I have been noticeably absent from my blog for nary four months now. As a quick update I have begun working as a junior project manager for an electrical contractor and I have been growing to enjoy the job. Working in a small business has its advantages and disadvantages. The biggest advantage is getting to know the people and the business. The disadvantage is that work is feast or famine. However, the experience is unlike what many get even in the larger corporations since the responsibility is greater even if I don't get all the fancy tools.
However, being a project manager means a couple very big things. I have to generate the work...that I am to later assign to a foreman and manage. While the foreman supervises the actual work, I have to do all of the proposals and contract information and basically be the interface between the workers, company and utilities. The average startup IT worker is nothing but a drone until the boss decides to take him under his wing. Here if I do well enough...I can begin to dictate my salary.
But enough about my life...let us talk about the Kilowatt Dark Horse.
The great unknown in the USA at this time is a comprehensive energy policy that is truly comprehensive and IS NOT necessarily ideologically driven. Each side brings relevant concerns to the table and the biggest difference is how to get people to change. Those on the conservative or libertarian side want to encourage change via positive economic stimuli, whereas by and large those on the liberal/socialist/progressive side wish to use more punitive measures such as increased taxation and wealth redistribution in order to get the same goal. Except of course results do vary.
For vast amounts of power currently nuclear is the only decent long term solution if we want to wean ourselves from oil/natural gas, the vast amount coming from regions whose governments do not have OUR best interests on their minds.
Now of course we have a problem with nuclear waste storage and disposal. To that end there have been quite a few breakthroughs in advanced materials science and in fact biology in how nuclear waste can be broken down and the radiation absorbed in a safer manner than the traditional ::DO NOT TOUCH:: method (akin to the rhythm method for trying not to get a woman preggers).
Current reactors in the USA produce enough waste that has to be stored for 10,000 years. Not good. Research funded and supported by the Bush Administration (<3 biiiig oil) is directed at creating a new generation of reactors that actually recycle their own waste brining the amount of waste down to a level only to be stored for 500 years. Ok that isn't perfect, but it is a damned sight better than the current breeder and "slow" reactors.
As for actually storing them Texas A & M University has made a breakthrough seen HERE for separation and storage for the various kinds of radioactive waste that does not involve the more dangerous and experimental "pyro-processing" method which is rather strangely advocated in the Bush Admin's Energy Policy.
Half right...not bad, could be better.
Of course even if the technology was there, the government might have to use the power of eminent domain in order to get new plants built. People have a rather acute case of NIMBY when it comes to anything from oil rigs, to wind farms, to anything that might conceivably inconvenience them (Here's looking at you MA Senators). As sad as it seems people do not have their own long term interests in mind. So the power companies for investing in new infrastructure should perhaps not be compensated, but at least given an incentive to build (tax deduction, permit fast track, but regulations should not be eased per se without careful review).
Different areas of our country have different needs and different abilities to produce energy for comsumption. Areas like northern Maine, Alaska, Washington State and others have very dramatic tidal flows. It is in places like these that tidal generators are useful, including in rivers that are tidal like the Penobscot River which has a twenty foot tide in Bangor, Maine. In the mid west, and yes desert areas wind power is a very good idea and deserts also can support a robust solar power system.
In the end we will also have to decentralize our power grid, and neighborhoods and individuals will transform to provide their own power, via solar arrays, and geothermal taps, to a degree that the grid is freed of most of its burden today. So much so in fact that the evil utilities will pay you for any excess you generate. And while not much...it might be enough to take your family out to a movie and dinner. Good enough for me.
People should be encouraged to build new homes with this point of view in mind, getting either a tax reduction on the property, or a tax deduction on their income tax to write off the cost of this equipment, and the increased value of the property as consequence. Towns should look at this as a promotion to live in a "green" community rather than looking for more $$ to support a failing system.
The one thing that we do not need to do is to say "if you don't switch to X-type of power generation within Y-Time frame then we will make you pay out of your @$$ in taxes to maintain the lifestyle that you want. If we give people a choice, and the case is made that one is better for both the wallet (in the long term) and the world at large, then people who want to live in a nice community will switch over, but there have to be incentives first.
The biggie is research and development and how to distribute the funding. The question isn't whether or not to do research. So first is how to distribute funding for pure research. Pure research ought to receive not the bulk, but say 30% (arbitrary in my mind) of the money. Practical lines that have more immediate payoffs ought to get the other 70% spread out between advanced materials and grants for prototype construction and demonstration.
Development is separate and is related to upgrading our existing grid to something more sensible. Currently a major northeast junction runs in the CANADA!!. No that is not acceptable from more than one stand point. I like Canada and its people by and large (amazing beef jerky). Having said that, I am not in the business of putting the northeast megalopolis (Boston - DC) in the hands of another country no matter how clean or French...in fact especially because of the Quebeqois.
Decentralize the power system, make people less dependent on the large utilities and the nation less vulnerable. Give grants to the utilities and municipal producers/distributors to modernize their systems.
The fact is that a project of this magnitude is larger than the space program and possibly larger than The Manhattan Project. It will take a true leader to push this through. Incremental-ism will only lead to loopholes, earmarks and a large corrupt bureaucracy.
The culture needs to change so that early adoption of a good technology is not penalized, rather the economies of scale are sped up by proper use (or non-use in the case of tax deductions) of public funds or policy.
