Our Electric Future

 

 

 

"I was going to plug in my government approved electric car, but the electricity is way too expensive..."

Interesting article this morning in the paper. It seems that the upper Midwest is shutting down some smaller coal fired plants, but some of the larger ones are going through massive and expensive upgrades. Why? Whether the Administration likes it or not, we need coal to produce power. We still get over 20% of all our energy from coal. In anybody's math, that is quite a bit.

Now here is a statistic the "greenies" in Washington never talk about. According to the DOE's website, "Demand for electricity nationally will increase by 40 percent during the next 22 years. This projection includes an optimistic reduction in electricity use due to increases in equipment efficiency." Wow! And we want to get rid of coal? What about solar - can't that step in and help?

In 2013, solar is still not ready for prime time. We currently get less than 1% from solar. It is not cost competitive with other forms of electricity. In addition, in Europe some of the subsidies for solar are going away. Net result - solar has become even less competitive. Solar is coming down in price - just not far enough. The biggest "killer" for solar right now is the lure of natural gas. Natural gas is abundant and becoming cheaper. No subsidy is needed to draw the electric companies to natural gas. From a cost standpoint, solar continues to take a back seat until someone invents a more cost competitive method to get solar power into the grid.

If we had clear thinkers in our DOE rather than fuzzy headed "greenies" from academia, they might look at our energy picture as a progression rather than a revolution:

• Upgrade current "dirty" coal plants to be clean coal plants or natural gas plants
• Re-open Yucca Mountain to house spent nuclear fuel rods.
• Authorize the construction of new nuclear plants
• Upgrade the electrical grid for efficiency and durability
• Ensure the cost for electricity keeps declining as our national needs keep increasing

I have said before, solar WILL become a part of our energy future. Wind might - however, the current bird and bat killing technology is not a good fix. We have other methods which are "clean" that we have not even explored as yet. Years ago I read a paper on how much energy could be harnessed every day just from tides alone. The Bay of Fundy, up by Maine, has some of the biggest daily tidal changes in the world. However, all this is in the future. Right now, we are the Saudi Arabia of natural gas and coal. Lets use it, make it better, make it cleaner, and sell the excess to China and India.

I don't know about anyone else, but my electric bill is outrageous. It is way too high. Based on the amount of cheap fuel we have to power our electric plants, the rates should be much, much cheaper. That is the focus I want our DOE to have. That is the future I want - clean, abundant, very affordable electricity.