Your Book on Renewable Energy: Issues at Top vs. Bottom
by John F Robbins CEM / CSDP
Design, Analysis, Consulting & Education since 1983 to Improve Ecological Performance
859-363-0376
johnfrobbins@insightbb.com
www.johnfrobbins.com
Just read your book, referred to me by a green-leaning architect I know. Below are my comments.
Your presentation is mostly about top-down options, assuming consumer demands and loads as well as consumer and business m.o.’s do not change. Yet consumer and business demands, loads and current m.o.’s are all what they are as a result of many years of readily available ad-infinitum access to cheap fossil energy with very little cost for environmental damages or threats to human and ecological health. I guess the assumption by you and all you’ve interviewed is now that we’re here – energy guzzling, environment-damaging and using beyond our means both in terms of money and resources – we are unlikely to be able to change. I disagree with this.
My company works with clients to substantially reduce energy demand and use, before selecting any energy alternatives. I am 56, living in a 2nd home where we’ve lowered pre-existing energy use by over 50%. Then we added solar water heating and passive solar. In this house I also added a PV and batteries setup, being the only office in Greater Cincinnati operating all work-related lights and plug-loads off-grid, no backup since Nov 2003. There were no subsidies or tax credits when we did our energy and solar improvements to this house, so to make things more affordable, we became substantially more efficient and more conservative about how we used energy. This was the traditional method of lowering solar cost prior to subsidies. In my office, I was able to find and implement enough reduction to cut over 75% of the pre-existing plug-load and lighting energy. This not only taught me to be super-efficient personally, but also allowed me to buy a much smaller PV and batteries setup to accomplish my off-grid goal. Also made me a better energy consultant.
This is my 27th year in business. I have never designed, consulted or assisted clients where I did not reduce energy demand and load in addition to (or instead of) simply recommending or spec-ing solar. The old solar books all say to install substantially more airtightness and insulation before installing solar heat, so that’s what I do. The old solar books all say to reduce hot water use (volume of hot water needed) and become less inefficient, so that’s what I do. The old solar books all say to cut electricity use aggressively when converting to PV, so that’s what I do. Serving many clients in rural areas these days, I think this approach is much appreciated since most farmers understand this approach. After all, many of the large-utility and city subsidies are not even available in rural electric cooperative territories. So I help folks save a lot of energy money, both conventional and renewable. Amazing how the latest solar books and articles often don’t even mention cutting energy use prior to implementing solar. Insulting that our government grants don’t even require use and load reduction as a condition to getting a grant or subsidy.
Your book is full of very fine and insightful interviews, but just about all assume the current energy using m.o. will stay as-is. Saw a little discussion about driver change in the EV section, but still very little. One of the major factors making Europe’s far greater move to renewables more successful and quick than in USA is they seem much more willing to use far less energy and other resources. Average European drivers seem much more content to drive smaller, lighter vehicles. I’ve driven only 40+ mpg vehicles since 1992 after reading an article in AUDOBON saying we could cut oil imports to zero if average US driver mpg was mid-40s. The article didn’t say ‘if we all switched to EV or ethanol or algaefuel.’ Yes, I am not naive, so I know the American love affair with oversized overweight overpowered machines. But this is a relatively recent thing in our culture. Certainly wasn’t typical in the 19th century.
I tell students and clients repeatedly that our energy problems are mostly about volumes which are too high. I’m with Donella Meadows about our being ‘beyond the limits’ of what we can have or demand over the longterm. I’m with Amory Lovins about negawatts being much less expensive than megawatts. But at a supply level, negawatts also allow smaller scale solutions. Getting more people to learn to be more self-reliant, becoming more in control and better-managing of their energy uses and demands, we also allow more distribution and diversity in our energy solutions. I meet many who dream about off-grid, who dream as much about not being on-grid. I tell them almost nobody gets off-grid with a hands-off approach or expects all energy from one source or fails to recognize the importance of cutting use before or managing (aka holding level) use after becoming off-grid. So a lot of the opportunity or challenge is helping people unlearn bad expectations and habits.
