7 thoughts on “From PIGS to SEALS: The Accelerating American Energy Transition”
Amory Lovins loves to talk about his home as being a model for energy-efficient living, and his point about new construction meeting his home’s energy efficiency is a strong one.
But, keep in mind that his home is a multi-million dollar structure designed and built using cutting-edge materials and techniques. I’d love to have one of those.
But the fact is that almost every home in the world is NOT built to those standards and materiels. And, as I have mentioned before – how are we going to heat these hundreds of millions of inefficient homes without fossil fuels?
Answer: we are going to have to do it with electricity. Because electricity is the end-product of all renewable energy systems.
Next question: How is everyone going to be able to afford to heat their homes with electricity, if renewable energy electricity costs as dearly as fossil fuel electricity?
Answer: They aren’t going to be able to afford it. We are going to need a gigantic home insulation subsidy. Better yet…. and this may not be the first time I have said this(!) – it would be a very good thing to have very cheap electricity. Not just to entice folks off of hydrocarbons, but to also achieve some social justice. Our current pay model for energy is going to doom too many people into shivering in the dark.
The answer of course is that we must change utility regulations to reward them not for building more power plants, but for providing ‘energy services” ie heat, light, refrigeration, electronics, in the most cost effective way possible.
In this case, directing utility funds into building upgrades is often, if not always, a more cost effective option than building power plants – and this means jobs in local communities, from entry level all the way up to professional degree, jobs which will continue as long as technology keeps finding better ways to do things, meaning forever, jobs that will be available to anyone that can pound a nail, dig a hole, or bend metal.
But we are going to need more power plants. Tens of thousands of them. They just aren’t going to be burning carbon. All, or nearly all, of the power plants that we have today that burn hydrocarbons, will have to be replaced with solar, wind, and tidal energy farms.
We really do need an almost entirely new paralleled power system. I see this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to design the new system we need, not only with new technology, but also with a new mission and new paradigm, a paradigm which incorporates your ideals ( “providing ‘energy services” ie heat, light, refrigeration, electronics, in the most cost effective way possible” ).
But I see the best way to do this cost-effectively, painlessly, and quickly enough is at the Federal level, by building a new parallel Federal Renewable Energy Utility System as a commons project. Yeah – nationalization of electricity production and distribution. Providing dirt cheap or free electricity and paid for through Federal taxes. Just like we do for our military, road and railway and airport construction, police and fire protection, environmental and workplace protections, civic centers, museums, college scholarships, medicare, almlost every health system in the world excepting the U.S., etc etc etc.
If a homeowner can enjoy free electricity after paying off his rooftop PV, why can’t a nation do the same?
It cost $0.5M for the original building, but that’s because it’s close to 4,000 square feet. He points out it wasn’t any more expensive than other homes in the area in terms of $/sqft. Plus the money included the land and all the stylish built-in furniture.
He did add a bunch of monitoring equipment, solar panels, and donated stuff years later, which was costly, but at that point, he’s was trying to squeeze out just a little more efficiency on third parties’ dimes for the sake of experimentation.
He has case studies where it cost less to build very efficient buildings vs. conventional ones. And he has lots of case studies where he retrofits buildings with 5, 7, 10, 20 year paybacks. He also has one case study on a video (probably in his Stanford Youtube lectures if i recall correctly), where a small home that is super efficient was built for similar cost compared to the neighboring homes.
Yes I agree that indeed Amory Lovins should be in the media a lot more, he resigned from Oxford University when they could not accommodate him in the field of energy, he is truly suited to the age we find ourselves in now, his ex-wife Hunter coined the admirable suitable phrase of “Global Weirding” which sums up the bizarre weather events we experience today perfectly. Listen to him he has a lot to contribute to the fix that we are in now.
A humble tale from my intermediate adopted country the U.A.E, but truly it is time to start thinking about the Antarctica, it needs protecting from the mess that the Arctic is becoming…………
“The debut trip, which will bring together environmental crusaders from around the world, aims to extend a treaty, which is due to expire in 2041, that bans drilling on the continent, as well as promote measures to save the Antarctic from over exploitation and environmental degradation.”
The expedition highlights the effects of global warming and raises awareness on the need to protect Antarctica from drilling, mining and other activities when the international protocol to protect it expires in 2041.
Amory Lovins loves to talk about his home as being a model for energy-efficient living, and his point about new construction meeting his home’s energy efficiency is a strong one.
