PNM is traveling around New Mexico hosting public meetings, complete with cookies and coffee, to discuss the future of electricity in the state. This past Tuesday’s meeting at the Santa Fe Community College drew about 30 members of the public, and although I could only stomach the first hour, that was enough to reach an important conclusion: Investor-owned utility companies such as PNM will never provide community benefits. They simply can’t.
Inherently, many of us know that we should be angry at PNM. We sense that something isn’t right with them, even if we can’t finger exactly what it is. We think they should burn less coal, stop raising rates, and give their executives a pay cut. These issues surface at public meetings, and although they may be true, they distract us from a much larger realization.
The real problem with electric utilities is that their business practices are every bit as dangerous as Wall Street banks flying high on derivatives or multinational oil giants hooked on deepwater drilling. Electric utilities continue to build central power plants connected to interstate transmission corridors – a practice so dangerous that it has taken the world’s climate to the ragged edge of instability. And, like the bankers and the oil barrens, they do it because it solidifies their power and ensures that we will continue to depend on them.
The ability of the electric power system to inflict great harm on communities and the planet is well established, but it’s ability to do the opposite – to yield enormous benefits – has barely been explored.
Watch more free documentariesThe decline of cheap liquid fossil fuels may be our salvation from the drastic impacts of climate change. This film is another look at where we are headed. This is not a political issue. It's all about the math.
We have all seen the commercials about America’s “new” 100 year natural gas supply. If history is any guide, estimates of any new energy reserve are almost always inflated to lure money from would-be investors. As natural gas prices have steadily increased over the last few years, they have spurred interest in the development of “unconventional” resources, such as shale gas. But how much of this new gas reserve can be produced economically, and at what rate of production relative to demand?
Today, enormous new reserves of natural gas can be extracted from shale formations with a newly developed technique, called hydro-fracturing. This is a process whereby horizontal drilling is combined with pressurized water to fracture the shale rock and allow the natural gas to be extracted via a perforated pipe at the bottom of the well. This technology allows us to extract the gas we already knew was there. In fact, often these "new" shale gas fields were impermeable “caps” on top of conventional gas and oil reservoirs and were historically drilled through to access the gas and oil beneath.
While are seeing an explosion in shale gas production, the horizontal wells that are being drilled are widely known to decline in output rapidly (60%) after the first 12 months of production. Some reports show by the fourth year the wells are not economical to operate. We are also seeing the energy return on energy invested, or EROEI, rapidly declining for new sources of “conventional” natural gas. Petroleum geologist Jean Laherrère believes that this decline in conventional natural gas production in North America will accelerate in the next two to three years.
“Necessity is the mother of invention.” Throughout the history of human civilization, it has been necessity that has always fueled new inventions. However, time and again these inventions were often driven by the desire to make something cheaper or more affordable. Cheapness, not necessity, is the mother of innovation.
However, if we stick with the original premise of necessity, then why isn’t Bangladesh a technological utopia?
That answer would appear quite obvious: a lack of energy, capital, and resources. During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, the lack of capital was the limiting factor; we had plenty of energy and plenty of resources. Today, not so much. Some might say if necessity is the mother of invention, originality is its father. However, in a peak oil world, energy is going to be the father of invention.
I see people posting articles time and time again, saying we will just build it; nuclear plants, wind farms, ethanol plants, solar arrays, etc. That we sell human ingenuity short; like available energy has nothing to with it. Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google has said, "To address our economic problems and create jobs, we need to put innovation first," Schmidt said.
As we enter the End of the Age of Oil, a transition to other forms of energy will be required. I think everyone can agree that in the long run they should all be sustainable energies based upon the received solar flux in the form of direct solar, wind, or other solar driven sources.
Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who is President-elect Barack Obama's choice for energy secretary, has been a vocal advocate for more research into alternative energy, arguing that a shift away from fossil fuels is essential to combat global warming, not to mention, the peaking of world oil production.
Energy sources such as wind, solar and biofuels are fast expanding their reach in the market. Can they grow fast enough, given their current miniscule contribution, to fill the gap of oil decline? Over the past 10 years, the installed capacity of solar energy has increased by 700%, while wind energy capacity has expanded more than thirteen-fold. That translates to 10-year annual growth rates of nearly 22% and 30%, respectively, which far exceed the single digit growth rates of many current energy economies.
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