The Migration to Renewable Energy Isn’t All Smooth Sailing
A reader asks re: my post on the good news in renewables: Lots of recent progress with solar but what about that setback in your California backyard that involved a fire in the big tower of power? What went wrong besides too many government subsidies for this project? Who stands to lose besides the taxpayers?
IMO, the answer is easy: All 7.3 billion of us stand to lose big if we interpret isolated points of failure in clean energy as proof that the migration away from fossil fuels can’t work.
We do have Thomas Edison to thank for the incandescent light bulb after 1400 or so failures. Correct me if I am wrong but I don’t think that the government was on the hook or at least not so deeply entangled as it is in big solar projects. I can see the value in government involvement to some extent but the bulk of the risk should be borne by investors. If investors can’t risk their own capital why should they be reaching into my pocket?
Larry,
Craig is quite right, isolated instances of failure, over optimism, mismanagement, blind alleys or even outright fraud and malfeasance are all to be expected during the initial “boom” period of any new technology or the establishment of a new industry.
Such events are the downside of commercialization and innovation. Regrettable, but inevitable, products of the human talent for opportunistic behavior.
Government have a role to play in both promoting and stabilizing beneficial development by providing support and incentives along with well planned, and monitored, regulation and governance.
The difficulty for every government, is to balance the need for regulatory guidelines and economic support, against the need to allow competition and free development. (even if that means allowing some undesirable outcomes).
Nothing in human endeavor will go perfectly ! Governments (and authorities) must accept a degree of imperfection, and stay responsive, and sensitive to the needs of new industries and social changes.
IMO the US DOE has been remarkably successful at maintaining this balance. The US taxpayer should consider the DOE’s management of taxpayer funds to have been capably and responsibly invested.
Governments have a duty to “manage the economy”. Subsidies and incentives are legitimate tools for good economic management.Used wisely, with careful monitoring, all taxpayers benefit.
The danger is when governments stray from the path of economic management, and pursue ideological or purely political agenda’s.
That’s when the checks and balances of democratic society are important. In the US these checks and balances include the Constitution, the Supreme Court, the media and the power of people when they vote.
None of these checks and balances are completely perfect and often take a while to work, but as history witnesses, eventually the system because of it’s flexibility and capacity to accommodate peaceful dissent, corrects itself.
Not all Solar or Wind projects even with government subsidies and incentives will be successful. Many will collapse when subsidies and incentives are withdrawn. However, those that remain will prove beneficial, and a valuable basis for further development.
It’s a very hard decision for any taxpayer funded authority to decide when subsidies and incentives should be terminated or decreased. No one wants to kill the egg just before it might hatch ! Also the political fall out from advocates, enthusiasts and vested interests can be very daunting.
The most obvious lesson is the US corn based corn Ethanol industry. This industry was founded for the best of reasons by very well-intentioned legislators, equipped with the best advice available at the time.
40 years later, the industry has proved to be a huge fiasco ! Ecologically and environmentally it has proved more harmful than the fossil fuels it was supposed to replace. The industry is riddled with fraud and malfeasance and inefficiency. It only in exists due to a government mandate. Even economically the US ethanol industry is a complete disaster, costing US taxpayers and consumers hundreds of billions.
Why is it still in existence ? Because the industry is just too big for any government to abandon without experiencing the political backlash from so many vested interests. Like Frankenstein’s monster, the government lost control.
The Corn Ethanol industry has a very well funded army of supporters, including RFA lobbyists, farm belt politicians, huge corporations from big Ag, and misguided greens.
Likewise, many fear Wind and Solar could become another subsidized industry “too big to fail”. The giant corporations behind the Wind and Solar industries are content to allow the industries image to be portrayed as a noble “David” in a David and Goliath struggle, but in truth the industry spends hundreds of millions on lobbyists to keep a myriad of government incentives, mandates and subsidies in existence.
As I say, the issue is difficult, no one wants to see failure due to a precipitate withdrawal of support, but there must come a time when the Wind and Solar Industries are exposed to normal competitive process, without taxpayer/consumer support.
