Wanted Your Input | Green Energy News

September 18, 2005 – Vol.10 No.26

WANTED: YOUR INPUT.

Katrina, Rita, who knows what’s in store for the remainder of the hurricane season or for that matter next year and beyond. No one can say with any certainty that these two powerful storms were caused by global warming, but there are suspicions.

If anything, these storms should be a warning of things to come.

The Bush Administration still has no intention of tackling global warming through government mandate. The Administration believes that technology - like a hydrogen economy - can fix the problem.

To some extent Bush is right. The supply and consumption of energy we use today are technologies. The clean energy we need to build is just a technological shift, albeit a large one.

In a free-market economy technology can change on its own, but when one technology is set to be disrupted (and naturally defends against that possibility) only government, for the good of society, has the ability to step in and force change.

To keep up with its notion that technology can fix the global warming problem, the Bush Administration, through the U.S. Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP), has come up with the U.S. Climate Change Technology Program Strategic Plan, Draft for Public Comment.

Public comment means you. The CCTP wants your thoughts and insights and has created an opportunity for you to do so.

The Plan is extensive, detailed and a treasure trove of information. But it’s not complete. There are holes that need to be filled in.

For instance, a random sampling, it’s a long report:

--- The draft says that small wind turbines are on the verge of operating cost-effectively in most of the rural areas of the United States and more than 15 million homes have the potential to generate electricity with them.

Further the draft says that currently small wind turbines produce electricity at 13 -19 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) but the research goal of the program is to bring that cost down to 10-13 cents per kWh in Class Three winds (11.5 mph average) by 2007.

But what should be included in the report is why small wind turbines are so expensive. Isn’t it just because they aren’t mass produced in huge numbers? Small wind turbines are fairly simple machines. They shouldn’t cost so much. You’d think hundreds not thousands of dollars. Manufacturing processes are technologies and they need to be considered in the Plan.

--- The draft makes note that in the area of concentrating solar power that prototype dish/Stirling energy systems are deployed in a few states and that the long term goal is to bring the cost of solar concentrating systems down to about 3 - 6 cents per kilowatt hour from 12 - 14 cents today.

Again, isn’t this a question of mass production to bring costs down? The core solar technology is mature. It just needs the benefits of mass production.

--- As would be expected, hydrogen makes up a significant portion of the Plan and much is included about the state of current technology, such as hydrogen storage and various goals that need to be reached and by when.

But not included is a step-by-step plan to actually build a hydrogen economy. There’s much talk in the report of all the technologies needed in a hydrogen economy but no grand master plan as to how to go about putting it all together.

As above, the report is extensive. It’s a great reference source. But more needs to be included. For a copy and how to submit a comment visit http://www.climatetechnology.gov/ . The deadline for comments is November 2, 2005 at 5:00 PM EST, so hurry.