We’re Talkin’ Clean Energy on Houston’s “Guys Gone Green”
It’s common wisdom that environmentalism means pain, sacrifice, and inconvenience, in the form of smaller, slower cars, higher energy prices, less comfort, etc. But I wonder if this is necessarily true.
The subject arose on a radio show I just taped called “Guys Gone Green,” which will air this Saturday in Houston, TX. The interview went very well; I was on for two lively segments – a total of about 20 minutes. The host, who spends most of his on-air life as a football announcer, has more bombast in his little finger than I have in my entire body — yet I think I did a reasonable job in not sounding like a wet blanket by contrast, maintaining the normal level of enthusiasm I have for the subject.
During the course of the interview, the host cautioned me about the remarks I was making on the petroleum industry, pointing out that Houston loves oil — which hadn’t escaped my notice, and is, of course, true. But I didn’t see any way to mince words, even if I had wished to. Oil and renewables really are at odds with one another, like razors vs. electric shavers; they’re essentially competitive goods.
Of course, this analogy breaks down quickly once one realizes two simple facts. A) Manufacturers of razors and those of electric shavers are economic competitors of approximately equal magnitude, and B), the health and safety of mankind is serviced pretty-much equally well by each. But in the case of fossil fuels and renewables, we have a very different balance of forces.
In particular, oil and coal are true “industries,” replete with all the good stuff that comes with that status — especially lobbyists; the oil lobby is the largest in the known universe. By contrast, renewable energy is just a gleam in the eye of a relative few who look into the future and ask questions like: What’s going to happen in a world of post-peak-oil? What will occur when the U.S. wakes up and realizes that it has severely compromised its national security vis-a-vis its enemies in the Middle East? Will we experience a kind of “seller’s remorse” once we’ve bargained away our economic future to the Chinese?
Of course, a centrist viewpoint is possible, in which the US migration to clean energy takes place over a period of time; in fact, it’s the only reasonable position. The U.S. should adopt an energy policy in which we steadily and aggressively phase out fossil fuels, while we replace them with renewables. We should set stiff targets, and adhere to them, while we employ literally millions of people in the process.
In fact, let’s start with something even more fundamental and non-controversial than renewables: energy efficiency. I propose a large but short-term public program that calls for the retrofitting of our buildings with energy efficiency systems, and I point out that the job-creation implications of this are crystal clear. In an average project of this type in which $1 million is spent, eight jobs are created directly, and another eight jobs indirectly, meaning jobs for the suppliers, or jobs created through a multiplier effect, i.e., through people having more money because they have jobs and then spending their money.
So you’ll get 16 or 17 jobs per each million dollar expenditure in retrofit projects. When you realize there are $800 billion in projects to be completed (not all of which will be done, of course), that’s quite a number of jobs. It’s a win for everyone.
As I said on “Guys Gone Green, the question isn’t: “Do we have an appetite for pain in order to get to a long-term gain?” It’s: “Why can’t we experience a gain for all U.S. interests (except the oil companies)?” Sorry I had to say this in Houston, but it’s the truth.
I’ll post the link to the show when it’s available.
They interviewed me a month or two ago… I don’t think they post their shows online, at least I have not found the link to mine.
Hmmmm. His admin promised to email me a link; I’ll be disappointed if I don’t get one.
I believe there are variations of grey to work here. Natural Gas Vehicles (an effort previously supported by the State) are a first, less carbon, pro Texas, step. Second, is projected population growth in the four major Texas metros and increased density – more traffic, less quality of life, more emissions – my worry here is that many Texans – just don’t get it.
California is still paying the price for its bad decisions made in the 70’s and 80’s. The English have a saying, “I’m all right Jack”, which essentially means that its all about me and my family. The problem is that “we” are at the point that must push everyone to think in the collective “we”. Nobody will get elected in Texas (or the US, for the most part) emphasizing the shared sacrifice for a better future – and for this we are and will continue our decline.
Thing is that the oil interests will continue to manipulate the market, politicians, universities, and take comfort in the hegemony of truck-fleet transport. At the point there really has to be a switch made to other sources of energy the same players in oil will suck up the greenies, splitting the spoils amongst themselves & go on with the capitalist game of high-priced energy sold to an addicted consumer world. Greener but just as greedy & mean.
