A Small Effort Can Have Big Effects

So I've been asked, "you talk a big game about energy independence through renewables, but it seems so hard and expensive. Isn't it just a pipe dream?" (ok, no one asked me that... I asked myself) In truth, it's far far more expensive for us NOT to develop renewable energy. I talked about a gas tax, and then I came across this article that agrees with me, basically saying that while we've dithered and fought over what to do with our energy policy, the price of oil has jumped from $40 to $100. And there are signs that it could go to $200 or more. We're absolutely shooting ourselves in the foot with every dollar we don't spend right now on renewable energy, dollars that in the future will go three and fourfold into the pockets of foreign governments hostile to us. What a waste.

Let's look at what a little tiny change now could do for us when applied over ten years. I'm going to use the example of my 20-cent per gallon gas tax below, and say that each year we took those proceeds and built a solar plant, using the cost model of the Victorville solar energy station. Are you ready?



Doesn't that just kill you? $10 bucks a month and in ten years those 13 million people could get 40% more energy from solar, using existing technology. Considering SoCal Edison energy is already 18% renewable, this would bring the total near 60%! Victorville is being built right now, with available technology. It's not a pipe dream. Why are we not building a hundred of these, and a hundred wind and geothermal stations as well? The cost of the alternative is about to get more expensive than we can imagine.

The Gas Tax - Is It Feasible? (Don't Kill Me!)

I was talking with my friend J-Ro* about his favorite subject, Peak Oil, and we began talking about taxing gasoline. Obviously it's not the most popular of political moves (ok, it's political suicide), and there are concerns about the ripple effects to the economy, including potential recession. But on the upside it could be used to develop renewable energy (see my first post for the benefits of this), and it could speed the consumer's move to reducing energy/oil consumption and demanding renewable energy. So I did what I am wont to do... I opened up an Excel spreadsheet.

People complain to no end about increases in gas prices, and to me it's highly irrational. A tax of $1 per gallon (which would cause large-scale mobs to burn in effigy whomever had proposed such a monstrous tax, which, I now fear, they could think is me!) only costs the average driver $50 per month.

A tax of $0.20 per gallon, which would most likely still be hugely unpopular, would only cost $10/month.

So consumers seem to resist anything that costs them $10/month.

Now let's look at that same average consumer and see what they might save by replacing current 100-Watt bulbs with 26-Watt fluorescent bulbs.

$8.16! That's almost the $10 the gas tax would cost. So it's basically a wash.
I just installed these bulbs and they're actually brighter than the old 100-watt bulbs. So now the consumer is resisting using a better product that saves them the $10 per month they were about to kill me for suggesting I put into renewable energy.

I really believe this is an information war. The ultimate answers to the Energy Crunch will come from rational decisions. We just need to make sure the rational arguments get into the heads of the decision-makers.

*Incidentally, J-Ro, whose full name I won't use to protect his identity, was the one who suggested starting this blog in the first place. Thanks J-Ro!