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billvon

How to make energy independence happen - an example

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>Denmark doesn't grow much corn.

Right, and most of our country isn't close to the arctic circle. Nor does Denmark get as much sunlight or wind as we do. Different countries, different solutions. Denmark simply proved that it can be done with fewer resources than we have.

>"At what cost?" is half of the equation . . .

Agreed. The other half of the equation is "what is the cost of doing nothing?" We're learning about that side now.

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Denmark simply proved that it can be done with fewer resources a smaller economy than we have.



FTFY

I wonder how much of their energy independence has just been outsourced to other countries in Forbes' assessment.

Does it count against Denmark's energy tally when they import steel?
My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

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>I wonder how much of their energy independence has just been
>outsourced to other countries in Forbes' assessment.

They did imports vs. exports. Pretty straightforward.

>Does it count against Denmark's energy tally when they import steel?

Nope. Nor does it count for them when they export machinery, meat and meat products, dairy products, pharmaceuticals, aircraft and windmills. We're talking energy only here. Products that "contain" energy both come and go as well.

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Products that "contain" energy both come and go as well.



Well then it must be a wash, right?

Or another reason to discount analogies on patterns of energy use.
My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

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This is why we can't be like Denmark. This attitude right here. Sorry, i hate to pick on someone but you summed it up nicely.



An ideological opinion at best. We, the citizens of America, do not decide what the energy policy is, even though we like to pretend we do, because we are not a democracy.

In my opinion, corporations control every aspect of national policy in this great country. And there are too many corporations that have too much to lose (in their collective minds) by change.

What happens when you have an efficient mass-transportation system? Oil companies buy it out and put roads in place to encourage gasoline usage.

What if someone invented an energy source that was more efficient than oil, at almost zero cost, and produced no environmental damage? You can bet that the corporations would get their politico puppets in Congress and the White House to shut it down, or they would buy it and bury it, or they would hire actors and actresses to proclaim how "uncool" it is, or worse.

And the US is a model for economics of many smaller countries. In the Cayman Islands, the government outlawed individual use of alternative electricity. Their justification was that wind turbines killed bats and solar energy can only be supplied for half of a 24-hour period. But the real reason was likely a bribe from the Caribbean Utilities Company to the government to ensure that everyone on the islands are buying electricity from them.
Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

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>Or another reason to discount analogies on patterns of energy use.

Again, Denmark and the US are not the same. In many ways they had a much harder time converting than we would - their imports were far higher than ours and they had fewer alternative energy resources. They did it; we can too if we like. And it will not be "because we are just like Denmark" - it will be because we are capable of the same level of effort, multiplied by our larger population, larger resource base and larger GDP.

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level of effort, multiplied by our larger population, larger resource base and larger GDP.



TBH I'm a bit struck by this. The whole reason we import energy now is that it's cheaper than making it at home. IOW, we would have a smaller GDP today if we had spent more resources on energy production than we did.

When I see this kind of blather (ie the Forbes article) it strikes me as performance chasing, same as leads the naive to buy high and sell low. Yes plenty of people are chafing at energy prices today, but it's a big step to get from high prices today to sound investments for tomorrow. The market is already hard at work on this problem, and it has got plenty of subsidized dollars behind it to boot.

Why do we need to do more in order to be like Denmark? Why all this doomsaying about the economy disappearing? What good is self-sufficiency if China or Saudia Arabia can supply us for less via coal and oil even after we have enough capacity to produce at home?

Likely answers:
1- nationalism / xenophobia
2- influencing the market toward particular outcomes -- viz reduced marginal costs
3- environmentalism of some sort

#1 is straightforward and I'm sold on it
#2 in particular strikes me as somewhat populist, and this doesn't seem out of order considering Riddler's rant just above.
#3 I'm not (presently) convinced that energy independence has anything to do with the environment...

Would you agree then that driving toward energy independence is underwritten by nationalist and populist sentiment? Or is there another motivation behind it...
My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

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"Free" energy as you call it is not "free". Renewable energy such as solar for example is one of the most expensive forms of energy production.

