Energy Independence: Alternative energy alone won't meet US needs

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Interesting perspective: "Red, white & blue jobs" vs. "Green jobs". How about a discussion on how to solve our energy problems from a bi-partisan perspective?

At 8:51 PM, K.B. said...: Dealing with the Barrier to Energy Conservation.

Replacing fossil fuels is one thing, but there needs to be more conservation of the energy we have.

In the US, it is suggested that the unavoidable customer charges in the electrical billing system are a barrier to electrical conservation and green house gas mitigation. The customer charge is fixed and is independent of the actual electricity consumption used. In trying to maximize their benefit from the unavoidable fixed customer charge, smaller electricity users are inclined to conserve less. The paper referenced explains the policy requirements and the change in the electrical rate required, along with its impacts. The results indicate that removing the fixed charges and increasing the electrical rate can be economical for the US, the electrical companies and the households and environmentally beneficial. The increased rate penalizes smaller users less and encourages smaller and larger users alike to conserve responsibly.

For more on this, see this article:
J. M. Pearce and Paul J. Harris, "Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by inducing energy conservation and distributed generation from elimination of electric utility customer charges", Energy Policy, 35, pp. 6514-6525, 2007.[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V2W-4R008R9-2/2/1e692cc89cae024a6a4492e736848941]

Energy Independence