Green energy requires serious green

Have you ever wondered why there has been such a big push in the past decade or two toward so-called green energy?

I surmise that the reason has less to do with saving the environment, and more to do with saving the pockets of people who have tied up their fortunes in it.

Solar and wind power sources have been around for decades, but they’ve never really caught on. Kind of like electric cars. There have been fads and trends toward them, but none that have been proven to last the tests of time.

But the people who have tried, to their credit, to sincerely sell these products have found themselves knee-deep in capital debt and no way to dig themselves out.

The only answer has been to create a green energy lobby in an effort to gain not only federal dollars but the national attention that goes with it. The natural results have been legitimacy in the popular culture, and acceptance in the marketplace.

Now you have private enterprise and public entities alike literally investing billions of dollars in solar panels and wind turbines in hopes of curbing the high costs of energy consumption. All the while, the makers of these products have breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Their lobby has paid off. Big time.

These days, green energy is as big a business as environmental protection; another lobby that has cashed in on government money and popular culture’s all too willing nod toward anything that makes it feel good.
What I fail to see, however, are the dividends of this green energy. City fees still routinely go up, not down, despite significant civic investments in solar panels. State taxes also keep going up, not down, even though tens of millions of public dollars have been spent on solar panels and wind turbines. My energy bill hasn’t been reduced even though the utility company has supposedly been adding more and more green energy technology to its production lines.

As an individual consumer, the initial costs of solar and wind technology remain prohibitive. Industry experts, of course, claim that although initial costs are high, they pay off in the long-run.
Perhaps.

But, as a low- or middle-income consumer, I still have to contend with those prohibitively high costs of equipment and installation. For me, the bottom line is still the bottom line. We are talking five figures to get started. How many consumers have that kind of money laying around? And, how many are really going to seek the credit for it?

For those who can afford the initial start-up costs of converting to green energy, more power to you. Perhaps solar and wind power are sufficient to meet the energy needs of individual households…as long as those households can afford to make the switch.

However, the jury is still out as to whether or not this green energy is really adequate for meeting the needs of mass populations.

A close friend of mine is an engineer for an electrical cooperative. He has told me that the inherent problem with green technology is that it cannot provide nearly the same quantity of energy that hydroelectric, coal or nuclear power can.

He reported that solar panels and wind turbines measure output in kilowatts, while hydroelectric, nuclear and coal sources measure output in megawatts. In other words, for every megawatt of energy produced at a conventional, non-green power source, a green source must produce a thousand kilowatts.

This means that, in order for an electrical utility to provide green energy to entire communities, exponentially more power structures are required to equal the output of one structure of coal, nuclear or hydroelectric-generated power.

This means acres upon acres of land must been used to install hundreds of wind turbines, and thousands of solar panels.

And, that means governments must be willing to pay out millions, or billions, more in energy costs to convert to green energy that will power communities with comparable output of electricity.

This means an endeavor that is, literally, years in the making and at a substantial cost to taxpayers and utility consumers.

In the meantime, our country’s population continues to grow. It is soaring, in fact, with figures now above 300 million. This means demand for energy is also growing to meet the needs of swelling urban populations.
I’m not convinced that green energy has what it takes, either in resources or time, to meet this demand.
Until green technology can begin measuring output in megawatts, I do not see it becoming the predominant energy sources anytime soon.

You may be able to run your individual property on kilowatt output, but I think it is a mile-wide stretch to say an entire community can adequately run on kilowatts.

The problem is simple supply and demand. The demand for energy is very high, but the supply from green energy sources remains low. Until that changes, conventional sources of energy will continue to meet the demand.

Current electric cars, too, won’t stand the tests of time the way the internal combustion engine has, because their energy outputs are considerably weaker.

Electric cars don’t have near the range that gasoline-powered automobiles do. An average of one to two hundred miles on a charge is about half the distance a car can go on a full tank of gas.

Electric cars are also hideously expensive compared with their gasoline-powered counterparts. If the Chevrolet Volt had a gasoline-alternative model, it would likely cost about $10-$15K less, on average, than the electric version does. Plus, there’s the problem with the battery. It has a finite life, and after so many miles put on the car, the battery will have to be replaced. Only after the warranty has expired. Then the consumer must fork out thousands of dollars for a new battery.

Gas and electric hybrids have had this problem for years. It is one reason why my sister won’t buy another one when her battery gives out. She’ll trade in the vehicle for the conventional gasoline engine again.

My point with this diatribe is to illustrate how inefficient and ineffective green energy really is. It still has miles to go before it can equal the quantity of energy put out by those dreaded carbon-based energy sources. Until that happens, time and demand are the enemies that will determine the industry’s fate.

— Writer Brett Fisher is a regular contributor of columns and comic strips to Carson Now.