Whorled View

According to this CNN article released today Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) that harnesses the heat of the sun (not the brightness of the sun, which is what Solar PV does) just keeps looking better. Among the claims:

1. Electricity produced by CSP can be as cheap as 8 cents per kWh. That’s about 20% cheaper than most people are paying in the united states right now for electricity. That’s 1/4 the cost of electricity produced by the ever so much more popular Solar PV panels.
2. A 92 x 92 square mile CSP farm placed in the empty barren desert in the SW United States could produce all the energy needed by the whole United States.
3. It could easily solve the desalinated water shortage crisis - which for many countries is a much bigger problem than any kind of oil shortage crisis.
4. Only 0.3% of the Sahara desert is needed to power most of Europe and upper Africa, resulting in a 70% carbon reduction for the region. It will save astonishing amounts of money too as cities must otherwise relocate costing of 100’s billions of dollars, whereas it could all be averted with a CSP plant in the $10 billions of dollar range.
5. Since 90% of the world lives relatively close to desert or to substantial power grids connected to such areas then 90% of the world’s population can be served by this breathtakingly economical and clear resource.

Strangely enough some of the biggest opponents to CSP appear to be a group of environmentalists and key Democrat politicians who seem to be letting expected tax incentives lapse. Based on my last post, you’ll see that this comes as no surprise to me. For 30 years they’ve been trying to keep CSP in the background so industry experts could make money off new alternative energy startups that will never compare with respect to efficiency, cost, and time to market.

These tax incentives for the power companies are vital. Even though CSP may be cheaper than filthy fossil fuels, power companies are making tons of money on fossil fuels. They have the right to jack the prices as high as they need, and at times like now when there is no shortage, but the cost is high due to political concerns, they make all the money. Why? Because they already own such a huge interest in the reserves. The only way to get power companies to build CSP farms is to financially encourage them - and that isn’t happening.

He won the popular vote for President of the United States. He jumped on the green energy bandwagon. For those two things I applaud him.

Everything else he’s done reminds me what an incredible stroke of luck it was that he lost the electoral vote. I posted earlier about how awful of a job I thought he did on the “Inconvenient Truth”, and I suggested similar programs that were far better on a number of levels - although even they were seriously flawed. His moaning throughout the program about how unfairly he was treated and about how little data convinced him of global warming were tedious at best, and the treatment of any of the data he presented was excruciating from a statistical standpoint. The worst part of it was his solution to the problem (use less electricity and spend money on technologies that were entirely unlikely to help), which was the equivalent of stopping a fire hydrant with a stick of bubble gum. Besides, you cannot begin to legislate that. Neither can you force China to do that. The solution should have been this: we need tons of cheap clean energy and we need it fast, and stop investing in technology that has no chance of being competitive with coal.

Nothing else will work. Gore seems oblivious on this point.

Does such a ridiculous remark have anything to do with the fact that he runs a Venture Capitalist firm that invests largely in these inferior “competitive” technologies?

So what now did he recently say that filled me with disgust? What proved his underlying blind ignorance to institute “fairness” at the expense of achieving the ultimate goal? It was simply this: When an Ausra executive said that their Solar Thermal technology would produce electricity so cheap as to “thrash” all the other alternatives, Gore reprimanded him for “assassinating” the competition. You can read about it here at the end of this fortune magazine article from November 12th. Be sure to read also the blindedly ignorant opinion of the author of the article, gushing over Gore like he was a rock-star who could do no wrong.

Excuse me?! Why is Gore being overly protective of less efficient, more expensive, and slower to market technologies?! Can you say “biased”? Can you say “self-serving”? Does such a ridiculous remark have anything to do with the fact that he runs a Venture Capitalist firm that invests largely in these inferior “competitive” technologies?

… when someone says something extremely stupid that also reveals their true motives it’s time to call a spade a spade …

If Gore was truly interested in saving the planet, then he would have said something smart like “Wonderful! Let the competition begin!”. And that, my friends, is why we are in the current mess that we are in. Solar Thermal has been capable of providing us with near grid-cost energy for a dozen years while people like Gore have insisted that all the DOE funds go to more expensive and less efficient, and less eco-friendly projects.

Am I the only one that sees a conflict of interest in making a Eco-Venture-Capitalist-Advisor into the Czar of environmentally friendly technologies? Are people really so stupid as to think such a person could be objective? And journalists … when someone says something extremely stupid as well as revealing of their true motives it’s time to call a spade a spade instead of praising the person for senselessly sticking to their rusty and hypocritical guns.

A friend of my recently started working for Waterfurnace - a company that makes geothermal heating systems. Being one who’s worked in the Green-energy industry and blogging frequently about it you’d think I’d have been apprised of what a slam dunk it is. I wasn’t. I figured it was like Solar PV - something people do to feel good about themselves. No, this is a true money saver within 7 years complete payoff (probably 5 years now, given oil costs), and so I think we can expect massive growth here.

What’s more important payback is done without government subsidies (unlike solar PV), and the industry is overwhelmingly profitable. Profitability means scalability, and as far as I know wind-turbines and geothermal are the only profitable renewable energy companies out there - and geothermal is by far the most affordable one. That’s a recipe for growth that no other renewable can boast. So you’re going to see geothermal explode in the next 10-20 years. Money drives growth, not subsidies, and companies like Waterfurnace are doing it. Check out this clip:

Wouldn’t you know it … the best solutions are the simple and cheap ones. While Pres. Bush throws your tax $ toward a fabled hydrogen-based economy involving the most complicated, expensive, and energy wasting distribution methods, most people can cut their heating and cooling costs by 75% by planting a bunch of pipes in their backyard and retrofitting it with a heat exchanger.On average you’ll save enough to pay it off in 5-10 years. The payoff for solar PV (the other homeowner-owned renewable) is closer to 10-20 years even with 50% government subsidies - what a waste of our taxes - that money should go toward CSP, wind turbine farms, or geothermal plants. If you do a payment plan & have good credit you can possibly do geothermal with no money down and then see your monthly heating/cooling bills significantly drop immediately. Lending companies like it better too for multiple reasons. What’s not there to love?!Lastly, you’ll also get that”feel good” warm fuzzy I mentioned above, knowing you’re doing something to help out. As much as 30% of our nation’s energy is spent on heating & cooling. If everyone utilized geothermal then that could be nearly as high as a 20% reduction in our country’s energy consumption, plus that savings goes back to drive the economy.