Not an easy decision. As voter/consumers in Spain, Germany and Nevada are experiencing, the role of government in industry needs careful and continual reassessment, if it’s to be effective.
Holy cow; we agree on almost everything here. How often does that happen? 🙂
My only comment: http://www.2greenenergy.com/2016/05/26/should-government-subsidize-cleantech/
“IMO, the answer is easy: All 7.3 billion of us stand to lose big if we interpret isolated points of failure in clean energy as proof that the migration away from fossil fuels can’t work.”
Well, many have interpreted two isolated nuclear disasters as proof that nuclear power is too dangerous. How is that different?
Frank,
True, and even then both Chernobyl and Fukushima were not failures caused by the technology or construction. Both disasters were the result of human operating error caused by a lack of properly regulated operating procedures.
The Nuclear Power Industry has an astonishingly industrial safety record, far better than any other form of power generation.
It’s really astonishing when considering the difficulties of working with such a difficult feedstock as Uranium. Newer, even safer, technologies and the use of feedstock like Thorium which has only a fraction of the problems of Uranium must soon start to dispel old ill-considered fears and prejudices among environmentalists.
Advanced nuclear is the only technology which currently displays the ability to produce the massive ” on demand” generating capacity required by industrialized societies.
Miniaturization of facilities will assist to solve distribution losses and other environmental problems created as by-products by other sources of renewable energy.
The biggest problem is overcoming misconceived prejudice and opposition from those with vested interests in other technologies.
It’s regrettable the nuclear energy industry, especially thorium, has been subjected to well organized, sustained, emotive, but irrational opposition in Western nations,( particularly in the US) resulting in development being severely restricted, even stalled for decades.
It’s certainly time to put aside old, irrational prejudices, and re-examine the value of the planets most effective source of large scale energy generation.
Marcopolo,
Quit so.
Fortunately other countries are working on other nuclear power technologies. China is working on the lithium fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR). The U.S. was too before the R & D funds were unwisely cut off. All the documentation for that project is now public domain so China and other countries have complete access to it which is giving them a head start. I’ve read that American scientists are even helping them.
Whether the LFTR will turn out to be the nuclear technology of choice is too soon to say but I certainly see it as likely. If not, there are a number of other nuclear technology which are potentially superior to our pressurized water uranium reactors. Small modular reactors also have possibilities.
Both the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters were very shocking both because of the resulting damage and because of the magnitude of the easily preventable errors which caused them. The Chernobyl reactor didn’t even have a containment structure and, in addition, the safety devices had been disabled to run a very dangerous test. The back-up emergency Diesel generators at Fukushima were actually located below the level of historic tsunamis.
The excessive emphasis on renewables may well have a very helpful benefits since even without renewables the grid would benefit from energy storage to smooth out demand; the push for renewables is accelerating the development of storage technologies. And, there are situations where renewables are very beneficial. Samoa, a Pacific island nation, is heavily dependent on Diesel power. The solar power they are installing could be economically justified by greatly reducing the amount of expensive Diesel power they are using. Diesel generators can quickly change output to compensate for changes in available solar power. Other Pacific island nations are in the same situation.
http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=355522
Whether Samoa can actually achieve 100% renewable power is questionable but considering their circumstances, even if they do not achieve 100% renewable power they may still be better of getting much of their power from PV systems.
Hi Frank,
Thank you for your reply. There’s no question about the value of Solar and Wind technology in specialized locations and applications.
Just as ethanol is a valuable fuel additive when produced from excessive sugar cane (or beat) production in places like Brazil or Mauritius.
IMHO, the problems begin when overenthusiastic advocates for any technology promote wildly excessive claims, while governments attempt to make the impossible happen using taxpayer subsidies, incentives, etc, (even as a last resort mandates).
When this occurs taxpayers get stuck with an inefficient, inadequate and inappropriate technologies, while government agencies for political and ideological reasons.
suppress and discourage R&D for potentially superior technologies.