I agree with you that America needs to be more aggressive in converting to renewable energy but it is such a massive project because you have to also update the grid to an intelligent grid in addition to tapping the renewable resources that it will not happen over night.

The company I work for is the largest solar/wind producer in the U.S. and it has barely tapped to any useable standard the use of renewable sources. If you look at the largest solar facility in the world which is SEGS in the Mojave Desert it only produces 315MW where the plant that I am at by itself produces over 3,600MW. They are aggressive in advancing renewable sources and invest hundreds of millions of dollars, but it takes time. We are now getting ready to put a large test hydro generation system in the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic that if it works out could one day produce up to 40% of the national electric supply. We are also starting construction on three solar projects that will make Florida #2 for solar production.

It should also be noted that on the non-renewable side, the industry has made huge increases in efficiency. Other than nuclear (cheapest and cleanest electric) all new plants are now combined cycle and are 22% more efficient than traditional plants. Also as one of the largest energy producers in the U.S., only 9% of our fuel requirements now come from oil.

I absolutely agree with you about vehicles, appliances and energy efficient homes. That one an individual basis would in itself make a huge difference.

My A/C units for example are 22 seer, so my question is why even offer anything less? I have solar water heat and I built my home to be extremely efficient. My July electric bill last month was $150.00 and that is for a 6,300sq. ft home with 3,800 A/C area and a 6,000 sq. ft. barn/shop.

So I think that we are making strides to become non-dependant on both imports and the need for fossil fuels. I think the next 10 years will be the real test to tell us if America is going to walk the walk.
Time and pressure will always show you who a person really is!

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> "Free" energy as you call it is not "free."

The energy is indeed free; anyone reading a book in a park, drying their clothing on a clothesline or opening their windows in the summer is using it. It may indeed cost a lot to put in the infrastructure to convert it to forms we would prefer, like hot water or electricity.

>but it is such a massive project because you have to also update the
>grid to an intelligent grid . . .

Absolutely! That's one of the first things we have to tackle.

>I think the next 10 years will be the real test to tell us if America is going
>to walk the walk.

I hope so. But then again, I remember hearing that back in the late 70's as well. It's all too easy to forget about alternatives when oil gets a bit cheaper temporarily.

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In my area the biggest obsticle I see is from the public it self. Everyone says they want cheep energy and complain about it's cost. Yet at the same time there are several wind farm progects that have been in the planning stage for years now and they never seem to get beyond the homeowners who don't want anything new in there neighborhood. We have had the same problem with two differant planed ethanol plants. The investors finnally gave up and moved on, and that was before all the bad press ethanol has received as of late.

Untill people get the mindset that everyone needs to do there part and cooperate we will get no where.

As I have said before with the mindset of todays American population. If someone came into your town and said they were going to put rows of ceder poles up and down all the roads and you could hook up to this thing called electric it would never fly.[:/]

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>The whole reason we import energy now is that it's cheaper than
> making it at home.

Agreed. And our underlying assumption that it would always be that way is what got us into the trouble we are in now.

>IOW, we would have a smaller GDP today if we had spent more
>resources on energy production than we did.

Denmark's GDP increased by a few tenths of a percent due to their exports of windmills; also added a few tens of thousands of jobs. Scale that to the US and we're looking at a million new jobs. (Or at least up to a million new jobs; depends on where the market for alternative energy saturates.)

>Why do we need to do more in order to be like Denmark? Why all this
>doomsaying about the economy disappearing? What good is
>self-sufficiency if China or Saudia Arabia can supply us for less via coal
>and oil even after we have enough capacity to produce at home?

If your goal is to have our economy and military depend on China and/or Saudi Arabia, you believe that their resources will last forever, and you do not think burning fossil fuels has any environmental downside - then there's no reason to pursue alternatives, or heed Denmark's example at all.

>Would you agree then that driving toward energy independence is
>underwritten by nationalist and populist sentiment?

More like foresight. We invest in the present to provide a desired result in the future. Things like vaccinations, education, burglar alarms, fire extinguishers and AAD's come to mind. We choose to "waste money" on those things even if we could get a better return by investing the money in some other way, because we believe that (for example) preventing one's house from burning down is a wise use of money.

