Comments on "Hey Science! 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

Along the Oregon-Washington border, in Walla Walla, Washington and Umatillla County, Oregon.

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.'