Decentralized Energy

Paul P. Craig

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367169244
• eBook ISBN: 9780429725012
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The question of decentralization of energy sources goes to the heart of the energy choices before the United States, but conflicting viewpoints have clouded the issue in recent years. This volume cuts through the rhetoric to address specific issues involving local control over energy sources and energy uses, including environmental aspects of decentralized and centralized energy supply systems; energy conservation and its relation to energy decentralization; behavior, values, and energy choices; institutional issues affecting the commercialization of solar energy, especially in cities; issues of decentralized and conventional energy supply choices in Sweden; and methods by which decentralized energy systems have been studied. Most importantly, each of the papers in this collection considers social and institutional concerns as well as technical and economic issues.

Part 1
The Policy Framework

1.
Energy Conservation and Energy Decentralization: Issues and Prospects

Mark D. Levine, Paul P. Craig

An Extraterrestrial Energy Spy

A friend of ours recently spotted an unidentified flying object. As the UFO departed, our friend found a document that was inadvertently left behind. It was apparently an evaluation of the energy problems of the earth, prepared by someone from an advanced civilization. We share with you the executive summary of the report because we find it to be of great interest:

• The evaluation of the policies and problems of energy on earth was a difficult and confusing assignment. I decided first to focus my attention on one country, the United States. The United States, though a declining economic power at this time, still produces and consumes more energy, of all different types, than any other nation of the world.
• My findings were so confusing to me that I decided to input the data base into our most powerful computer, JNYX. JNYX studied the data for some time. Its first readout was rather startling: “AFTER TEN HOURS OF ANALYSIS, I AM UNABLE TO UNDERSTAND THE INFORMATION. THE DATA ARE INCONSISTENT AND NOT SUBJECT TO RATIONAL ANALYSIS. PLEASE INSTRUCT.” Never before had JYNX spent so much time with so little results.
• However, JYNX did agree to review this report and has done so. With its help, I have drawn the following conclusions from my brief study:
• First, there is a very strong belief--especially in the United States--in economics as a means of allocating scarce resources such as energy. Thus, persons and nations with money are able to use as much energy as they wish while those with little money must be very frugal. Although this causes great problems for many nations and people, there is a widespread belief that the economic system is the most efficient way of distributing scarce resources. I can understand the logic of this idea, but I am greatly confused about the way that the economic principles are applied* For example, most authorities in the U.S. Department of Energy believe that the least costly energy technologies that work well should be used.

However, these same people support projects like synthetic fuel conversion and processing facilities that are extremely expensive. Furthermore, in their private lives they pay more than a dollar per gallon for gasoline when they could pay 30 cents per gallon to purchase a more efficient automobile.^* An investment in energy conservation for a new house in Washington, D.C. is equivalent to paying 22 cents per therm of gas (versus gas cost of 34 cents per therm) and 1.5 cents per kWh electricity (versus 4.4 cents per kWh). Similarly, the Nation invests $2 billion to build a new power plant when it could have invested $1 billion in more efficient air conditioners and other equipment and used the remaining $1 billion for other purposes. To make this situation even more confusing, the same people who advocate using the economic system to obtain energy from the cheapest sources are also most in favor of $2 billion power plants. I cannot imagine an official of the Intergalactic Federation who would long survive advocating the waste of $1 billion on a purchase of a $2 billion piece of equipment. This extraordinary conflict between a belief in economic rationality and behavior inconsistent with economic rationality is, I think, a root cause of major energy problems. But it leaves me fully perplexed.

• Second, there is considerable debate about the abundance of energy resources and how long they are likely to last. I scanned the literature and discovered that the estimates of resource availability varied by greater than a factor of 25. At the lower end of this estimate, the earth (and particularly the industrialized nations) will suffer terrible economic consequences within a decade. They are doing little about finding alternate energy sources, so I conclude that their leaders are not particularly worried about the scarcity of economic energy resources. There does exist a fringe group that speaks of the “limits of growth” and there are people who speak of “soft paths” and decentralized renewable energy systems and energy conservation. These people make some interesting points, but they do not exert very much influence in high government circles.
• Third, I have been baffled by the oil situation in the United States and other countries. The United States acts curiously when it is threatened. Recently, many of its citizens were prepared to go to war because 50 of its people were captured by students in a far away country. And yet, when the United States is really threatened, as they are by the price increases and uncertain availability of world oil (controlled by an international oil cartel), they do very little. I have mentioned that an attempt is being made to produce liquid synthetic fuels from coal at very high costs. Yet there are large quantities of garbage distributed throughout the country that people pay money to remove and dump, when it could be converted into scarce liquid fuels at a cost much lower than converting coal to liquid energy forms. But the garbage is dumped and the coal is mined.
• Many U.S. experts have predicted that there will be a severe oil shortage in less than ten years. These same experts have shown that a shortage of oil will cost the United States billions of dollars, will cause severe unemployment and have disastrous effects on the world economy. And some of the experts have shown ways that half of the oil imports could be conserved over the next ten years, at a cost of less than 60 cents per gallon of gasoline. What is the response? Mainly synthetic fuels at $2.00 per gallon or more, with little chance that they can be ready in significant supply short of twenty or thirty years. Even so, the problems associated with liquid fuels are apparently very serious. I do not understand why these people and their leaders are willing to court economic disaster and social upheaval when they apparently value their economic goods, material possessions, and social institutions so much.
• I could go on and on with the contradictions that I have found in the energy policies of the United States. But I think at this point you can agree with me that there is no rational basis for the energy policy actions of the leading world power. I remain most perplexed by the belief in economic rationality combined with the irrational behavior of the people in their energy decisions and policy. Please inform if you wish continuation of the investigation.

Discussion of Energy Issues

The report from our extragalactic visitor has raised many important issues. They have several common themes: as oil resources are declining and severe shortages (caused by an inability of world productive capacity to keep pace with growing demand) are expected within the decade, the United States continues to waste energy in large quantities. Extreme anomalies are present in our energy system and in the processes by which decisions are made about energy: we spend vast sums of money to expand energy supply, when there are much better investments that can be made to increase the efficiency of energy use. We are, in effect, wasting our most valuable resources (time, labor, materials, and energy) in providing goods and services to our economy. This is, as our visitor has stated, an irrational way for us to proceed. We wish first to understand why this has come about in order to propose policy remedies for the problem.

Energy Decentralization, Values, Lifestyle, and Behavior

These issues lead directly to the theme of energy decentralization. Indeed, we believe that the theme of energy decentralization is in many ways a unifying concept that will clarify many of the difficulties that our observer had in understanding the U.S. energy system. Devices that use energy are distributed throughout the society; they are totally decentralized. They are not nearly as efficient as they could be or ought to be, given the high value of energy. Decisions about energy-using equipment are not and, in our society, cannot be made centrally. They result from a v...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• About the Book
• About the Series
• Contents
• About the Editors and Authors
• Introduction
• PART 1 THE POLICY FRAMEWORK
• PART 2 INSTITUTIONAL EXPERIENCE
• PART 3 ACTION PROGRAMS
• PART 4 INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE