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Below
are a few letters we received on topics that appeared in the past few
weeks. They capture the essence of how many readers say they feel.
Wired for Broadband - July 24, 2009
Working
in the electric power business and being a ham radio operator, I have been
following the broadband over power line (BPL) issue for some time. The FCC
has been an enthusiastic backer of BPL since its inception, even to the
point of ignoring recommendations from its own technical staff. The reason
that BPL has few subscribers is that it does not work well and has not been
profitable for its sponsors. Over the past 10 years, more BPL systems have
been shut down than started up.
As
noted in your article, BPL is slow and noisy. In addition to causing
interference to amateur radio, it also interferes with public service
communications, such as police and fire that use the same frequency bands.
Much of the problem has been due to poorly designed and installed equipment
by startup firms trying to make a quick buck. The electric utilities have
not generally been involved except to lease out their lines.
Experiments
involving amateur radio operators, electric utilities, and reputable
communications equipment manufacturers have indicated that properly
designed and installed BPL systems can be operated without harmful
interference to other services. However, as long as the FCC bases its licensing of BPL on political considerations rather
than technical ones, BPL will continue to have a bad reputation and will be
opposed by existing wireless services, including amateur radio. My hobby
aside, I would rather settle for slow Internet service than have the fire
truck get lost on the way to my house because of interference to their
radios from BPL.
David S. Galpin, PE
The Color of Oil - August 05, 2009
I
remember when I worked for a New
York utility and we were trying to build a
coal-fired power plant. This was after giving up on the original idea, a nuclear
plant. Every intervener and environmentalist in the state was in Albany trying to
force the company into going with other sources, such as hydro. The other
sources would be able to provide possibly 30 MW at the time. The trouble
was, the demand was for 650 MW, and no amount of conservation was going to
get it down to 30 MW. Now, we seem to be doing the same thing. We want to
be energy independent by hitching our wagon to the green power star and
ignoring the resources that we have available, in the name of saving the
environment. Meanwhile, countries like China
and India
continue to pollute. This does not seem like a coherent energy policy to
me.
Richard Racette
I
think you're going to see oil companies continue to move carefully and
deliberately into the renewable energy space. Like most electric utilities,
oil company managements know only one business -- their own. Profits aside,
allowing them to devote their scarce management resources to building and
operating their company's business in a safe, environmentally responsible
and highly profitable manner is in our national interest.
In
the1980s, Exxon embarked on a disastrous diversification program that
poured billions into a number of unrelated businesses in order to reduce
its dependence on oil. More recently, BP had to spend billions fixing
safety and operational problems in its refining and production operations
that were likely the result of diversions of management time and attention
to BP's much smaller renewable energy business.
Had
ExxonMobil and others committed large sums last summer and actually put
them to work, it's entirely possible most of the money would have been
wasted. Today weaker oil prices have led to reduced day rates for rigs and
tankers. Exploration and production operations get more bang
for the buck and the world is currently awash in oil. Government has never
been very good at predicting the exact trajectory of oil prices, especially
in the face of rapid increases and declines.
Remember
too that many of the shares of oil giants like ExxonMobil and Chevron are
owned by individuals, either directly, through mutual funds or through
pension plans. Taxes and forced investment programs that reduce
ExxonMobil's ability to pay dividends hurt a large swath of the public,
even if most of them don't realize it. Government has never been
particularly adept at allocating capital. With appropriate rules in place
to prevent unreasonable risk-taking and self-dealing, we should leave it to
industry to figure out how to deal with their cash hoards.
Jack Ellis
Resero Consulting
Why
look to oil companies to solve our energy challenge? It is as if we had
relied on the railroad companies to develop the automobile business 100
years ago. The quote from David O'Reilly, CEO of Chevron, is telling ("even
if the use of renewable sources doubles or triples over the next 24
years..."). How about 100 or 1,000 times instead? The technology
behind photovoltaics is similar to what is in
cell phones, and production of those has gone from less than a million/yr
to over a billion/yr in the past 24 years. I agree with the editor that too
few oil companies have the vision to redefine themselves for what society
needs now.
Chris Noble
MIT Energy Technology Licensing Officer
What
IF the oil majors -- now with 34 percent more methane reserves than just
two months ago -- were able to figure out how to convert that $1 or $2
produced methane into $14 to $21 wholesale methane as value-added liquid
biodegradable fuels which seamlessly blended back into all flavors of refined
petroleum and worked to power engines, diesels, turbines and industrial
boilers without adjustments. What then?
Do
you think that the Seven Sisters would finally "git
a move on here" -- simply driven by the profit side of the equation
vs. alternative fuels or biofuels labeling?
Oil's
biggest global problem is that it floats on water and it's unburned
emissions also phase separate in this planet's atmosphere of water vapor
which we see and breathe as urban smog. To biodegrade, a missing oxygen
atom is necessary in the petroleum giant's fuel recipes. This oxygen is
derived from water when boiled as steam. The oxygen atom doesn't increase
the BTUs of fossil fuels -- what it does is to enable complete or nearly
complete oxidation combustion. This then provides more engine torque,
actually increases fuel economy or miles per gallon and THEN translates
into a 50 percent to 69 percent reduction in exhaust emissions. Pretty
simple.
However,
in pure layman's terms -- adding a missing oxygen atom to hydrocarbon oils
or coals then converts these fossilized substances into oxycarbon
alcohols. This is the secret to biodegrability
of fuels and nearly complete oxidation combustion.
When
it becomes more well-known that major energy producers can bank five to
nine times more profits by simply integrating this missing oxygen atom --
then they'll likely rush to do it. The first green is the money or so I've
been told.
Mark Radosevich
The
math on the oil demand side is incomplete unless we match demand and
supply. First assumption is that buying foreign oil with the huge trade
deficit we have further dilutes the dollar and increases the apparent price
to consumers, regardless of supply. We don't need to repeat all the
security issues as well, since they presumably are even understood by
Republicans.
An
optimistic estimate of the TOTAL oil reserves for the U.S. would round out to about 40 billion
barrels, including all of Alaska
and offshore. If one assumes for argument sake, that there are about 250
million vehicles in the U.S.,
and that a FULL tank of gas is 20 gallons, how many U.S.
oil-based fills are there left before we are BONE DRY?
Well,
less than 50 percent of a barrel of oil is used for transportation fuels,
which is to say that there are about 1 trillion gallons of fuel. Divide
that by (250 million vehicles x 20 gallons) and you have roughly 200 fills
of U.S.
oil available for every vehicle. If you assume people fill a tank twice a
week that is about two years worth of oil. No matter how you cut the
assumptions, we simply do not have the resource to support our current
consumption rate. Given growth estimates of the world consumption, only a
fool would stay the course to disaster.
My
experience listening to CTOs from major oil
companies speaking at Stanford is that they are living in their own bubble
world. They seem to really believe their own propaganda. A fuel-starved
depression will be a lot harder to dig out of than what we saw in the
1930s. We need to be planning and investing NOW in the alternatives. Perhaps
for high-priced applications algae and other solutions will fill the gap,
but no fuel is more accessible or transportable than electricity and that
generated by renewables will not run out and it
can be home grown.
As
for fossil fuels, the numbers just don't work -- when this needle hits
empty, there is no gas station.
Barry Fitzgerald
Energy Entrepreneur
U.S. Challenged by India - August 10,
2009
When
you believe that you are digging yourself into a hole, the first imperative
is to stop digging. It makes no sense to continue digging while others are
attempting to fill in the hole.
The
logical approach to halting the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations
begins with stopping annual increases in CO2 emissions followed by
reductions in existing emissions rates. However, it appears that we will
attempt to use the reverse approach. Unfortunately, with China and India
increasing their annual emissions at a rate of approximately 10 percent per
year, thus increasing global annual emissions by about 2.5 percent per
year, even Waxman-Markey on a global scale (excluding only China and India) would not halt the
growth in global annual emissions, though it would reduce the rate of
growth.
While
assisting the developing world might require developed world investments of
approximately $142 billion per year, the developed world would also have to
invest $1.5 to $2 trillion per year to reduce its annual emissions by 2
percent per year, as required for the U.S. in Waxman-Markey.
With
apologies to the late Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen (R-IL): A trillion
here, a trillion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money.
Edward A. Reid, Jr.
President
Fire to Ice, Inc.
Good
for India.
I have yet to hear a single person discuss the social impact of climate
change policy, which is certain to have a more detrimental effect that
perceived changes for climate change. Climate change will occur regardless
of manmade emissions. It was only a few years ago that it was called global
warming. However, those championing this political agenda realized that
their agenda would be jeopardized by cooling temperatures.
Chris J. Klausner
New Energy to Recover - August 17, 2009
In
your editorial comments you still are missing the point! No matter how much
money you throw at green energy it will not work until the following issues
are solved:
- In most places wind is unreliable
and until we have a way to store large amounts of electricity wind
generated electricity will always need to be grossly subsidized as it
is today.
- Solar is not cost effective and
until it is we will simply be throwing dollars into a never ending
pit.
At
present wind and solar have to be subsidized in order to be feasible. That
cannot go on forever. Because these two sources of electricity are
approximately seven times more expensive than currently generated power any
jobs that are fabricated by stimulus money will be short lived. We are 30
to 50 years away from these sources of electricity being able to be viable.
It appears that this Administration is pushing an ideology that has no
basis in fact or physics. When you and they learn that we will begin to
understand how to solve the problem. Today's approach of cap and trade will
not solve any energy issues, bring us closer to a green standard and will
be a disaster for the consumer and for business.
Ian Carter
Today's
essay on economic caution makes sense for discretionary investments in
green technology retrofits such as smart grids or replacing carbon-based
generating facilities. But the obvious first step towards more efficient
and renewable energy practices is to ensure that all new facilities are as
progressive as economically possible. Why "dig the hole deeper"
by installing additional dumb meters or distribution elements, adding coal
plants, or otherwise investing in past rather than future technologies?
Please consider a more analytical article that describes under what
conditions utilities are justifying new investments (beyond trial or demo
stages) in clean technologies.
Bill Blessing
Thought
your article was worth reading as it appears money (or lack of it)
continues to plague the industry. I also noticed it excluded any mention of
nuclear energy. Seems that nuclear must always be part of this country's
energy equation, whether it be discussing what to do about the aging
nuclear fleet or whether to bring on the new technology developed since
that existing fleet was built.
Jay Wodarski
Excellent
piece -- it described the past and current situation very well, and planted hopes for the future which we all can
not wait to get here soon.
Mehmet S. Turkel
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