The Dark Cloud of Going Green

Dawn, welcome to EnergyCentral. I think you'll find it a valuable resource that attracts people from all angles of energy - from consumers, to generators, to utilities, to policy wonks, to consultants, to...?

No one knows for sure what will happen in the next 10, 20, or 50 years in energy - but it's safe to say everyone here knows what they think should happen in the next 50 years. What follows is my perspective.

"Sadly, the wind seems driven by "investments" from the Federal Government. If those funds were removed, would we have so many jumping on the green energy bandwagon?"

Climate change is like the providing mail service, or clean water, or any other public good: for the benefit of everyone, we're forced to rely on government to take care of essential needs shared by everyone in society.

We'd never be successful if we left it up to donations from the public. People, myself included, are too selfish to join together to address a problem like climate change, and though it may not seem serious now, in coming decades it will be very, very serious.

"If the goal is to truly reduce carbon emissions, then why isn't anyone putting pressure on China? America's largest importer of goods is China, outpacing exponentially our own production under cleaner energy use. China is the greatest offender of any nation and yet we enable them by the continual purchasing of their products, including many of the components needed for green energy like solar panels and wind turbines."

I will try to answer your question with a few of my own:

The economies of the U.S. and China are inextricably linked, and President Trump discovered that increasing tariffs on China had direct and negative impacts on American farmers. So if we put pressure on China to lower carbon emissions, who are we really hurting?

Though China creates significantly more carbon emissions than the U.S., many of them come from manufacturing American goods. Lowering carbon emissions is expensive. So we have to ask ourselves: are we willing to pay the price of more costly goods to lower emissions...in China?

The average American emits twice as much CO2 as the average Chinese, and six times more than the average Indian. In climate negotiations, both China and India have insisted they will never reduce carbon emissions if it hurts economic progress. They argue, "America has been polluting the atmosphere for 150 years to improve their standard of living, leaving most of the CO2 for everyone to deal with [true]. Now it's our turn." Don't they have a point?

"It is inevitable that solar and wind, which have too many variables, will fail without a viable means of storage...queue California’s energy woes. This means hospitals, manufacturing, etc, come to a halt when the conditions are not favorable. Yet, what happens when the power goes out?"

Dawn, I couldn't agree more. I believe the best of both worlds lies in clean ,reliable nuclear energy, but other posters here strongly disagree. I can almost hear them sharpening their swords now...

The discussion here is all speculation mixed with fear. The CO2 problem is very real, but what to do is more politics than science.

I did achieve a great education. I still don't know anybody who did well in advanced genetics, biochemistry, solid state physics, computers. The Biophysics department at the U of MN. was run by the inventor of digital electronics, and I helped salvaged his large lab while the U was eager to build a big Super-Computer Institute building. The internet was a game changer proving small can beat big.

So I struggle here to plead for conservation and try include agriculture in the discussion. It is not speculation that people will still need food in 50 years. And a responsible food industry can't afford energy to be played around with. If government makes reliable energy illegal we will need to develop our own (and I think we can).

A good web site is here; https://www.weather.gov/phi/extended. We have a water problem. Conservation of everything will save lives.

Dawn,  Welcome to the community - great starter post!  I would love to see more discussion.  You bring up some interesting points as does Bob who commented above.  

1) Geothermal Power - we have several members who write about this on the site so keep an eye out.  I am not sure this is something that is available to all, but certainly has a place in the mix

2) US vs China - this is a tough one as Bob points out.  I guess you could say we have an opportunity as American's to lead the way into the next generation of "power". 

3) Clean Power initiatives in America - The issue for Americans is that there is so much political influence and big money behind things like solar and wind that we are not stepping back to make sure these really make sense or to determine how they can be part of the mix but not the only solution. With everything, there are negatives or downsides.  I think we have to find a balance.  In some places like AZ solar power may make sense especially when it is put on homes and not taking up additional land or put in places where we have to build extra lines to tap into that power.  In a place like Seattle solar is probably not the answer, perhaps nuclear is the better fit up there.