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I hope so. But then again, I remember hearing that back in the late 70's as well. It's all too easy to forget about alternatives when oil gets a bit cheaper temporarily.

In the 70's power plants were almost 75% less efficient than today and used 80% oil vs. 9% today. Also renewable sources were almost non-existent on an industrial scale. How many hybrids did you see on a global production level back then? A/C units had a seer of 8 now they are 22+. You don't see a change?
Time and pressure will always show you who a person really is!

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>You don't see a change?

We're definitely in a better position now - but we could be in a much better position still. We tend to only react when there are crises, when we could be heading them off at the pass.

Look at any graph of average MPG. It shot up in the 70's, peaked in the early 80's, then declined as gas became cheaper again. It's only been lately that average MPG has started to rise slightly, caused by people who cannot afford to run SUV's any more.

It's not that the technology wasn't available. I went through some old Popular Mechanics magazines from 1975 and found half a dozen mentions of ethanol, biodiesel, ultra-efficient engines and hybrids. But while gas was cheap, no one cared.

Heck, about five years ago we had three major automakers (Toyota, Honda and GM) making usable, efficient electric vehicles. Legal maneuverings by US car companies helped trash all three efforts. (Along with a distinct lack of public interest when gas was $1.20 a gallon.)

Then gas prices began to shoot up, and suddenly the one hybrid on the road started selling in a big way. Other manufacturers followed suit, and before you knew it you had a dozen hybrid models to choose from. I hate to think that we need to keep that sort of pain constant; I'd like to think that we can make such decisions _before_ they impact our economy (and our lives) so hard. But I don't know if we are capable of that kind of foresight. I hope we are.

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isolationism



Our economy is going to depend on China for the next several decades no matter where we get our energy from. And vice versa.

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More like foresight. We invest in the present to provide a desired result in the future.



You're begging the question here...it's a good investment because ?

Because Denmark makes windmills? Come on.

Creating jobs nets us nothing when they're made on subsidized dollars. It's a redistribution. You may as well increase unemployment insurance and let people find jobs at market rates. Or issue more stimulus checks (which is not to say that would be a good idea...).

Besides, if we started cranking out 100x as many windmills on the backs of millions of suddenly trained subsidized laborers, what would happen to the price of windmills? Could we stockpile them and build up a strategic windmill reserve? It's a fairy tale. All that capital would be mothballed and wasted as the market glutted.

Which is not to say that the market needs windmills to begin with; the wind industry is famous for sputtering to a halt when the tax dollars dry up. If anything what the wind industry needs is higher energy prices to be competitive.
My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

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An ideological opinion at best. We, the citizens of America, do not decide what the energy policy is, even though we like to pretend we do, because we are not a democracy.

In my opinion, corporations control every aspect of national policy in this great country. And there are too many corporations that have too much to lose (in their collective minds) by change.



Corporations didn't make a majority of Americans choose an SUV over a more fuel efficient car. Given the choice, the consumer clearly choose bigger over smaller, more powerful over more fuel efficient. And that's a big reason why the CAFE standards didn't move.

Blaming business was a good line in the 80s, but the people can't deny their share of responsibility in this mess anymore.

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Of course, I could make some adjustments to my lifestyle, but that is highly undiserable. I could quit skydiving, stop drinking beer and ride the bus to work (actually, I can't because it doesn't go near there) but I enjoy these things so I will continue to do them until I can no longer afford it.



Seriously. For any skydiver (or NASCAR fan, or waterskier, etc., for that matter) to gripe about what people won't do to transition to sustainable energy sources is pretty hypocritical. Wasn't there just a thread in another section of the forums about the fuel burn of a DeHavilland Twin Otter for skydiving? Something between 25 and 33 gallons per load to altitude?! Holy shit. That's quite a lot of fuel, and there are dropzones all over the place burning that, and smaller DZs with smaller planes burning somewhat less, perhaps -- all to take a bunch of people on a trip to nowhere... We are so shameless! :S

I am interested in addressing energy needs for the future, but NONE OF THIS WILL MATTER IF WE DO NOT CONTROL THE EARTH'S POPULATION GROWTH, and even work to whittle it down from its current level.