But, keep in mind that his home is a multi-million dollar structure designed and built using cutting-edge materials and techniques. I’d love to have one of those.
But the fact is that almost every home in the world is NOT built to those standards and materiels. And, as I have mentioned before – how are we going to heat these hundreds of millions of inefficient homes without fossil fuels?
Answer: we are going to have to do it with electricity. Because electricity is the end-product of all renewable energy systems.
Next question: How is everyone going to be able to afford to heat their homes with electricity, if renewable energy electricity costs as dearly as fossil fuel electricity?
Answer: They aren’t going to be able to afford it. We are going to need a gigantic home insulation subsidy. Better yet…. and this may not be the first time I have said this(!) – it would be a very good thing to have very cheap electricity. Not just to entice folks off of hydrocarbons, but to also achieve some social justice. Our current pay model for energy is going to doom too many people into shivering in the dark.
The answer of course is that we must change utility regulations to reward them not for building more power plants, but for providing ‘energy services” ie heat, light, refrigeration, electronics, in the most cost effective way possible.
In this case, directing utility funds into building upgrades is often, if not always, a more cost effective option than building power plants – and this means jobs in local communities, from entry level all the way up to professional degree, jobs which will continue as long as technology keeps finding better ways to do things, meaning forever, jobs that will be available to anyone that can pound a nail, dig a hole, or bend metal.
But we are going to need more power plants. Tens of thousands of them. They just aren’t going to be burning carbon. All, or nearly all, of the power plants that we have today that burn hydrocarbons, will have to be replaced with solar, wind, and tidal energy farms.
We really do need an almost entirely new paralleled power system. I see this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to design the new system we need, not only with new technology, but also with a new mission and new paradigm, a paradigm which incorporates your ideals ( “providing ‘energy services” ie heat, light, refrigeration, electronics, in the most cost effective way possible” ).
But I see the best way to do this cost-effectively, painlessly, and quickly enough is at the Federal level, by building a new parallel Federal Renewable Energy Utility System as a commons project. Yeah – nationalization of electricity production and distribution. Providing dirt cheap or free electricity and paid for through Federal taxes. Just like we do for our military, road and railway and airport construction, police and fire protection, environmental and workplace protections, civic centers, museums, college scholarships, medicare, almlost every health system in the world excepting the U.S., etc etc etc.
If a homeowner can enjoy free electricity after paying off his rooftop PV, why can’t a nation do the same?
Nationalize–as if we were on a war-time footing—we are!
It cost $0.5M for the original building, but that’s because it’s close to 4,000 square feet. He points out it wasn’t any more expensive than other homes in the area in terms of $/sqft. Plus the money included the land and all the stylish built-in furniture.
He did add a bunch of monitoring equipment, solar panels, and donated stuff years later, which was costly, but at that point, he’s was trying to squeeze out just a little more efficiency on third parties’ dimes for the sake of experimentation.
http://www.rmi.org/Amory%27s+Private+Residence
He has case studies where it cost less to build very efficient buildings vs. conventional ones. And he has lots of case studies where he retrofits buildings with 5, 7, 10, 20 year paybacks. He also has one case study on a video (probably in his Stanford Youtube lectures if i recall correctly), where a small home that is super efficient was built for similar cost compared to the neighboring homes.
Yes I agree that indeed Amory Lovins should be in the media a lot more, he resigned from Oxford University when they could not accommodate him in the field of energy, he is truly suited to the age we find ourselves in now, his ex-wife Hunter coined the admirable suitable phrase of “Global Weirding” which sums up the bizarre weather events we experience today perfectly. Listen to him he has a lot to contribute to the fix that we are in now.
A humble tale from my intermediate adopted country the U.A.E, but truly it is time to start thinking about the Antarctica, it needs protecting from the mess that the Arctic is becoming…………
“The debut trip, which will bring together environmental crusaders from around the world, aims to extend a treaty, which is due to expire in 2041, that bans drilling on the continent, as well as promote measures to save the Antarctic from over exploitation and environmental degradation.”
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=data%2Fnationgeneral%2F2014%2FMarch%2Fnationgeneral_March14.xml§ion=nationgeneral
The expedition highlights the effects of global warming and raises awareness on the need to protect Antarctica from drilling, mining and other activities when the international protocol to protect it expires in 2041.
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/dubai-use-antarctica-expedition-highlight-global-warming-584835.html