What Are We Doing to Address Looming Energy Crunch?

by Larry Smith

Experts say that by using a land area smaller than 92 miles by 92 miles, a solar facility in the Nevada desert could power the entire US electricity grid.

This is about the same amount of land in the US that has been disturbed by coal mining, and about one fifteenth of the area once devoted to growing feed for horses. 

With the rising price of oil-fired, carbon-spewing electricity, this may seem like a no-brainer. But it requires a huge investment in transmission infrastructure - as well as political will.

The proposed technology is solar thermal, which uses mirrors to focus the sun’s heat on a liquid to produce steam that turns a traditional power generating turbine - just like coal. The extra heat generated can be stored efficiently, which keeps power coming 24 hours per day, 7 days a week.

Experts say the price for solar thermal is already competitive with existing power sources. And once carbon taxes are imposed, this type of solar power will likely become cheaper than coal. A utility size installation of mirrors takes less than two years to build.

The reasons to switch to renewable energy like solar include the huge resources that most countries have to spend on fossil fuel imports. In the US, at current prices, this amounts to a transfer of $700 million a year to often politically hostile countries. In our case the equivalent figure is a billion dollars a year.

The other big reason to switch to renewables is the projection that rising greenhouse gases produced by burning fossil fuels are expected to create enough heat to melt the polar ice caps - raising sea levels to an extent that will inundate the entire Bahamas, not to mention Miami and New York.

Former US Vice President Al Gore recently proposed a crash programme to build solar power capacity similar to the Manhattan Project to create an atomic bomb in the 1940s or the Apollo Project to send a man to the moon in the 1960s.

In a recent speech he pointed out that "Our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of (our) economic, environmental and national security crises. We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels."

Gore proposed a strategic initiative to produce 100 per cent of America's electricity from renewable energy and clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

"This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative," he said. "To those who say the costs are still too high: I ask them to consider whether the costs of oil and coal will ever stop increasing if we keep relying on quickly depleting energy sources to feed a rapidly growing demand all around the world. Our economy cannot stand 10 more years of sending $2 billion every 24 hours to foreign countries for oil."

He advocated a sharp reduction in payroll taxes with the difference made up in CO2 taxes. "We should tax what we burn, not what we earn."

Meanwhile, the Bahamas continues to drift without taking any visible steps to address our looming energy crisis, which can soon be expected to foment serious social, economic and political problems.

A preliminary energy policy document has been presented to cabinet by a public-private sector committee, but no-one has bothered to share the contents. And those in the know say it contains little of substance anyway.

The Bahamas Electricity Corporation is seeking partnerships with renewable energy providers, but the projects under consideration are unlikely to significantly reduce our fuel import bills. However, the very fact that BEC is considering such proposals is an indication of the severity of the problem.

We can soon expect massive increases in the cost of living as electricity and gasoline prices work their way through the economy. At a minimum that means hikes in prices on consumer goods, food products, taxi, jitney, ferry and air fares.

We are back to the question of political will. In other words, will it take a political upheaval to force us to act?

Comments

[freeman]

"We are back to the question of political will. In other words, will it take a political upheaval to force us to act? "

I don't see how replacing one group of asses who do nothing with another group of asses who do nothing will fix anything.

In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue, but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing. - Mark Twain

Today's problems cannot be solved if we still think the way we thought when we created them. - Albert Einstein

You cannot solve problems with the same level of consciousness that created them. - Albert Einstein

[Art Sands]

Larry were you able to get to the conference. It was interesting to see thst the NREL have classified the winds @100M over the Atlantic side of the Bahamas to be class 4 to 5.