Science “Hey Science! Bite Me!”
posted by on February 1 at 12:12 PM
I’m on the Seattle City Light “Green Up” plan, and I dispute your logic. While I don’t expect immediate change to come from my $12 green fee, I do believe that more people signing up for the program increases the perceived demand for alternate energy sources, which will eventually attract people who are eager to create supply for that demand. I’m voting with my dollars in our capitalist democracy. This path still requires responsible power consumption, and while I can’t speak for the general public, I can at least say that my own power consumption has not increased since I signed up.Now, carbon offsets on the other hand, that’s a complete load of crap that only exists to let people assuage their guilty consciences while they continue to live their wasteful lifestyles.
My objectionable logic?
Just to be clear, this program doesn’t actually cause wind power to enter your home—the turbines are too far away from Seattle and our distribution network to do that. Nor does it shut down the coal- and natural-gas-fired plants that provide about 10 percent of the electricity entering your house… Can this strategy—punching the environment in the stomach here, giving it an ice cream over there—be a net win for the environment? By making wind power competitive in the market, in theory, these certificates stop future carbon-releasing plants from being built. In truth, programs like this increase the amount of electricity produced with no increase in cost to the end consumer, encouraging increased consumption rather than conservation. In other industries where this has been tried—replacing concrete plants in the developing world with newer lower-emission plants—consumption goes up enough to actually increase net carbon emissions.
As I pointed out in my column, wind power is really green—unlike biofuels, nuclear or hydroelectric—at least when considered in a complete life cycle analysis. The problem remains, however. Due to the quirkiness of the US high voltage power grid wind power generated in Eastern Washington has a difficult time making its way to Seattle.
The logic behind supply and demand—increase the amount of a resource at a given price, and people will consume more of it—is pretty irrefutable, with multiple examples of other carbon “reducing” schemes resulting in even more carbon dumped into the atmosphere. Am I missing something?
This sort of question brings up an essential conflict. You—the reader, the questioner—desire a cut and dry answer. Is this good or bad? Science can lay out empiric observations, many of which are on opposite sides. (Wind power is genuinely green, yet it cannot be provided to a Seattle household due to geographic quirks.) All I can do is present them, in their conflicted glory, and let you come to your own conclusions.
You want to get upset because your pet cause—liberal or conservative, progressive or regressive—is not supported by the best available evidence? Reality says, “bite me.”
Your "scientific" analysis doesn't explain why increased consumption in the short term somehow precludes planning for the long term phasing out of coal, gas, and nuclear power. If increased short-term consumption of energy is the cost of developing economies of scale in experimental green energy industries, so be it.
But is that even the choice we're faced with? Missing from your "empiric observations": the option to develop new pricing/ tax strategies for dirtier industries (the "free market" is always regulated in some way), and the potential for use of wind power in eastern washington to free up additional hydropower energy that could lessen the impact of reducing our use of coal, nuclear, and gas energy.
they need to charge extra for the dirty power, not the other way around
"Voting with my dollars in our capitalist democracy" is the funniest thing I've read all day.
Science is right. Read up on Jevons paradox. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
@2 is correct.
The only way to use the market leverage of the capitalist economy is to have a surcharge for pollution - including global warming emissions - on each power source.
Right now, without the surcharge, wind power is cheaper than oil, and competitive with other supplies.
With a surcharge, wind is the cheapest in this area, and sources like solar and tidal suddenly become viable.
It's what the Green GDP (TM) is all about.
There is no wind power being generated in eastern washington.
@6 The Stateline Wind Energy Center
It *is* an impressive wind power project.
@ 6)
Are you being facetious?
Unless anyone can tell us in which episode of Gilligan's Island the Professor told anyone to bite him, I'd say "bite me" is not the kind of answer we can accept from Science.
Aside from that, it never stops being fun to watch how much special pleading it takes to keep from admitting that capitalism is incapable of solving the problems capitalism creates.
elenchos, do you know what the word for pollution is in economics?
also elenchos, how does government solve this problem?
The only problem with your argument Jonathan, is that it's pretty much totally wrong.
Buying green power credits does have an impact. Though the power being generated using wind in Walla Walla is not being piped directly to my house, it replaces dirty power on the grid.
The amount of demand on the grid has to remain in balance with the amount of power being generated at any given moment (transmission control areas calculate this balance every two seconds). Where the specific electrons that make your lights work come from geographically doesn't matter. What matters is that there are exactly enough the same number of them available on the grid that we all ask for at all times. If I am paying a premium for wind power to light my home, that means the utility is purchasing power from wind generators to meet my needs. If I didn't pay for that power, they'd purchase it instead from coal or gas plants. This directly removes the need for more coal-generated power to meet the demand I make on the grid. Conceivably, we could all do this and obviate the need for coal plants altogether (wind, FWIW, has other issues that make this impossible at this time. Notably, we can't make the wind blow when we need more power on the grid.)
You're actually making a second impact when you buy that wind energy. What you end up owning are the green-energy credits attached to those specific kilowatts. Because you own them, no one else can buy them unless you sell them since each watt (megawatt actually) equals a "renewable energy credit. These things are tracked, audited and counted. Each one can only be created once. If more people want green energy than there is actually green energy, more wind farms/solar plants/geothermal plants have to be added to the grid.
That's not to say that we don't use too much energy. We do. We all need to be more efficient by using CFLs, running only full loads in the washing machine (that is energy star compliant) etc. But to say that buying wind from your utility isn't doing anything is flat out wrong.
@10: Most companies' pet economists spend a lot of time and brainpower trying to avoid figuring the cost of pollution, it seems. So I'd call it a 'hidden cost' or a 'swept-under-the-rug cost.'
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