Anandakos

Top U.S. Utilities Grow Solar Power Despite Recession

Danny,

All of your cautions about social engineering are accurate. Planners are usually blind to their own assumptions and end up creating lopsided systems that don't meet peoples needs well.

However, the oil, coal, and radionuclides are running out; you can't deny that. When they're gone they are not coming back. Ever. So we simply must do something to reduce mindless energy use.

The reason that your beloved Tennessee is an area "where the cost of living is lower" is that you are stealing from the future. You probably live in a green paradise, but you're driving dozens of miles to work a day in order to do it. People in large urban areas use significantly less energy per capita than do rural people. That's even true in sprawling Los Angeles but it's probably largely from the climate.

It's true that urban people are more dependent on the petrochemical food system than folks in rural areas MIGHT be. But if you're still shopping at the grocery store AND commuting long distances in order to live in the exurbs, you are simply stealing from the future.

My suggestion how to do it would be to tax energy produced from carbon and U-235 sources and let people make their own decisions. I'm pretty disgusted with the corporate give-away "cap-and-trade" bill working its way through Congress. The bill "assures" that recipients of the 85% of vouchers granted must "pass the savings through to their customers". Tell you what, I'll sell you a bridge I got at an amazing price a couple of days ago. I'm passing my savings on to you.

Once again the two-Senators per state arrangement of the upper house has allowed the whiny 20% of the population in the Midwest and Appalachian states to dictate a major national priority to the detriment of everyone else.

On May 31 10:03 AM Danny Newton wrote:

> Making solar cells is a very energy intensive process. That could
> be why two companies have moved to Tennessee. About 30% of the power
> here is atomic energy, about 7% is hydro. There is also evil coal
> burning away to make those solar cells.
>
> The per capita consumption of vehicle miles traveled in this state
> is around 12,000. Some states with high fractions of urban populations
> have a lot less per capita consumption. Range of the vehicle is still
> a factor in most of the country. I would not want to experiment with
> forcing people to lower their driving for fear of making the foraging
> distance to current or future jobs substantially less. Less choice
> usually means a poorer quality of possibilities for both employee
> and employer. There are still a lot of people driving 50 to 150 miles
> a day to go to work.
>
> Making cars get better gas mileage has, in the past, only increased
> driving. Forcing less auto use could also depopulate the areas of
> the country where cost of living is lower. Commuting seems to be
> a benefit to large urban areas in that they can get cheaper labor
> without enduring the full force of the infrastructure costs to support
> the population on a 24/7 basis.
>
> Social engineering always makes me nervous since the counterintuitive
> effects seems to be the rule rather than the exception. The fraction
> of income spent on transportation has been below 10 percent once
> and above 12 percent once in the last 40 years. If disposable income
> continues to decline through taxation, inflation or other factors,
> it is highly likely that there will be a response... I just don't
> know what it will be and I am not sure that after discovering the
> down side, we will have the will or smarts to change course.