And I am also interested in discussing the opposition some throw up about offshore drilling to get more oil; the refrain I hear is, "Why do you support that, when it'll be at least ten years before we see a return?" Well, how many years would it be before we got the energy production from wind/solar/geothermal etc. commensurate to what the oil would be giving us ten years from now when it arrives?


For billvon, here's another reason why there is opposition to the Danish-type plan: Americans (and other free people) do not like having their government levy taxes as a punitive measure for making choices that remain legal. That's anathema to freedom. >:(
Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

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Corporations didn't make a majority of Americans choose an SUV over a more fuel efficient car. Given the choice, the consumer clearly choose bigger over smaller, more powerful over more fuel efficient. And that's a big reason why the CAFE standards didn't move.

Blaming business was a good line in the 80s, but the people can't deny their share of responsibility in this mess anymore.



I agree. Around here, I have seen human-interest articles in newspapers that feature these arrogant, self-centered schmucks who display an in-your-face, I-love-my-gas-guzzler attitude. It's sickening. It's one thing to be ignorant of the issue; another thing to be apathetic; but these people are like, "I'm fucking up the world? Cool! What'd the fuckin' world ever do for ME?" >:(
Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

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>Would you agree then that driving toward energy independence is
>underwritten by nationalist and populist sentiment?

More like foresight. We invest in the present to provide a desired result in the future. Things like vaccinations, education, burglar alarms, fire extinguishers and AAD's come to mind.



And guns, Bill. You forgot guns.
Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

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Right now I'm not sure that the American public trusts the government enough to let them pick a direction for us to aim at. Countries are really, really good at pulling together for a commonly-perceived good; look at USA during WW2, and pretty much everyone associated with teh space program in the 1960's -- not every single person, but a large preponderance of people did feel as though there was a common goal. The key is to make people feel like part of it.

Which means a lot of slow people work to get them to accept it. We Americans aren't real good at taht; we prefer quick results because there are so many pills to fix what's wrong with us without having to actually change our lifestyles.

But, ya know -- if we just keep trying to find the perfect pill we'll be way behind. It's kind o flike losing weight. You can eat less and exercise more; you might not lose it as quickly, and you might not lose all of it becuase you still each chocolate sometimes, but you'll probably end up healthier. Or you can have weight loss surgery and then plastic surgery. You're still healthier, but you have to think about your body all the time.

We can't pick the perfect direction. There is no perfect direction. But we do need some national goals, and individuals saving individually on energy costs is one of them.

I have a normal house in Houston; built in the 1980's. My light bill last month was $130 for a 2600-sq.ft. house. I'm comfortable. Yes, I skydive, but just like eating a piece of chocolate doesn't mean I have to keep eating, skydiving doesn't make other saving pointless.

Wendy W.
There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

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That reminds me, I'm quite impressed with the maglev technology that I saw on TV last night, in China.......the "developing" nation.



were you equally impressed by the pollution levels last week in Beijing?

Visit a city like Xian and you'll lose those quotation marks.



Yes, the pollution level is impressively high. It's enough to make an Native American cry on TV. Good thing that they're taking the lead in maglev technology otherwise the air quality would be even worse.
I hope you understand that the point I was/am trying to make is that the US likes to promote itself as a global leader but it seems that we're quite content to not only be a follower WRT mass transit, alternative energy and sustainable lifestyle but that we insist on being dragged along, kicking and screaming away from 100 year old technology.

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>You're begging the question here...it's a good investment because ?

Because

1) we WILL run out of oil. There is simply no question about that.
2) our military runs on oil. When we run out we will be defenseless unless we can come up with alternatives.
3) energy will be the key to the future, and countries that have access to more of it will do better economically.

>Because Denmark makes windmills? Come on.

What are you talking about? I never claimed it was because Denmark makes windmills.

