Decentralized energy infrastructure

My goal for this blog post is to articulate the argument for the feasibility and advantages of a decentralized energy infrastructure.

While there are many examples of how negaWatts are cheaper than megaWatts, let's take my favorite,
nuclear power expansion verses solar water heating in Florida. Progress Energy has manipulated the state government to allow it to bill Florida ratepayers in advance for the construction of a new 2.2 GigaWatt nuclear power facility in Levy county for the "ESTIMATED" cost of about $28 billion dollars. This plant will increase Florida's base load capacity by about 4%, cost ratepayers tens of thousands of dollars each, and ultimately result in a 50% increase in the cost of electricity for consumers.

Now almost every one of those ratepayers has a water heater that accounts for about 20% of thier electric usage. Collectively those water heaters use approximately 8% of the total electricity consumed in Florida each day. Solar water heating is a fully developed alternative energy technology that could eliminate that demand on the electric power grid for a fraction of the cost it will take to increase the grid capacity with nuclear power to meet uncontrolled growth in electric demand.  And solar water heaters are energy storage devices so the energy produced when the sun is shining is stored for later when the sun is not shining, so this technology actually reduces base load, not just peak loads.

If you were given the choice between spending $10,000 dollars of your own money to build a nuclear power plant that will ultimately increase your electricity cost by 50% or investing $3500 dollars into building a  mini renewable energy heat plant on your own home that will decrease your electric consumption by 20%, what would you choose. Ratepayers should be given the choice, it's their money. Early cost recovery funding should be used to capitalize energy conservation and renewable energy technology development, not dangerous and expensive nuclear energy.
A widespread, decentralized energy infrastructure certainly would not eliminate the need for our existing centralized electric distibution system, (the grid),  but it could easily eliminate the need for it to grow and even allow it to contract. This would cost some people with a lot of power a lot of revenue and profits. The current business model of investor owned utilities is in direct contradiction to the goal of reducing carbon emmissions and global warming. Nuclear is certainly not the best solution to our energy needs but it is definitely the most profitable solution for the electric energy industry. However, high profits and low CO2 emmissions do not make nuclear energy "Green" and the so called Nuclear Renasaince is an expensive and dangerous bill of goods for consumers.

The first step in achieving a sustainable energy future thru a decentralized energy infrastructure is to aggresively displace as much conventional energy as possible with point of use renewable energy technologies. Solar powered heating, refrigeration, and air conditioning are fully developed technologies that could be displacing up to 50% or more of energy we consume on a daily basis. I'm not making this up, they are doing it in Bavaria of all places.   More negaWatts, fewer megaWatts please. We need far more aggressive mechanism to capitalize the transition to a decentralized renewable energy infrastructure, even collectively using ratepayers money through early cost recovery strategies. Why is it OK to do this for nuclear but no one wants to talk about doing it for renewables?

It may be a lot easier and more profitable for utilities to build more capacity to meet growing electric demand but it is a much better approach to reduce that growing demand with alternative energy resource develepment at the consumer level. Solving the global warming problem will have to be done by a grass roots movement from the bottom up because it's not going to come from the top down! There is nothing but revenue losses in it for the electric utility industry and they know it. Lower cost renewable energy technologies have the potential to completely change the energy landscape and the electric energy industry continues to do everything it can to slow that transition as much as possible.