Well, that’s sobering, especially coming from the Prime Minister of England. 🙂
Craig, interesting that you would use an analogy where the two competing sides have coexisted for generations, and will for generations. That is likely accurate, but I am curious if that was your intent.
A centrist’s approach is a great plan. Personally, those I know who most ardently disagree with the “settled science” argument, are not generally opposed to renewable energy sources, on-grid and especially off-grid. As long as trillions of dollars of existing infrastructure isn’t quickly decommissioned solely in response to an interpretation of the science (or a political agenda), and as long as meaningful market oriented solutions are sponsored, a great deal of progress can be made. The infrastructure I refer to is both in generation and in transportation. Heck, a few engineers I know who would happily allow the label “denier” be applied have purchased hybrids. The ability to store otherwise wasted energy is COOL to them. I compare that to all modern technology crazes. For example, do iPads really fill a gap or meet a higher level human need, or are they just the next level of cool, enabling technology? Imagine how far we can go with that mindset…..
I agree 100%, and I make that point every time I’m asked to speak on the subject. See: http://2greenenergy.com/cool-to-be-green/14972/.
Hmmm, indeed…I look forward to getting both links…
Hope & renewables spring eternal, fossil-fuels will not?
Ohio and KY appear pretty similar abt coal as Houston is abt oil.
Back in mid-1990s when then-gov Voinavich has charged Ohio PUC with holding hearings abt building energy codes after US-DOE had recommmended upgrades, I was one speaker for 20 minutes at one hearing. I had talked abt applying efficiency of many kinds to existing and new buildings to accomplish large energy reduction goals. I had proposed that the current energy code be scrapped in favor of specific energy usage and demand limit-targets, kinda like but not nearly as strict as Passivhaus program in Germany and now USA. My proposal received almost no reaction from the commission so I left the podium wondering if I’d just not presented clearly enough.
Speaker following me was from Mineworkers Union. He said we needed to use more Ohio coal. His side won, since Ohio PUC chose not to change or improve Ohio’s energy building codes. I often teach students that Indiana had reacted to US-DOE’s recommendations by raising its building energy codes, which until 2009 required as much as 40% more insulation for new structures than Ohio. Ohio finally caught up in some respects in 2009, but some energy codes still lag behind Indiana which is in same climate. Why? Ohio’s economy is heavily dominated by energy, and coal is a huge part of both Ohio economy and Ohio politics. There’s only a little coal in Indiana, so its influence on/in economy and politics is much less.
Kentucky also had huge influence from its coal-dominated economy and politics. Last year I was hired to present 2-day energy assessment technical workshops in KY. There were big sponsors, but also each workshop had local sponsors depending on where the workshops were held. One thing I included in my teaching was that our goal needed to stay focused on why we needed to use less energy. I explained abt the high pollution from coal including CO2, also the environmental degredation from practices like mountaintop removal and other strip-mining as well as fly-ash disposal. I suggested one day we might reach so much load and energy reduction that utilities could even shutdown a few of the most polluting coal-fired powerplants. One attendee at one workshop kinda blew up and got nasty, and she also was the only student who gave me a bad review. Turns out she was the local rep from a sponsoring electric utility!
And last month on Ky PBS TV, there was a roundtable discussion on coal in KY. The United Mineworkers representative at the table came out squarely against state or utilities investments to reduce coal use by making distribution and transmission more efficient or by improving powerplant efficiency or changing fuel-mixes.
So much of all this is simple “ME-NOW” stuff. People and groups too often want only what’s good for themselves right now, regardless of the big picture or longterm.
From most of what I read and certainly the comments I see herein, the considered opinion is that paradigm shifts take long periods of time – generally decades. There also seems to be an acceptance of multiple simultaneous pathways towards the end game vision. Pickens on natural gas, baseload nuclear, synthoil production as an offset to legacy field depletion, etc. And of course, the renewables that we talk about. The math pretty much speaks for itself, and we need to unemotionally embrace the facts in perhaps the most tectonic shift humankind has ever faced. Peak oil attracted me to the subject matter a long time ago. I ended up realizing that wasn’t what drove my concerns, but rather that of climate change. The math is completely behind those who want to dig up coal and oil and natural gas for much farther into the future than modern culture is capable of planning. The simple abstraction of running out of something is not the primary driver, at least not for 200-300 years. Technology has ultimately invalidated Hubbert’s end game in the same manner that Ehrlich’s math got invalidated by GM technology. We can’t really rest on those particular rationales.
