Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Yes, I believe the word is getting out on how the fossil fuel
generators took advantage of a flawed piece of legislation. It is one
thing to profit from the imbalance between supply and demand, it si
another to withold generation and artificially jack up prices.

the more consumers hear about this, the more heat will come on Bush.
But let's be frank. This is not a Democrat or Republican bashing issue.
Both leaders -- Davis and Bush -- owe a lot to ratepayers throughout
the West and California.

Yes, efficiency is a cornerstone of the proper response, but the
measures California has passed are still too tied into utility programs
that have not worked. Becuase of this, Reeps can say this stuff
doesn't work --when, if properly designed and implemented, it does.

Look for new ballot measures and consumer uprisings. The biggest shame
in this is that demand for solar PV and small wind turbines is now so
big that suppliers can't keep up with demand. And that is a direct
outcome of a failure in long-term planning that links solutions to the
energy crisis to global cliamte change and economci development
programs in poor urban communities (massive efficiency retrofits and
rooftop PV) and poor rural regions (bulk wind and biomass).

Bush's neanderthal approach to the energy situation, and FERC's lame
market rhetoric, will go down in hisory as some of the greatest sins in
government inepitude of ALL TIME. 
  

    <scribbled by satyr Wed 23 May 01 06:44>
  

    
Maybe that should read:   It's not an energy shortage, it's a greed glut.
  

    
> It's not an energy crisis, it's a greed crisis.

Oh, there's PLENTY of THAT to go around,

shored up by relentless bafflegab.
  

    <hidden>
  

    
        After last week's gorgeous poll showing 91% of americans want solar
and wind, today we learn that 59% of Californians want nuclear power.
        What did i expect?  These are the same people who love Survivor, who
couldn't tell an electron from an election, or a neutron from an old
con, and who forget Plutonium is named for the Lord Incarcerator of the
Underworld.
        The point is... even if nuclear is less risky than twenty years ago,
debatable, we have all the no risk solutions we need through a solar
hydrogen economy.
  

    
I, too, was quite appalled by the polling results. Consumers were
pretty smart on all of the other items polled -- being opposed to
drilling for oil in the Artic for exmaple. But nuclear?

My, how we all forget. Nuclear power is so out of synch with the
trends in the energy business. Can you imagine how nulcear would fare
in a competitive, deregualted market. Ramping generation up and down to
get the best price; huge capital investments in plants whose waste
STILL has no repository.

Nulcear power and capitalism, like oil and water, do not mix.
  

    
        Last week FPL announced a 110 MW wind project in Kansas to be
completed by the end of this year.  If my intelligence is correct,
these are the turbines originally slated to begin repowering the
Altamont, now on hold indefinitely.
        What a waste of a good Cali crisis.  Such an obvious solution, washed
away by slow moving quagmire.
  

    
        That's 110 MW of windpower scheduled to be installed in the Altamont
this year, gone to Kansas at the decision of Florida Power and Light. 
Add that SMUD announced negotiations with Enron Wind for a 45 MW wind
plant in Rio Vista have broken down.  This project was already approved
by the state as a peaker on the fast track, scheduled to be online in
the fall.  It won't be built this year.
        That's 155 MW of renewable power in NOCAL which won't be built,
because of two factors.  Lack of any coherent state policy, and the
intransigent decisions of out of state generators with much to gain by
withholding supply.  What a disservice.
  

    
I grew up in Kansas, and one of the main reasons I don't still live
there is the wind, which can be daunting.  (why most of the best
windpower sites aren't what's usually considered prime real estate)

> Bush and Davis

Well matched, don't you think - rather like B-team basketball.

> 59% of Californians want nuclear power

I parse that to read "59% of Californians want" a steady surplus of
power, and are willing to accept nuclear if that's what it takes to
trump the power companies in their price-gouging game.
  

    
I think it needs to be emphasized that one primary reason no new large
power plants came online in California in the last decade is that
investment went elsewhere, following the scent of higher profits - as in
the computer and internet industries, until recently, for example.

Capital has become impatient and almost extortionist in its demand for
profits, and ravenous in its search for circumstances which can turned
to its advantage.

The steady, but relatively modest return on investment offerred by
utilities wasn't incentive enough.
  

