Save and Conserve

This article does a decent job of pointing out key barriers that will limit the installation & use of residential wind turbines:

• The federal government does not currently provide a tax credit for residential-scale wind energy
• Only a few states have enacted incentive programs for wind power
• Payback time for a wind power project can approach 20 years (way too long for mass adoption)
• Wind power only works in places where the wind blows a lot
• Even in spots with good wind, sometimes the wind doesn't blow
• For maximum gain, wind turbines need to be located high in the air ... & this causes tons of NIMBY-related issues

That last bullet really gets to me ... I have always considered wind turbines really sleek & aesthetically pleasing. I don't understand the people who feel that turbines mar the landscape. I think they fit perfectly into the built environment & make all the sense in the world (in windy areas).

I can't understand why the federal government is not underwriting renewable energy projects for residences. We need a comprehensive renewable energy bill that provides incentives (or better yet rebates) for consumers to install renewable energy like wind. In addition to growing renewable energy capacity, this would also have the benefit of creating jobs & demand for renewable energy products & services.

If you are a concerned citizen, you should support renewable energy. Get in touch with your local, state & federal representatives about this.

Posted by tom c. at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm often amazed when I think about massive, hundreds-of-miles-long pipelines that snake across the Earth, carrying crude oil from remote spots to civilization in order to be refined and distributed to consumers. The crude oil pipeline - more than just about anything else - conjures thoughts of the drug-addicted junkie. We'll do just about anything to make sure we get our next fix, including investing billions on pipeline infrastructure. Let's not even talk about the cost to maintain these crude veins over time.

Pipelines strung out like the tentacles of a jellyfish are - I suppose - a natural product of man's industrial progress, numerical growth and ever-expanding need for energy. Energy pipelines will only become more important in the future ... but they may not carry oil.

In the African desert country of Algeria, which is in the enviable position (like many Middle Eastern countries) of having abundant oil reserves as well as abundant sunshine, they are thinking long term about how to export solar energy to needy consumer nations. Specifically, they plan to run a solar cable from Algeria to Germany.

Tewfik Hasni, chief executive of New Energy Algeria (NEAL), said the 3,000 km (1,875 mile) cable would be laid from the Algerian town of Adrar to the German city of Aachen

They don't do things small in Algeria, do they? That is one helluva long cable, and it will run under the Mediterranean, over Italy and Switzerland and finally into Germany. Needless to say, this sounds like an incredibly complex challenge, but it is symptomatic of our energy situation. I've been thinking for a long time that the US should be thinking about long-distance energy transmission. We could build huge solar power generating plants in the West and pipe the power to the coasts, where most of the people live. It's bound to happen. No, it's got to happen.

Posted by tom c. at 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I was down on the North Fork of Long Island over Labor Day weekend. On Labor Day morning I stumbled across this Newsday article about a Sag Harbor, NY resident's attempts to install a private wind turbine on his house. To sum it up: the town review board denied this guy the permit to install wind energy because of NIMBYism.

These people need to get their heads out of the sand. As the article points out - and as I witnessed firsthand yesterday on the shore of the Peconic Bay where winds were steadily ripping at about 20mph - the eastern tip of Long Island has a pretty decent wind resource available to harness at the residential level. The terrain is totally flat and there are plenty of open spaces where turbines could be installed. However, eastern Long Island is also over-loaded with wealthy, energy-ignorant people who don't care about their electric bills or about a reduction in energy footprint. They are more concerned with surface issues ... like how a wind turbine will destroy a view (it wouldn't - they just haven't thought the issue through and reject it due to preconceived notions).

As the article also points out, wind has been leveraged as a source of power on Long Island for a long time. I was within 20 feet of a 50 foot tall windmill this weekend. The windmill is used to power a water pump. Residents of areas that are amenable to wind energy need to take a breath, and think before they reject ideas like private wind turbines. We need to stop reading these types of articles in the papers around this country. If we don't start getting smarter, we're going to regret it in the long run.

Posted by tom c. at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Wall Street Journal has a very interesting article about people who want to make their homes more energy efficient running into serious snags with local building commissions and zoning groups that want to maintain the homogenous look and feel of the town's homes.

Towns really need to wake up and start removing these types of hurdles, because they really will deter people from moving to renewable sources of energy (which are already expensive enough without the hassles involved in getting permits and approvals). Some states are more progressive on this issue than others:

Some states are trying to make energy-efficient improvements easier. California has long restricted homeowners' associations from blocking solar-panel installations, and New Jersey and Arizona passed similar legislation this year. A bill in Connecticut would override zoning restrictions and make it easier for people to put in wind turbines on their property. It wasn't passed, but lawmakers hope to revive it next session.

A story like this illustrates how removed most people are from the reality of our current energy crisis. Until local, state, and federal government gets religion, renewable energy at the residential level will continue to look a lot like salmon swimming upstream. Which is unfortunate ...

Posted by tom c. at 9:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)