Most of today’s energy world is very top-down and abstract to the average consumer. This is remarkable in that only a century or so ago, most energy consumers would regularly handle their physical fuels, from firewood to coal and oil. People back then learned how long a volume of energy would last. This concept was described in your book’s EV section where the interviewee said ‘try driving with only 2-3 gallons max tank refills’. His point is that most Americans expect to drive a long way on a fill-up. But they couldn’t have done that with horse-drawn stagecoaches in the old days. Just as many modern energy guzzling homes use physical energy volumes far beyond any realistic ability to handle in the old days before underground pipes and wires with seemingly infinite energy capacity. Heck, the major electric utilities in Ohio all sell electricity cheaper the more you buy! That would seem absurd to somebody in the 19th century who had to shovel coal into his furnace or feed firewood into one or more wood-burning stoves to keep warm.
There are a huge number of energy-related change opportunities in the modern world. For one, our automated always-on modern commercial buildings use on average double the per-sf energy as our homes. Why try to make more and more commercial buildings rather than encourage fewer, with more people working more often from home offices? Sure, we could make their homes more efficient too, but homes are already half the energy use of commercial buildings, and a worker who works from home also relieves rush-hour traffic congestion and reduces the costs of building and maintaining roads. Sure, we could also encourage cars to be lighter, safer and more efficient, but reducing cars on rush-hour packed roads via telecommuting already reduces transportation costs and pollutants while also reducing chances for accidents. This illustrates that if we just implement “fuel-switching” to our vehicles, we change the least effective parts of the overall puzzle relative to producing the best outcomes.
I’m not saying I disagree with you. I do agree the mainstream right now has almost abandoned most serious interest in reducing volumetric energy use and demand. Certainly the case with my local governments who receive large sums of taxes from the sales of energy each year. Even a Cincinnati politician was heard to say his biggest concern was making sure his city didn’t lose workers working inside city limits, since that meant they paid city income taxes (while a telecommuter in a suburb beyond the city limits would presumably not). I’ve heard the same concern from government folks about any proposals which suggest widespread reductions in ngas or electricity or gasoline sales within their tax territories. All this is why there is incredible impetus right now NOT to reduce conventional energy usage. Even the current local state mandates for % renewables in the grid appear designed NOT to reduce demand for coal-fired electricity generation. In Cincinnati, for example, there’s a utililty subsidy only to grid-tied batteryless RE. Install batteries or eliminate your electric load completely and you lose the subsidy. Talk about “smart grid!”
So you and your interviewees may be right to assume our society and energy habits do not want change. Being someone who in my 20s actually thought (and was taught) that our ultimate goal was to wean ourselves off centralized conventionally fueled electric grids and gas pipelines, also to become more interactive and self-reliant energy users instead of mere dependents on energy companies, I prefer to think there’s still a slim chance we can learn to use less. Maybe it will occur because conventional energy prices grow too fast before mass-scale grid-tied RE and alternate transportation fuel become available. Or maybe huge government debts will dry up all the free moneys (aka deficit spending) being pumped into the top-down energy sector right now. I think there is enough uncertainty to place such hope on these possibilities. I have met many in homes and business who think America is on the wane, that the American dream is a thing of the past. I often translate that to mean ‘we are waning in our easy financial and natural resource wealth’. Losing access to ad-infinitum $ handouts and energies would certainly mean an end to the American dream for many who have become relentless guzzlers and pollutors. But I think there are others already using less consuming, less-dependent, less ecological damaging ways to live and be happy. I and my clients am but a few examples.
At least a few of us who’ve implemented serious reductions AND paid for our own implementations and conversions DO NOT like now being forced to pay for the implementations of others, especiallyu others who want to guzzle, pollute and get subsidized RE. So this is not merely a philosophical matter. I got no subsidies for my solar or energy upgrades in this house, no rebates for either of my 40+ mpg vehicles since 1992. Yet now my utility rates and future tax burdens are being increased to pay for subsidies on PVs, EVs and hybrids, often for folks who do not even end up using less conventional energy. If something was said in your book about this, I didn’t see it.
Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to read your book. Good luck to you!