I realize the environmental and health externalities are profound and I don’t deny them in the least. However, our reality would seem to be that people are comfortable with such outcomes. Its not that the public doesn’t know about heavy metal poisoning, carcinogens, ecological destruction and extinctions. I really believe that people know these things and, perhaps grudgingly, accept the trade-off. I suspect that we will stumble forward in this, as we do in most things, and that any planned outcomes are representative of extreme optimism, not that I don’t personally enjoy such thinking.
Yes, I agree that this will take decades — even with
an energy policy. Sure wish we could get one on place…
Craig,
I certainly like the focus on energy efficiency upgrades. One thing you may wish to do is remind people that job-creating investments from government funding reduces government funding for unemployment benefits and welfare.
A simple way to think about it is that right now government is paying millions of people not to work, and those people are getting paid ~$325/week. If a million dollar investment creates 15 jobs, then that would save the government ~$250,000 in welfare/unemployment expenses – before any consideration of what those people produced comes into play… This is just shifting government payment from paying people to work rather than paying people to not work (or paying people not to work, depending on your perspective). Then those 15 people will be paying taxes, returning ~25% of their pay. Assuming they average $40,000/year, that means government gets back another $150,000. So the actual government investment in a $1M outlay is now only $600,000.
If 1 of those people who retains a job keeps his/her house rather than forecloses on it, that keeps over $200,000 of liquid assets in the economy, and retains the worth within the neighborhood of the house in question – a safe estimate would be that averting a single foreclosure retains at least half the house value in additional value within a given area. We’ll say that alone keeps an additional $300,000 in the economy. Considering the fact that >8% of homes are at risk of foreclosure (meaning the homeowners have missed at least one payment), the idea that giving 15 people jobs might forestall one foreclosure is not far-fetched.
So before even considering the value of what is purchased, just spending government money at a rate that would enable an additional 15 jobs/1 million dollars already serves to secure $300,000 in liquid money within the economy itself, at a cost of $600,000 in government deficit.
THEN we can consider the value of the investments themselves, which now only have to return ~10% of the original investment to break even.
I think that much of this is overlooked by detractors of stimulus spending. Some things are just smarter investments than others… and the single dumbest investment that we could choose to make right now is to indefinitely pay people to not work in a recession.
As always, some very creative and innovative thinking at a high level. Thanks.
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What my ultimate answer to Graig that there is a technology in the line of http://www.bloomenergy.com please visit and know its a technology which have independent energy source that dont need transmitting lines to the end users or it is environmental issues as such but it can’t give to a single home it’s tech which is not cost effective but they do an Ex Mars scientists from NASA Mr Sridhar venturs doing well among big global companies running their business are few points while I never seen Graig ever coming out with such ventures who are successful but every news out from him are problems problems nothing less any hope’s but onlt problems I feel (SIC) Where I am do an innovator and in parralel with bloomenergy but mine can supply to single home single car single or small energy needs to big corporations like bloomenergy claiming while Germany going into green tech increased the price of solar energy costs and there was a news American Solar energy heating system to run turbine reduced the solar panel price are opposite claims with Graigs about green tech all are confusing news makers in the name of breaking news shows they mean business with relevant business model or not but its not about any hope to readers who loyally follow Graigs are misguided as there is no news or consultants in to give share news of hope are reduced to money spinning venture makes me (SIC) I wrote to Graig I dont need his mail he still posts me I find difficult to delete and my inbox gets overloads thats a trouble I wish he changes to ethical business this is the need of this hours if one dont have real news to share I feel one should not spread news that takes the opposite from the reality and that serves none including Graig Thanks I wish Graig must received many mails comments and indirect reply that including direct reply so far I never got single reply from him It sadden me but its a realty.Thanks CK SWAMY PJ