    
From one of my mailing lists, a recent letter to the editor of the Southern
Illinoisan newspaper on why nuclear isn't going anywhere fast, and why
it contributes to global warming (as long as we have coal plants and not
wind turbines and solar panels refining uranium, which under any circumstances
is actually close to a net energy loss for the current crop of nuclear
reactor designs):

--------------

Editor, The Southern Illinoisan:

I want to comment on a recent AP story regarding the so-called "comeback" of
nuclear power. I am chairman of the U.S. Department of Energy's federally
chartered citizens' advisory board at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion
Plant,outside Paducah, just across the Ohio River from Illinois, so I do
have some experience in the issue.

The Paducah site enriches uranium in one of the necessary steps of uranium
processing in order to make it into fuel. The idea that somehow nuclear
power is "environmentally friendly" is just plain wrong. Nuclear power will
not save us from global warming. The Paducah site, which is only one of
numerous steps from mining to fuel-rod fabrication in the nuclear-fuel
cycle, requires at least one large Illinois coal-fired power plant and, at
higher production levels, two coal-fired power plants to supply the
electricity necessary to operate the plant. If you add up all the coal-fired
electricity being used to mine and process uranium, you will find a
significant amount of fossil fuel being burned to produce the fuel.

Second, the nuclear-fuel cycle has caused mind-boggling environmental damage
and economic problems. For example, one-third of all the uranium mined on
Earth sits at Paducah in the form of depleted uranium (over 400,000 tons) in
containers which are deteriorating. The cost of converting this material to
a form suitable for long-term storage is currently estimated at $4 billion.
The million gallons of radioactive witches' brew buried in tanks at Hanford,
Wash., is another problem both technologically, environmentally and
economically challenging our nation. But these are only two examples of
dozens of major problems facing the cleanup of nuclear processing.

The answer to our energy problems lies in learning to use energy more
efficiently and in finding methods for production which do not have the same
economic and environmental costs as nuclear power. Those technologies are
here, but it will take leadership from our politicians, and from established
media outlets such as The Southern Illinoisan, to break the grip that the
oil and other energy companies have on our economy. Suggesting that nuclear
power is somehow the answer to our energy problems can't hold up to close
scrutiny.

Mark Donham, Brookport
  

    
What's the word for transmogrifying a diagnosis (description of a process)
into a prescription (recommendation for a course of action)?
  

    
Here is a recent 
Here is something I'm circulating:

