New Energy = New Standards

Everyone on this planet, through basic survival instincts and fear of the unknown, wants life to continue beyond all of the chaos we see around us at the moment.   But the problem is that we want it to continue in the same fashion as before (the way it’s not working so well now) because life in the unknown takes some personal responsibility to be able to handle the changes.

If not for our smaller but yet evolutionary strides in communication, science, medicine and travel, we would never have been able to take on such a great task as what we have before us. Communication, science and medicine are worlds away from where they began (have you read a medical text book from the turn of the last century?) 

The only difference between “over the last century” and now is that the first three have all taken place over a longer period of time where there was due process to adjust to each individual step. Energy production methods needed for travel have, however, stayed firmly in place for a very long time, since this industry is so closely tied to the high profits of oil.  

So with the oil industry currently plagued with public doubt, renewable energy begins to find its way into larger commercial use.  The thing is though, and from what I see, that different renewable energy industries are acting similar to the oil industry in that each one appears to want to “corner the market”.   It seems like each one wants to be the only answer, which basically means the one to create the “big bucks” and then secretly be just like the oil giants of old.

Why?

Because it’s what we’re all used to…Duh. It’s been our collective role model forEVER. But as things are a changin’ and we’re all somehow learning a bit of responsibility for our planet, there comes a point, when “we can’t do things the same way as we used to and expect to have a different outcome, especially when this could be such a great opportunity for enormous strides in humanity”, says Karuna DiLibero, from the Foundation for Renewable Energy Evolution, an emerging Santa Fe non-profit organization making strides to support the renewable energy transition.

In addition, maybe the collective stall around clean energy implementation has to do with our one source of “oil” being replaced with more than one alternative.   It could get confusing with all of the market placement competition.

Let’s take a look at a couple of the choices to see how they work together instead of separately.

Wind technologies have their benefits for areas where the wind is prevalent.  They utilize Mother Nature and stand majestically above the Earth, looking almost spellbinding in an inspirational larger-than-life sort of way.  These systems are being increasingly well designed to catch literal breezes, depending upon the design of the turbine and if the surrounding environment can support it.  

Wind farms use land differently than say, solar farms (which equals less environmental footprint) since the land can still support the agricultural industry in so many ways.   Another benefit is that turbines can be placed in oceans so that no usable land is monopolized at all. They can even easily replace transmission poles as the holder of the lines, creating electricity directly from the grid itself. 

There are opponents of wind power who find huge turbines an unsightly picture upon the landscape, and then trumpet about avian deaths (which have decreased so drastically that more birds hit the sides of buildings than perish by turbine collision.)

While there is a solid place for wind in our overall portfolio, the one issue that I see around it is the on-going fact that as we evolve into smarter humans using smarter forms of energy production, things tend to get smaller, more efficient and self-sustainable, not bigger and dependent upon other things.

Good enough. It’s easy to see that wind fits well into the mix if used in the most beneficial locations but is definitely not the answer across the board.  So knowing this, why does wind want to compete with solar?  Wind can go where solar cannot.   

Solar technologies can be utilized in more blanket situations with greater ease, as the sun is prevelant just about everywhere on the planet. 

Solar is versatile and coming along at an extremely rapid rate. These technologies are using less water and less space (some of the time), while continually increasing the energy output.   Solar can be used for small applications such as private homeowner use, or for huge industrial needs providing 40+ megawatts, which is soon most likely to double.  

Some of the opponents to solar talk about the energy balance being a negative one, in that it takes more energy to produce the systems than is economically digestible for their output in the short-term (instant gratification).   Other opponents to solar reside more in the conservationist neighborhood, where industrial solar plants use way too much land and tear up large tracts of desert habitat and open space. 

So it’s clear that solar technologies are maturing enough to be able to effectively work in many different situations.   Because of this, they have the ability to significantly raise the amount of clean energy going to the grids while helping to meet and better our national RPS (renewable portfolio standards).

Seeing this, the solar industry should be pretty comfortable in their arena. So comfortable in fact, that they could also see the bigger picture that solar alone won’t solve the whole issue and that they don’t need or should have the whole market.  Sometimes opponents to wind, for example, are masked in outfits that exclusively prefer solar technologies. I only say this because I rarely hear a solar “representative” talking about how wonderful wind power is.

Renewable Hydrogen Technologies cannot go without mentioning since unless you’ve had your head buried, the current R&D for power production and the near future automotive market brings this alternative to the front and center. 

The research and development behind hydrogen has been a slow process indeed. I don’t believe that this has been caused by any “opponents” to hydrogen however. This one is a bit different than the above scenarios. The creeping speed may have been caused by past public perception that it was considered unsafe and a source to the Hindenburg explosion. It wasn’t.   Mostly however, the cause has been mainly due to the production methods themselves. 

Hydrogen being produced as a result of electrolysis has worked, but has been very costly in its processes, using a large amount of electricity in comparison to the hydrogen output. Steam reformation has been a leader in the creation of hydrogen, but has come with the cost of high carbon dioxide emissions as a result. 

Hydrogen is so widely used already that you if you were to look around right now, you’d see that most of the items in your view are there as a result of hydrogen to some degree. And this may be a case in point as to how safe it actually is since it’s so widely used, yet when (besides the “Hindenburg”) have you heard of any catastrophes caused by it? 

As an alternative fuel and energy supply, it is quite versatile and more than able to work in conjunction with both solar and wind technologies. When combined with these technologies using a plasma based process, it is seen to be able to multiply the efficiency and output levels of energy production in addition to there being no electric grid input requirements. According to Henry Herman, CEO of Jetstream Wind, “The cost-competitiveness and efficiency coupled with zero-emission power production creates a very useful economic and energy industry tool that can definitely be used in the marketplace at this time”.

As this industry develops, it will be interesting to watch how well it is accepted in the marketplace by the solar and wind sectors. 

I chose not to bring in additional energy and fuel production methods at this time due to space, but will cover them in the future, as many of them are very viable to our overall picture.

So in conclusion, we’re all asking ourselves to take some pretty big steps in defining the way we’d like to see our world look. Up until the recent past, it’s all been done for us and we didn’t have to “think” about our electrical production, how carbon dioxide worked or didn’t work with the environment, or literally de-structuring a monopoly and replacing it with cooperation and more wide-spread economic gains across the board.

Let’s let go of the fear of change, since we’re starring it right in the face, a take a new look at how the new standard of energy production will work that gives the widest array of benefits to the most people.

Peace!