then, that the same opponents of the free market also support the overlegislation of standards that hurt business startups arguably more than the monopolies themselves.
Haven't you ever wondered why the auto companies can sell basically the same cars year after year? Sure, there's some innovation, as far as features go, but it's pretty minimal as far as anything that's really out of the status-quo. Besides power windows, a few more MPG, heated seats, DVD players, and some differences in size, there's almost no difference between the cars being sold right now and the cars that were being sold in the 1960's. Some would say we've even devolved in terms of quality. They basically do the exact same thing, get us reliably from Point A to Point B, with maybe a few more bells and whistles than before.
So why is it the manufacturers can still stick a price tag well exceeding $10,000 on any new car, and we have no choice but to continue buying at that price? There's a hundred ways one could design a road-ready automobile for well below $10,000. There's more than a few inventors that have already done so. The only thing standing in their way is laws which are created for our presumed safety.
Why aren't these inventors allowed to challenge the crony stranglehold on the auto industry? There's only one reason--they are restricted from competing because they don't have the initial investment to bring their company up to speed with all the "safety" laws that already exist, or to perfect their manufacturing processes to efficiently and economically accommodate those laws.
You should be angry at the U.S. because the technology for viable electric cars has existed for decades, and we're only starting to see the first ones right now. You should be angry at the U.S. because big oil and big auto support legislation that allows them to continue to make imperfect and ineffective cars using outdated energy sources, and squash their competitors under the weight of their influence. Every time you pay $60 or more for a tank of gas, you should be angry at the U.S. government that their supposed laws for "safety" are actually jeopardizing millions of Americans who can barely afford to pay the bills, let alone pay hundreds of dollars in gas every month. You should be angry that the laws which are supposed to make us safe on the roads actually make us unsafe in our wallets.
You should free up the market. You and only you can do it. You're the voters of our nation, you can support the legislators who want to limit the extent of legislation, the governors who want to let us largely govern ourselves, and the innovators who genuinely want to create new and better ways to do things, rather than support the status-quo.
I only ask that you keep in mind that regulations on corporate production oftentimes backfire by simply extending the problems they try to solve out to a different place, rather than fixing them. It's noble of us to want safety for everyone, but we should be careful that we don't end up hurting more people than we are helping in the process. Unfortunately, regulations oftentimes have a tendency to create corporate advantages for companies that are already in the status-quo, and limit the market penetration ability of new inventors that have better ways to do things, and end up hurting the consumer in the long run.
In closing, I'd like to recommend a short 9-minute video by Milton Friedman addressing the topic of who protects the consumer in a free-market economy. Perhaps if we understand the safeguards to protect the consumer already in place within the free market, we can understand the results of our intentions when we attempt to pile on additional laws to add more safety than what is already there.
It's a dizzying list for anyone who's not accustomed to reading the federal law code, which is most of us. From parts, to bumper specifications, to airbag features, to turn signals, there's pretty much no way to modify or improve your car without violating or risking violating something in the federal law code.
It's a little known fact that the automobiles being sold us today by the major manufacturers, Toyota, GM, Volkswagen, Ford, Jeep, Dodge, just about any other you can think of, are more of a product of legislators than innovative companies. That is to say, no matter how much those cliche car commercials boast about the rampant innovations of their newest model, the car itself--the end result--isn't an innovation built from the ground up to be the most efficient car possible. Rather it's innovations built with the hundreds of federal codes and restrictions to innovation in mind. Instead of being built from the ground-up, the ground up is established by the federal laws.
Major manufacturers have had decades to perfect their designs, and learn to manufacture parts in the cheapest and most efficient way possible. The federal list of standards and regulations for automobiles does not pose an economic problem for these manufacturers, because they've grown their companies in the system, they've been able to adjust to the laws one at a time and invest the money where, and when necessary to abide by the code.
Opponents of the free market often criticize it for allowing monopolies to exist. It's a fact that mom-pop shops and other business start-ups may have a hard time turning a profit if they can't sell as low as the other more established businesses can. It's ironic, then, that the same opponents of the free market also support the overlegislation of standards that hurt business startups arguably more than the monopolies themselves.
