A Homeowner in Beach Haven Terrace, NJ is facing a number of legal problems from his neighbors and local government over a 12 foot diameter wind generator mounted on a 32 foot high post in his backyard.  This generator manufactured by Southwest Windpower  is reported to have cost Mike Mercurio, the homeowner, green ethusaist and seller of alternative power generation for local homes, $15,000 to generate 25% of his power needs, the remaining power comes from 56 solar panels on his roof, about $50,000.  The main problem cited by his neighbors is the noise from the windmill.  According to the lawsuit, the sound, given off by the mill exceeds that of 50 decibels, considered the level of noise generated by light traffic on the street.  The lawsuit also complains of strobing (flashing) shadows caused by the mills spinning blades.

These are the sort of issues that make solar a more viable solution for urban and suburban area.  But with Mercurios system, likely costing $65,000, is it financialy benefitial?  His gas and electric bills were “as high as $340″ a month, or about $4100 a year.  Paying 8% for using a home equity loan, you would be paying $300 in monthly interest for the loan, which would result in you saving nearly $500 in each year if you never payoff the loan.  As long as the system lasted 15 years without maintenance expenses, it kinda works, but to pay off the loan within the 15 years. This likely pushes the monthly cost of the loan $700

When you look at an all solar system, that has a 25+ year lifetime, it brings the loan servicing to about $550 a month for a 10 kw solar solution, about 50% more than the cost of power in Beach Haven Terrace, New Jersey

As far as i can tell there are about 0 people (ok sure some lefties, hippies, survivalists but they have more of an agenda)  in the US that have any intention or ability to sacrifice their lifestyles to save the plant from global warming.  Why should they, given the masses who refuse to acknowledge the problem, let alone sacrifice to solve it? Why should the individual give up their things, their travel, their lifestyle to be 1 billionth, or less, of the solution?  I can’t see why, it flies in the face of both consumerism and self interest.  Why give up everything, if ice caps will still melt?

So, how do we solve the problem?  Well it’s really quite simple a combination of law and the marketplace. The coordination of laws, tax policy and the marketplace can encourage consumers to make the switch to green technologies as the financial sacrifice to do so decreases.

The leading example of how this can work is the German approach to moving the country toward solar power.  The German government requires that power transmission companies connect alternative power sources as a priority and pay a minimum rate per Kilowatt hour, locked in for a period of 20 years.  This guarantee, has encouraged german entreprenuers and homeowners to install over 1,150 megawatts of solar photovoltaic generating capacity in 2006.  It is this sort of methodology that can jump start the move to more expensive, less carbon intensive technologies.  This early adoption will, as with all technological products, will increase the demand and bring more capacity and ultimately the lower prices.  These lower prices will further speed the switch to renewable energy sources.

So can we save the world without sacrifice?  In reality, we will have to sacrifice some cash, but frankly with the skyrocketing price of oil, the marketplace is reducing the cost of us changing the infrastructure that powers our lifestyle. If you consider the modern, consumer lifestyle, only airplanes and ships seem unable to move without traditional fuels or in the case of ships nuclear power plants.  All other aspects, including cars, can be powered by electricity or carry sufficient hydrogen to be pratical.  Once everything is electric, the game has changed. In an electric world, we only need to replace carbon generating power, with carbon free electricity and that can be achieved thru non-polluting renewable sources, solar, wind, waves, etc. or carbon based fuels if the industry can truly sequester carbon.  In an ideal world, we could take CO₂, use bacteria to break off the O₂ and expell carbon fibre, that can be used to build the consumer products that generate the pollution of our the modern lifestyle.

So can we save the planet without sacrifice? Without individual sacrifice, yes, but as a society, we need to make laws, tax policies and grants, a a shared sacrifice to help rapidly change the infrastructure of our modern world to be sustainable.

I had recently expressed a concern about harness the power of the ocean currents, the gulf stream/global conveyor, etc.  These currents are key to weather patterns around the world, so reducing their free flow could bring significant change to the climate, either in regions or throughout the world.  My concerns are simply, that in our rush to reduce CO2 to reduce global warming, that we don’t cause other global environmental problems.  I feel that wave power, that is generated on the ocean surface or on shore, seem to have lower potential for these negative effects.

In particular, generating electricity from waves coming ashore, seems unlikely to cause an major enviromental issue.  The method that i am referring to is known as a Limpet system, first launched on Islay, in Scotland, UK, in early 2001.  The Limpet (Land Installed Marine Powered Energy Transformer) system uses an Oscillating Water Coumn to force and draw air through a bi-directional turbine, known as a Wells turbine.  The major difference between this technology and all other wave or current generating technologies, is that this is done along the shoreline.  The water is channelled to create positive and negative air pressure for moving the turbine.  The water is returned to the ocean as the wade recedes and creates a vacuum pulling the water out of the Limpet.  This seems to have the lowest potential for envorinmental damage, since wave engery is already being dissipated along the beach, rocks/etc.

The people who built the Islay plant is Wavegen of the UK.  Check out the Wavegen Site for more about wave energy capture.

Funny how environment and business interacts.  In the case of the earth, until recently, business always ruled over the “natural world”.  As long as business wanted to dump their waste in the rivers, they could.  As long as someone owned the land (was rich) or had an army (was powerful) they could do as they pleased.  As cities came to be and health became an issue; think of a plague, caused by filthy water and sewage in the streets.  The was the beginnings of concern health and the local environmental. 

Only in the last 60 years has humanity had the knowledge and tools to measure, test and track the impact of human activity. Today the focus on the environment has moved from local to global.  The environmental movement truely took off in the 1960s and since then a worldwide battle between the forces of green and the “anything for money” crowd: Laissez Faire Capitalists/Conservatives rages on. While some people who consider themselves L.F. Capitalist and Conservatives are surely environmentalists, the general belief of these folks is that the richest and strongest in society should act without restrictions, especially on financial and real estate issues.

These people, who have preached that “evidence” proves capitalism is superior, have simultaneously bristled at science that shows that this sort of behavior jeopardizes the environment and humanity.  In fact when such evidence is presented, they deny the science.  They deny the science since it threatens to curb the “freedom” to destroy the environment and put humanity at risk.

How does the battle of Science vs Conservatives get fought? In the US and Canada, it originally took the form of finding “Experts” who initially denied that there was any sort of problem.  As problems became more evident, they argued they couldn’t be proven to endager people.  When science had finally won the day and convinced the world there was a problem, that it hurt people, the fake experts would then explain that changes can’t solve the problem anyways.

More concretely, this has led to reports written by US government scientists being edited by political appointies in order to remove content that puts at risk the conservative agenda of letting business do anything to the environment if it makes someone rich.  The best metaphore here is from Orwell’s 1984, where the Ministry of Truth corrects previous statements and facts to square with the realities (read that politics) of the day. It’s hard to believe that the environment is debated politically, just because it might cost a few dollars more to live in cleaner, more environmentally stable world.

Fact: there is more CO2 in the atmosphere in the last 150 years than all but several periods in earth’s geology.

Fact: As industrial growth and use of hydrocarbon fuels grew, CO2 grew

Fact: The average temperature of earth has increased since human industrialization

Generally accepted as Fact: CO2, Methane increases in atmosphere are responsible for the increase heat.

Theory - reducing or eliminating CO2 from human activity will slow or reverse heating.