The latest gurus to jump on the doomsday bandwagon are Kevin Phillips, credited with being the architect of the architect of conservative dominance back in the 1970s & 1980s. Kevin has a new book out, “American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century” which I haven’t read yet but plan to. I expect he will be revealed as one of those who believe our presence is Iraq has to do with trying to seize military control of the Persian Gulf region. The other is Time Magazine, a venerable conservative rag, who published, on 26 Mar 2006, the cover article “Be Worried, Be Very Worried, ” a warning about that the global warming phenomena, which it suggests is a genie that has escaped the bottle, and we’re really in for it, folks.

What can we in Oregon do to avoid the consequences that so may are trumpeting? Nothing much in any direct sense about decisions made in Washington, but at home we’re in rather good shape for at least certain forms of energy. I came across a reference on the ‘net to a home in Canon Beach which needed no external energy. They supply their own electricity, proving that even western Oregon is not inhospitable to solar panels. Indeed, the Pepsi plant in Klamath Falls is run by solar panels.

Let it not be thought that solar panels are the whole story behind complete energy independence in the home. Houses have been built for the last four decades that used virtually no external heating or cooling. One of the loci of concentration – based on the presence of a prominent San Francisco architect – is in Mendecino County in northern California. A fog-bound coast indeed. Oregon beaches, summer and winter, can seem real toasty compared to Mendecino county. The energy free house is achieved by clever use of highly insulated windows with easily adjustable awnings and internal mass, predominantly the water wall, since water is a magnificent storage medium for heat. To achieve this one would have to begin with an architect, which is asking a bit much for most of us. On the other hand, solar panels can provide a very important source of energy, with splendid effects on the power bill for anyone. It would be an investment that pays off in lower power bills every month. .

Since the 1973 oil shock, a great deal of research and development time has been devoted to alternate energy sources, much of it in the field of renewable energy. It is, as usually happens, a matter of cost and efficiency. Costs drop while efficiency increases during development. At some point these newer technologies become affordable for general use. Such is the case for both solar and wind power. Happily, solar panels are readily available to anyone who wants one and they are affordable. Wind is another matter.

Denmark is the leader in the development and use of wind power. The government of Denmark decided, in the beginning, to bring the public in on wind power. More than 80% of Denmark’s wind power generation is in the hands of co-ops – the customers own their own means of power generation, transmission and distribution. It’s not something likely to happen in this country, but it could be urged upon municipal power companies, which is a good bit closer to personal ownership and avoids the possibility of something like what Enron did in California or Montana.

Solar power is not at present a major factor in the Oregon energy inventory, but it has only just become economically feasible. Wind power is rapidly becoming a deeply important factor. There’s a fair bunch of it on line in Oregon and a whole lot more coming in the quite near future. There are 338 megawatts (1 mw = 1000 kw) of power installed, 140 mw approved, and another 300 mw known to be in the planning stages but not yet through the approval process. That’s a bunch of power, folks, although the figures represent optimum performance, which cannot be expected all the time Oregon currently has about 4500 mw of fossil fuel power; as that source is replaced by wind farms Oregon will become correspondingly less dependent on fossil fuel, which is experiencing troubling rates of inflation now and may well be – has been predicted to become – much worse..

Wind power development in the state is happening largely in the Columbia River gorge, around the Umatilla-Pendleton area. Much of Oregon has the wind for effective power generation, but I think the problem in western Oregon is trees. Difficult to stick a mast up over an Oregon rain forest. But a municipal power system could probably deal with that problem, and thus become partially independent of commercially operated generation and transmission systems.

In a couple of decades, electricity generated from tidal action and wave action will probably come in as a contributor. The British are leading in tidal generation, while Oregon State is the premier research facility in wave action. They expect to install a prototypical generator on the coast of Oregon in the rather near future. In the wee small hours winds ususally are more calm, and of course there’s virtually nothing for solar panels to digest. But the sea remains restless – a welcome addition to the mix.

In summary, our electrical future seems sound enough. We have a magnificent head start based on an enormous amount of hydro-power in the state – something like 60% of our electricity is from hydro. Supplement that with solar and wind, plus a bit of geothermal, and we can afford the loss of natural gas and coal fired power plants.

Liquid fuel is a larger problem, but renewable sources of that are coming on line. Sweden promises to be free of oil imports in less than 15 years. The biggest problem is the sheer quantity of liquid fuel consumed in this country, about half for personal transportation. Ethanol is a truly splendid fuel and is presently promoted as an answer to failing petroleum production. But as far as I know, because of engine design it is used as an additive, stretching out supplies of petroleum. And nationwide, to replace 25% of oil consumption would require 5,000,000 barrels per day. That’s an awful lot of crop land set aside for energy production, folks. Biodiesel works perfectly well in existing diesel engines without modification – I noticed that Pepsi trucks use the stuff. Even with the popularity of hamburger heavens and presently abundant supplies of used vegetable oil there have to be limits to production.

In a more perfect world our transportation systems might more closely resemble the European model, which to an important degree is mirrored along the Washington-Boston corridor. That’s the corridor which uses the American equivalent of the bullet train. It would be insane to drive a car between Washington and New York, and I personally know high level New York executives who commute between distant homes and work by rail. As in Europe, the longer distance commutes are supplemented by effective metropolitan public transit systems. If I am quartered in the west Portland area and I want to go downtown I consider it deeply unwise to not ride the light rail system. Anyone who has tried to get up to Beaverton during rush hour will know what I mean.

Given recent increases in the price of liquid fuel, bus ridership in Eugene is increasing considerably. Some consider this a low class means of getting around. Me, I have an iPod and carry a book. Somebody else can deal with the traffic while I enjoy life. I like it fine. And I’d rather take a train from Eugene to Seattle than drive or fly. Last time in an airport I decided that it was a last time.

There is one final matter. State administrative units are to become independent of fossil fuels in the very near future, by order of the governor. An initiative, sponsored by the former governor and supported by the present governor, would require purveyors of energy to include renewable sources in what they sell. Two oil industry associations have mounted a lawsuit intended to stall the initiative enough to prevent it being on the ballot in November. That’s as it may be – it’s a free country and they too can choose their path. But I prefer a greater degree of local authority in this matter, and I personally fully support the Apollo Initiative, and I urge readers to read it and consider their own support. Whether there is to be a supply interruption this year depends at least partly on an Iranian ayatollah’s decision. Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. They’ve done it before. But protection from that sort of thing is urgent as far as I’m concerned.. And I suggest that sending non-existent divisions into Iran is not the answer.

Let me say one more time my primary research resources. For national and international energy news, I use http://www.energybulletin.net, and for Oregon news I visit the Oregon Department of Energy, which I usually go to from the Google response pages when I type in “Oregon energy”. There is a wealth of additional material on those Google pages, which I rely upon. If you wish to check on my data, go to those places and read the stuff I read. Neither source is a platform seeking to guide society, but only to inform.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 3rd, 2006 at 8:02 am and is filed under Energy Future, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.