Haven't you ever wondered why the auto companies can sell basically the same cars year after year? Sure, there's some innovation, as far as features go, but it's pretty minimal as far as anything that's really out of the status-quo. Besides power windows, a few more MPG, heated seats, DVD players, and some differences in size, there's almost no difference between the cars being sold right now and the cars that were being sold in the 1960's. Some would say we've even devolved in terms of quality. They basically do the exact same thing, get us reliably from Point A to Point B, with maybe a few more bells and whistles than before.
So why is it the manufacturers can still stick a price tag well exceeding $10,000 on any new car, and we have no choice but to continue buying at that price? There's a hundred ways one could design a road-ready automobile for well below $10,000. There's more than a few inventors that have already done so. The only thing standing in their way is laws which are created for our presumed safety.
Why aren't these inventors allowed to challenge the crony stranglehold on the auto industry? There's only one reason--they are restricted from competing because they don't have the initial investment to bring their company up to speed with all the "safety" laws that already exist, or to perfect their manufacturing processes to efficiently and economically accommodate those laws.
You should be angry at the U.S. because the technology for viable electric cars has existed for decades, and we're only starting to see the first ones right now. You should be angry at the U.S. because big oil and big auto support legislation that allows them to continue to make imperfect and ineffective cars using outdated energy sources, and squash their competitors under the weight of their influence. Every time you pay $60 or more for a tank of gas, you should be angry at the U.S. government that their supposed laws for "safety" are actually jeopardizing millions of Americans who can barely afford to pay the bills, let alone pay hundreds of dollars in gas every month. You should be angry that the laws which are supposed to make us safe on the roads actually make us unsafe in our wallets.
You should free up the market. You and only you can do it. You're the voters of our nation, you can support the legislators who want to limit the extent of legislation, the governors who want to let us largely govern ourselves, and the innovators who genuinely want to create new and better ways to do things, rather than support the status-quo.
I only ask that you keep in mind that regulations on corporate production oftentimes backfire by simply extending the problems they try to solve out to a different place, rather than fixing them. It's noble of us to want safety for everyone, but we should be careful that we don't end up hurting more people than we are helping in the process. Unfortunately, regulations oftentimes have a tendency to create corporate advantages for companies that are already in the status-quo, and limit the market penetration ability of new inventors that have better ways to do things, and end up hurting the consumer in the long run.
In closing, I'd like to recommend a short 9-minute video by Milton Friedman addressing the topic of who protects the consumer in a free-market economy. Perhaps if we understand the safeguards to protect the consumer already in place within the free market, we can understand the results of our intentions when we attempt to pile on additional laws to add more safety than what is already there.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
What exactly are we believing about energy?
“Something is always born of excess. Great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, [and great] instabilities, and it always balances them.”
― Anaïs Nin
It’s no secret that there is and continues to be a globally mounting fear of an energy crisis. You can hardly open up your newspaper or glance at the tabloid racks without seeing statements like:
“The Oil Shortage - When Will Our Joyride End?”
“Fossil Fuels - How Long Until They Fossilize Us?”
“Peak Oil - The Inevitable Doom of the Oil Industry”
I’m here to propose that none of these veiled threats are realistic. In fact, we do ourselves a disservice to even pay attention to them. Fearmongering publishers and government officials whose pensions depend on pleasing the right crowd would like you to believe that we depend on oil and that we need to subsidize it to keep the planet spinning. Oil companies are too busy counting their stacks of cash to care as long as we keep buying from them. One thing is clear: the market continues to choose oil and fossil fuels as its preferred choice of energy. But how long will that purchasing trend last? More importantly, why are we stuck with oil, when there’s so many other energy sources out there? Has the government struck a deal with oil companies to maintain a crony monopoly?
There are thousands of industries whose business model depends upon fossil fuels to succeed; they are companies whose entire way of operating is wrapped intrinsically around the useful exploitation of that wonderful black gold. Here are just a few examples:
Fossil fuels play a major role in manufacturing since hydrocarbonaceous materials are used to create the majority of plastics in plastics manufacturing. Even more prevalent than their role in producing plastics, though, is their role in the energy industry. Coal, natural gas, and petroleum sources produced 68% of the total electricity in the U.S. in 2012. The rest of the energy was created by renewable energy technologies. Perhaps the only market that eclipses the electricity generation market in its use of fossil fuels is the transportation energy market. In 2012, a whopping 95.4% of the U.S. transportation sector energy usage came from fossil fuels.2
Many detractors of the oil industry paint a picture of oil companies as nothing more than gigantic monopolies, invulnerable to any form of attack or competition from contrary market forces. What if we’ve overlooked some other energy options that are equally plausible, sometimes more so, than oil? What if the biggest competition to the oil giants is US? Not the U.S. per se, but US -- collectively. Individual, private investors owning our labor and our products, and our innovations in such a way that we can create more value for ourselves and others through the production and assimilation of alternative fuels?
