Dwayne: “An intriguing argument which boils down, it seems, to this: power companies would like to increase generating capacity to meet our present and future needs and they'd like to do it with gas fired plants but they're being restrained by those pesky enviros (aka "luddites").” No, power companies don’t care either way, and gas generators are popular only because just at the moment they offer competitive advantage relative to other sources. The risk of not meeting present and future need is partly because of opposition from ‘enviros’ (and more cynical NIMBYs), but also because of the market structure. My argument boils down to this: providing for need requires central planning. And that’s the opposite of leaving it to the power companies.
“They have plenty of gas turbine generating assets but they're selling them; they don't want them.” Yes, this is typical of the sector. A schematic way of describing the funding process is: (1) Set up a new company to build and own a power station, with a chunk of capital from the power company, possibly outside equity and some very expensive bank loans for the construction phase, usually with some form of guarantee from the parent company. (2) When the plant is built, get some contracts to supply power, providing cashflow. Re-finance at a much lower rate because the risk to the bank is much lower. (3) Sell the company/power plant to outside investors who are attracted by the contracted cashflow. The energy company can then operate it under contract, giving the power company a reliable cashflow back from the investors and a big slug of capital to put into the next project, after taking lots out for the shareholders. It’s like hotels – the ‘hotel companies’ often don’t own their hotels. But they’re still hoteliers.
“the drive is for control of the nuclear market” This is interesting, but not so surprising – they are always on the lookout for the next big thing. I wasn’t trying to suggest that they had any romantic attachment to gas. It’s just where the money is at the moment.
Shane: “"luddite" is, and always has been, the idiotic put-down” What’s idiotic is wanting to get rid of current forms of electricity provision without putting anything credible in its place. As a put down the term relies on the widespread recognition of the silliness of Ned Lud, which should be even more obvious in hindsight. Instead his latter-day followers just get upset by the comparison.
“Electricity can be stored” I think you’re confusing electricity with energy. Not even the most utopian environmentalists are suggesting that we can store electricity for general use. Hence the Californian shortage – if it could be stored then it would be easy to build up reserves when demand is low, and use them when demand is high. We wouldn’t need so many of those capital-intensive power plants to meet peak demand if we could just store it.
But I did just give the short answer in my article, which was pertinent to the subject at hand (producing electricity for general consumption). Here’s the longer answer (on advice from a physicist friend). Electricity generators have to produce enough voltage on a minute to minute basis to deliver electrical current to the devices plugged into the grid. Without voltage, electrical charge doesn’t go anywhere. Electrical charge can be held at high voltage in capacitors for very short periods, but supply and demand need to be matched second by second because electrical current will decay rapidly through resistance. With renewable energy what is being stored isn’t electricity, but energy. For example, the electricity produced by renewables can be used to pump water, which is then released when needed to drive turbines, producing electricity again. (Of course, this creates environmental controversies of its own.) Or it can be used to make hydrogen to be burned in fuel cells. Another alternative is to build bigger electricity grids - my point about needing proper planning. The US is divided into four main grids (one of which is Texas!), with only limited interconnection. If we created a global, or at least continental, grid then we would be able to make more efficient use of renewable energy. This is still simplifying somewhat, but the bottom line is that storage is not a practical solution to the problem of supplying electricity.
“A tiny fraction of our planet's aeolian resources would be sufficient” Animal farts would provide a lot of energy too. But at present we don’t have the ability to harness either efficiently, so this argument is just hot air.
“The transition to the hydrogen economy needs to be begun right away with massive publically financed programs” This makes sense to me, as part of an approach based around long-term planning. But the technology needs to be developed further before this can be a practical alternative.
John: “I'm surprised you would perpetuate a negative portrayal of [the luddite] movement since you came from the same side of the pond as Ludd and it is more directly part of your history.” So is the British Empire, the queen, the aristocracy, House of Lords and Tony Blair. But I don’t support these any more than I imagine you do. C’mon John, workers of the world have no country – do we? And the enclosure movement was part of a process that made agricultural productivity soar, which is part of the reason that I’m in a comfortable office in a bank, not breaking my back on a farm. For this I am grateful.
“you tried to portray poor Richard Rogers…” Not me. I’ve never read poor Richard Rogers.
Alex: “i'm not sure then if his argument is for this type of investment or just more power plants a la the dreams of cheney.” Neither am I. I’m agnostic about how to provide electricity – I’m happy to defer to the technocrats. My point is only that we need to plan around human need, not around spurious fears or around dreams of green energy that simply cannot be realised at the moment. For all I know, Cheney’s self-serving dreams might actually have some spin-off social benefits
--James James Greenstein