There has lately been a big push from the federal government for alternative or green energy. Obviously, any government push of anything correlates with a push of money from someone’s pockets to someone else’s pockets, and certainly this observation does not find an exception with the recent push for green energy.
Enhancing this push is a near-religious belief in the power of green energy to address the fears of climate change. I will not address the issue of climate change here – to each his own on this scientific endeavor. But the excitement over the issue of climate change is surely a driver in the corresponding popularity and federal funding currently enjoyed by alternative or green energy.
By green energy or alternative energy, I am referring to the commonly considered sources or devices of the day. Hydroelectric power has largely lost its charm as an alternative energy; lately, the green energies most frequently mentioned and celebrated are solar and wind turbine energy.
Solar panels appear stately and peaceful, motionless but somehow powerful and important. Similarly inspiring, wind turbines look like fields of spotless, immaculate art forms in perpetual motion; they are like the human-made corollary to nature’s perfect sunflowers, simple in appearance and perfect in purpose.
There could be no rational argument against these wonderful machines, could there? They are clean and seem to cause no immediate environmental damage, or very little damage, and certainly they are better and cleaner than nuclear or coal-powered electricity plants. All of this is virtually self-evident, as there are practically no serious positions taken against them.
But these green energy sources are entirely redundant, in that they cannot reduce the need to continue to produce the same energy output from nuclear and coal-fired plants.
Sure, you can put a solar panel on your roof to reduce some of the power you use from your local electric company, and your billing from the electric company will be lower. But the electric company does not reduce the coal burned or shut down a generator because lots of customers install solar panels.
For an electric company, encouraging customers to add solar panels to their homes addresses the issue of “demand side management” or the company’s planning for peak demand. Electric utilities are also required by law to push “green” alternatives to their comparatively evil electric power.
By encouraging the use of solar panels, a company may be able to marginally reduce the current demand for peak hours of energy use, and forego immediate requirements to upgrade the local electric grid, or it may be able to reduce the requirement to purchase extra power from other plants and transmission companies during peak electricity usage.
But an electric power plant cannot just shut down or even slow down a turbine, be it nuclear or coal or gas powered, just because electricity use has dropped temporarily because the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. Shutting down and restarting turbines (not speaking of hydroelectric turbines) is a long process that can extend into days or weeks, as there are tons of metal and formidable heat involved.
The upshot of the green energy drive is that people are happily expending dollars in return for self-aggrandizing science projects. Like the pyramids of Egypt, the solar panels and wind turbines serve a purpose, but they do not reduce the carbon emission or fuel burned by nuclear and coal-fired power plants. The purpose they serve is more like a sacrifice to some environmental god; they are a carefully prepared, visually spectacular offering to the Environmentalism God.
Actually, the green energy projects do also serve at least one other purpose: the enjoyment they provide for those who can see the evidence of religious belief among many who consider themselves “pure” scientists.
HA!
Now, if they would only practice their beliefs with their own money, and not seek taxes from the rest of us for the practice of their faith.