It’s only logical, then, that US, the U.S., the collective labor of individual forces centralized in the United States, apply ourselves to our energy problem in productive ways wherein we can benefit as individuals, while also benefiting the nation as a whole. There may be more economically, ecologically, and nationally favorable methods of energy storage, distribution, transportation, and production than oil already available to us than what we are currently using.
Since we are a nation of the people, created by the people, and run for the people, why shouldn’t the people be able to choose their methods of transportation? Is it fair that the people are stuck using technology that is a hundred years old, when there’s so many people who want to advance to better automotive technologies, and energy based technologies?
It’s possible that the forces that shaped, and continue to shape these markets, are crony corruption. Cronyism is the solicitation of government favors from corporations with lots of money to contribute to campaigns, causes, or other means of legislative gain. Politicians can also blackmail companies by writing compromising legislation and forestalling projects that would otherwise benefit a company, or even writing laws that go directly against the specific interests of that company.
If it can be shown that the automobile industry as we know it, the energy industry as we know it, and the power industry as we know it have been shaped by crony corruption, it’s possible to negate, frustrate, even wholly dismantle the stranglehold that oil and fossil fuels have on the economy. That may be the first step in taking action, that is, making ourselves aware of the problem.
First, I’d like to take a look at the problem, as stated by those who are skeptical of the ability of fossil fuel to continue to provide a reliable, global source of energy. I’ll look into how a shortage of available energy in the oil, gas, and fossil fuel industry could affect communities, individuals, industries, and nations as a whole.
Next I’ll assess what I’d like to call “The Failed Hypothesis,” the idea that energy shortages can be effectively mitigated, avoided, and delayed, through government intervention, direct subsidization of alternative industries, or taxation of less desirable industries like oil and gas.
Once I've laid this groundwork, I’d like to explain an optimistically bright and beautiful alternative. The existing energy market is perfectly capable of dealing with any shortages of fossil fuels by making use of existing technology, and even more so once we get to advanced technologies. I’ll explain this using a supply and demand curve, and compare that curve to other industries. The overall demand for energy is high, but relative to the existing supply of energy is proportionately off the charts compared to any other industry. This is why Tesla believed free energy for everyone was inevitable, because even though he wasn’t an economist, he understood intuitively that the earth, the sky, and the universe are literally brimming with energy--so much energy that it’s almost unfathomable. [The trick is directing the energy towards useful work instead of destructive work]
Lastly, I’d like to deal with some of the natural consequences of this inevitable increase in energy and answer the question “Where do we go from here?” with regard to our energy problems.
I'll continue to publish content, as I come up with more answers.
2 "Fossil Fuels Archives - IER. Fossil Fuels - Encyclopedia Entry "IER. Web. 20 May 2014.
<http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/topics/encyclopedia/fossil-fuels/>.
― Anaïs Nin
It’s no secret that there is and continues to be a globally mounting fear of an energy crisis. You can hardly open up your newspaper or glance at the tabloid racks without seeing statements like:
“The Oil Shortage - When Will Our Joyride End?”
“Fossil Fuels - How Long Until They Fossilize Us?”
“Peak Oil - The Inevitable Doom of the Oil Industry”
I’m here to propose that none of these veiled threats are realistic. In fact, we do ourselves a disservice to even pay attention to them. Fearmongering publishers and government officials whose pensions depend on pleasing the right crowd would like you to believe that we depend on oil and that we need to subsidize it to keep the planet spinning. Oil companies are too busy counting their stacks of cash to care as long as we keep buying from them. One thing is clear: the market continues to choose oil and fossil fuels as its preferred choice of energy. But how long will that purchasing trend last? More importantly, why are we stuck with oil, when there’s so many other energy sources out there? Has the government struck a deal with oil companies to maintain a crony monopoly?
