Foreign Policy: Seven Myths About Alternative Energy

[kristopher]

Foreign Policy: Seven Myths About Alternative Energy
by Michael Grunwald

1. "We Need to Do Everything Possible to Promote Alternative Energy."
Not exactly. ...though the world should do everything sensible to promote alternative energy, there's no point trying to do everything possible. There are financial, political, and technical pressures as well as time constraints that will force tough choices; solutions will need to achieve the biggest emissions reductions for the least money in the shortest time. Hydrogen cars, cold fusion, and other speculative technologies might sound cool, but they could divert valuable resources from ideas that are already achievable and cost-effective. ...

Reasonable people can disagree whether governments should try to pick energy winners and losers. But why not at least agree that governments shouldn't pick losers to be winners? Unfortunately, that's exactly what is happening. ...

4. "Nuclear Power Is the Cure for Our Addiction to Coal."
...nuclear power cannot fix the climate crisis. The first reason is timing...The bigger problem is cost...

6. "We Need a Technological Revolution to Save the World."
...we already have all the technology we need to start reducing emissions by reducing consumption....

Copyright NPR
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112327040

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To be clear, Grunwald is arguing primarily for energy efficiency and conservation as the near term solution that is most cost effective.

I agree.

[XemaSab]

1. I totally agree

Efficiency and conservation are the lowest-hanging fruit.

So why are we not doing more?

[Radical Activist]

2. Great article.

It cuts through a lot of the industry bullshit and delay tactics.

[Nihil]

3. That's a good article - recommend people read it *all*

> 5. "There Is No Silver Bullet to the Energy Crisis."
>
> Probably not. But some bullets are a lot better than others; we ought to give them
> our best shot before we commit to evidently inferior bullets. And one renewable
> energy resource is the cleanest, cheapest, and most abundant of them all. It
> doesn't induce deforestation or require elaborate security. It doesn't depend on
> the weather. And it won't take years to build or bring to market; it's already
> universally available.
>
> It's called "efficiency." It means wasting less energy — or more precisely, using
> less energy to get your beer just as cold, your shower just as hot, and your
> factory just as productive. It's not about some austerity scold harassing you to
> take cooler showers, turn off lights, turn down thermostats, drive less, fly less,
> buy less stuff, eat less meat, ditch your McMansion, and otherwise change your
> behavior to save energy. Doing less with less is called conservation. Efficiency
> is about doing more or the same with less; it doesn't require much effort or
> sacrifice. Yet more efficient appliances, lighting, factories, and buildings, as
> well as vehicles, could wipe out one fifth to one third of the world's energy
> consumption without any real deprivation.

:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:


And, just to point out another important point from myth 4:
> 4. "Nuclear Power Is the Cure for Our Addiction to Coal."
> Nope. Atomic energy is emissions free, so a slew of politicians and even some
> environmentalists have embraced it as a clean alternative to coal and natural gas
> that can generate power when there's no sun or wind.
> ...
> But nuclear power cannot fix the climate crisis. The first reason is timing:
> ...
> The bigger problem is cost.
> ...
> Nuclear lobbyists do have one powerful argument: If coal is too dirty and nukes
> are too costly, how are we going to produce our juice? Wind is terrific, and it's
> on the rise, adding nearly half of new U.S. power last year and expanding its
> global capacity by a third in 2007. But after increasing its worldwide wattage
> tenfold in a decade — China is now the leading producer, and Europe is embracing
> wind as well — it still produces less than 2 percent of the world's electricity.
> Solar and geothermal are similarly wonderful and inexhaustible technologies, but
> they're still global rounding errors.

*THAT* is why we need to focus on reducing consumption.

[GliderGuider]

4. I agree completely, especially about conservation being the primary short-term tool

I note with amusement this paragraph:

Nuclear lobbyists do have one powerful argument: If coal is too dirty and nukes are too costly, how are we going to produce our juice? Wind is terrific, and it's on the rise, adding nearly half of new U.S. power last year and expanding its global capacity by a third in 2007. But after increasing its worldwide wattage tenfold in a decade — China is now the leading producer, and Europe is embracing wind as well — it still produces less than 2 percent of the world's electricity. Solar and geothermal are similarly wonderful and inexhaustible technologies, but they're still global rounding errors. The average U.S. household now has 26 plug-in devices, and the rest of the world is racing to catch up; the U.S. Department of Energy expects global electricity consumption to rise 77 percent by 2030. How can we meet that demand without a massive nuclear revival?

We can't. So we're going to have to prove the Department of Energy wrong.

So his message seems to be, "Start conserving (or stop growing?) or you're going to have to swallow the nuclear pill. I agree.

[GliderGuider]

5. Regarding conservation, it's worth remembering this

If we want to get back to the same global level of energy consumption we had in 1965, we would have to cut our per capita consumption by 65%, and use only a third of what we're each using today. Can we do that in 10 years? Oh, and even when we do that, we're still at 1965 global consumption levels, when atmospheric CO2 levels were already rising almost as fast as they are today.

Not that I want to be a downer, but the task is a lot bigger than this feel-good hand-wave of an article admits.