>Creating jobs nets us nothing when they're made on subsidized dollars.

Correct. Let's take the solar industry. When it started it was a 90% subsidized operation; no one could afford solar at $10/watt.

Now, primarily because the subsidies allowed solar to get off the ground, it is a nearly hundred billion dollar a year industry. Subsidies around the world are barely a billion dollars a year, and in most places (like the US) they have ended or are ending. That's $1 of tax for every $100 of business created; a pretty good investment overall (and getting better.)

Plus which, people are getting away from subsidies in favor of net metering laws. That's what Germany and Denmark have done. Utilities are required to purchase power back from consumers at rates close to (or equal to) the cost the customer pays for it, thus providing a strong economic incentive with no additional taxation.

>Besides, if we started cranking out 100x as many windmills on the
>backs of millions of suddenly trained subsidized laborers, what would
>happen to the price of windmills?

It would drop. Then, as more countries implemented utility buyback laws, it would rise again. That happened in the solar industry recently.

>It's a fairy tale. All that capital would be mothballed and wasted as
>the market glutted.

Again, people said the same thing about the solar industry as US companies like Evergreen Solar and Chinese companies like Primax got into it. "A solar glut! You'll never make any money. What a stupid idea!" Well, billions of dollars later PV is selling even better than before - and a lot of people are getting very rich.

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Plus which, people are getting away from subsidies in favor of net metering laws. That's what America, Germany and Denmark have done.

There, fixed it for you. 39 states have net metering and the number is growing.;)
Time and pressure will always show you who a person really is!

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A lot of people have been talking about energy independence, how to become more reliant on ourselves rather than relying on outside sources of energy. I don't think we should do this via the drill-and-burn approach; we should instead use the free energy (solar, wind, wave, tide, geothermal and hydro) that we will never run out of. It's the only sane long term strategy.

The most common oppositions to this are:
1) That will never be enough
2) It will bankrupt us
3) It's impossible.

All three are answerable pretty simply - just look at Denmark.

Denmark now exports more energy than it imports. But how is it different than we are? We have limited offshore drilling; they have limited offshore drilling. We are exploring and opening new areas; they are exploring and opening new areas. We have 2000 active offshore drilling platforms, they have 50. (roughly the same per capita.) We both talk a good game about conservation; even the drill-and-burn proponents always end with "of course, I'm for conservation and alternatives too."

The big difference is that for Denmark, it's not just words. After the oil embargo in 1973, Denmark realized that they were 99% dependent on foreign oil for their energy - and they wanted to change that. So they started some very aggressive conservation programs, and they didn't end once oil got cheap again. Some of them included:

- Very strict energy efficiency requirements on buildings.
- Heavy taxes on inefficient cars. Today some cars are taxed at 105% of their cost.
- Massive use of cogeneration; the condensate from power plants was piped around the city for heating purposes.
- Local cogeneration. Small gas turbines generate power which is fed back, and the waste heat heats the building.
- Heavy investment in alternative energy. Today 21% of Denmark's energy comes from alternate sources.
- Rebates for efficient appliances. Today 95% of appliances in Denmark are the highest efficiency class you can get.
- A distributed energy grid that allows you to put energy on the power grid whenever you like and get paid 85% of the cost of power for doing so.

And they're not stopping there. Right now almost half their electricity comes from distributed sources (solar power, microturbines, wind) and they are upgrading to a more intelligent grid that will make it possible for most of the country's power to come from those small sources. They are pushing for 75% of all their energy to come from wind by 2025. That's 75% of their _energy_, not 75% of their electricity. And they are on track to make it - even as their population increased by 7% over the past decade, their energy demand did not go up.

Comment from their PM on all of this - "We aim to make Denmark independent of oil, gas, and coal in the long term. It need not be dull, it need not be boring, and we don’t have to give up our lifestyle. We just have to be a little bit smarter about how we live."

We could do the same, if we only had the foresight that the Danes do.

http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/08/06/denmark-energy-electricity-biz-energy-cx_wp_0807power.html
[url]

And the population of Denmark is? Get a grip man.
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

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