There are thousands of industries whose business model depends upon fossil fuels to succeed; they are companies whose entire way of operating is wrapped intrinsically around the useful exploitation of that wonderful black gold. Here are just a few examples:
Fossil fuels play a major role in manufacturing since hydrocarbonaceous materials are used to create the majority of plastics in plastics manufacturing. Even more prevalent than their role in producing plastics, though, is their role in the energy industry. Coal, natural gas, and petroleum sources produced 68% of the total electricity in the U.S. in 2012. The rest of the energy was created by renewable energy technologies. Perhaps the only market that eclipses the electricity generation market in its use of fossil fuels is the transportation energy market. In 2012, a whopping 95.4% of the U.S. transportation sector energy usage came from fossil fuels.2
Many detractors of the oil industry paint a picture of oil companies as nothing more than gigantic monopolies, invulnerable to any form of attack or competition from contrary market forces. What if we’ve overlooked some other energy options that are equally plausible, sometimes more so, than oil? What if the biggest competition to the oil giants is US? Not the U.S. per se, but US -- collectively. Individual, private investors owning our labor and our products, and our innovations in such a way that we can create more value for ourselves and others through the production and assimilation of alternative fuels?
It’s only logical, then, that US, the U.S., the collective labor of individual forces centralized in the United States, apply ourselves to our energy problem in productive ways wherein we can benefit as individuals, while also benefiting the nation as a whole. There may be more economically, ecologically, and nationally favorable methods of energy storage, distribution, transportation, and production than oil already available to us than what we are currently using.
Since we are a nation of the people, created by the people, and run for the people, why shouldn’t the people be able to choose their methods of transportation? Is it fair that the people are stuck using technology that is a hundred years old, when there’s so many people who want to advance to better automotive technologies, and energy based technologies?
It’s possible that the forces that shaped, and continue to shape these markets, are crony corruption. Cronyism is the solicitation of government favors from corporations with lots of money to contribute to campaigns, causes, or other means of legislative gain. Politicians can also blackmail companies by writing compromising legislation and forestalling projects that would otherwise benefit a company, or even writing laws that go directly against the specific interests of that company.
If it can be shown that the automobile industry as we know it, the energy industry as we know it, and the power industry as we know it have been shaped by crony corruption, it’s possible to negate, frustrate, even wholly dismantle the stranglehold that oil and fossil fuels have on the economy. That may be the first step in taking action, that is, making ourselves aware of the problem.
First, I’d like to take a look at the problem, as stated by those who are skeptical of the ability of fossil fuel to continue to provide a reliable, global source of energy. I’ll look into how a shortage of available energy in the oil, gas, and fossil fuel industry could affect communities, individuals, industries, and nations as a whole.
Next I’ll assess what I’d like to call “The Failed Hypothesis,” the idea that energy shortages can be effectively mitigated, avoided, and delayed, through government intervention, direct subsidization of alternative industries, or taxation of less desirable industries like oil and gas.
Once I've laid this groundwork, I’d like to explain an optimistically bright and beautiful alternative. The existing energy market is perfectly capable of dealing with any shortages of fossil fuels by making use of existing technology, and even more so once we get to advanced technologies. I’ll explain this using a supply and demand curve, and compare that curve to other industries. The overall demand for energy is high, but relative to the existing supply of energy is proportionately off the charts compared to any other industry. This is why Tesla believed free energy for everyone was inevitable, because even though he wasn’t an economist, he understood intuitively that the earth, the sky, and the universe are literally brimming with energy--so much energy that it’s almost unfathomable. [The trick is directing the energy towards useful work instead of destructive work]
Lastly, I’d like to deal with some of the natural consequences of this inevitable increase in energy and answer the question “Where do we go from here?” with regard to our energy problems.
I'll continue to publish content, as I come up with more answers.
Citations:
1 "U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis." What Is U.S. Electricity Generation by Energy Source? Web. 20 May 2014. <http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3>.
2 "Fossil Fuels Archives - IER. Fossil Fuels - Encyclopedia Entry "IER. Web. 20 May 2014.
<http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/topics/encyclopedia/fossil-fuels/>.
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