How Bush And Davis Are Missing the Boat on Wind Power


George W. might check back with the folks back home in the Lone Star
state as he contemplates the fate of his national energy plan in light
of the Democratic control of the Senate. Gov. Davis should take some
notes, too, and come to terms with perhaps the largest mistake in his
approach to dealing with California’s energy crisis. 
What they would discover is that wind power, the world’s fastest
growing power source, is a technology ideally suited to a deregulated
power market and has broad bi-partisan support. Incredibly short
project lead times, the ability to add new capacity in flexible
increments, and an unsubsidized costs as low as 4 cents per kilowatt
hour, all add up to a technology success story that is one of America’s
best kept secrets. Add in the environmental benefits of substituting
wind for the fossil plants that comprise over 90 percent of new power
supply in California and the rest of the nation, and the case for
generating electricity out of thin air becomes even more compelling. 
The largest energy companies in Texas, among them Enron and Reliant,
are voluntarily exceeding state mandates for integrating this renewable
fuel into the new competitive retail market in Texas. Why? Wind power
is one of the lowest cost electricity generation sources available. 
Under the Texas deregulation law, 2,000 megawatts (MW) of new
renewables (enough electricity for over 400,000 homes) were to be added
to the state’s grid by 2009. So far, wind power has captured 90
percent of this new market for renewable energy. Instead of bringing
400 MW of new wind power on-line by the end of this year, as was
stipulated in the timetable spelled out in the law, Texas is adding 900
MW all within one year. 
While California had at one time authorized adding 400 MW of new wind
power by this summer, less than 50 MW is currently in the works. At the
recent American Wind Energy Association annual conference held in
Washington, DC, wind power developers were bitterly complaining that
the message they get from the state officials is that they have no need
for any more electricity since so many long-term contracts for fossil
fuel supply have already been signed. This is the biggest failure of
the Davis administration’s energy policy given the fact that this state
once had bragging rights to 90 percent of the world’s wind power.
Today, the Golden State generates roughly 10 percent of the world’s
wind power and about 1 percent of the state’s electricity supply. 
In contrast, Denmark now gets 17 percent of its total electricity from
wind power. These sleek machines in the garden will allow the 12
members of the European Union to reduce the carbon emissions linked to
global climate change dramatically.  A full third of the carbon dioxide
(CO2) emission reductions required complying with the global climate
change Kyoto protocols by 2020 will come from replacing fossil fuels
with wind power. 
Consider these disturbing factoids about America’s progress on the
global climate change front. Instead of meeting the Kyoto climate
change treaty’s 7 percent reduction in CO2 from 1990 levels by 2012,
the Department of Energy projects US CO2 emissions are expected to
exceed 1990 levels by 34 percent by that same date. 
Today, California is the canary in the coalmine. Carbon dioxide
emissions linked to global climate change are going up, not down,
because the dirtiest generation sources are running more often in times
of a supply crunch. Deregulation was supposed to lead to efficiency,
not an abrogation of stewardship responsibilities and commitment to
preserving human health.
Whereas natural gas is a finite fossil fuel, the world’s wind resource
is still largely untapped. The winds blowing on just 6 percent of
windiest land sites in the US (excluding Hawaii and Alaska) could
supply one and half times the entire US’s electricity needs.
Wind power is the most phenomenal success story in the history of
power generation technologies. Our political leaders are failing to
link solutions to energy supply with smart responses to the threat of
global climate change, like wind power.  
I just wish George W would call back home and hear from the nation’s
leading purveyors of electricity on why wind power is so hot. Davis
might want to join in on a conference call. Both leaders might learn
something that could help their respective political careers – while
laying a foundation for a more sustainable energy future. 
  

    

This is compelling:

> The winds blowing on just 6 percent of
 windiest land sites in the US (excluding Hawaii and Alaska) could
 supply one and half times the entire US’s electricity needs.
>Our political leaders are failing to
 link solutions to energy supply with smart responses to the threat of
 global climate change, like wind power.

Thanks, I want to remember that.
  

    
That's a great piece, Peter.  Has it been published anywhere the jackasses
might see it?
  

    
David --

Well, A different version has been syndicated by Pacific News Service,
which goes to alternative papers and ethnic pubs. 

What do folks think of the new price "caps"? Better than nothing, for
sure. The biggest bummer in all of this is that Davis has blown it,
too. We have locked into so much fossil fuel power over the next decade
that California will stifle the innovation that a long list of
companies can offer. Perhaps we will need a revolution. Global Exchange
si organizing a number of protests. I hope to be performing my new
song -- "Rolling Blackouts" -- at one of these protests ASAP!
  

    
Do you have it in downloadable audio form yet, Peter?
  

    
Is fossil fuel power specified in the contracts, or is it just power
provided by specific companies which are primarily in the fossil power
business?

Betya they come around soon offering a dime on the dollar for standing
windplants...
  

    
The contracts are specifically for power from fossil fuel plants. Over
400 MW of wind was supposed to come on-line by this summer, but less
than 70 MW will....

Do not have "Rolling Blackouts" recorded yet, but I will be posting
lyrics soon. The bass player in Space Debris is about to go on a
vacation, and as soon as he returns, we hope to record it and
distribute ASAP!
  

    
I'm visualizing a composite characted from the Fantastic Four, a flaming
version of the big blocky guy, with a column of soot rising above him,
saying "must stop evil renewable power" (repeat)...
  

    
hee!
  

    
Well, that's npt exactly what I had in mind -- but perhaps I should be
thinking of the video....

Performed the song at a 4th of July party and it was a hit. Sounds a
bit like a Lou Reed song, mixed in with Dylan and the Rolling stones,
set against an uptempo rhythm that even teenagers like....
  

    
It's a dog-eat-dog media world out there, driven by perceptions.  A video
that's heavy on sarcasm, without being libelous might help a lot, assuming
it made it onto one of the cable channels.
  

    
Any of you yahoos know Russel Smith of the Texas Renewable Energy
Industries Association?

("That's Right, I Said a Texas Wind Boom", Whole Earth, Summer 2001)