A Spectre is Haunting Energy Companies

I'm catching up on the pod-casts that I like to listen to. One that I particularly like is CounterSpin by FAIR – Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Not exactly socialist media – but good media criticism.

It would be nice if it was on the radio in Buffalo or Rochester – it's a good media show that covers many ideas that are near and dear to the political left. From racism to economic inequality to mindless militarism and so many other topics – it gives a perspective that is not covered on the corporate owned media. It is on a low powered radio station in Jamestown, but trying to get that signal is impossible unless you are within city limits. It's worth the 30 minutes to listen to. (Download or stream online.)

Today I listened to a show on how environmental groups are getting gin the way of a “truly green energy program” - nuclear energy. (I'll wait while you pick yourself up off the floor laughing. Any one that is familiar with nuclear energy knows that it is far from environmentally friendly. Especially after Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, and any other accidents that I have failed to mention. I won't go into the cancer rates of the workers or the people who live around the plants.)

Harvey Wasserman totally wrecked the nuclear industry's claims on being environmentally friendly. He also went into who is opposed to wind and solar energy and why. It's not just the energy producers that are opposed to the competition – it's the energy distribution networks – like National Grid – that lose money on the electricity that they are not shuttling around.

First the energy producers – They claim that wind and solar energy are irregular and that there is no way to deal with the ebb and flow of the electricity. Yes – there are days when the wind is very light and the mega-industrial turbines don't turn. And we have cloudy days and low light days (like December 21^st) where there is little light. However there are smaller turbines that work well in low wind and solar panels are getting more efficient and able to generate electricity with lesser amounts of light.

And then there's that old fashioned technology called batteries. You may have heard of them? Or had one die on your cell phone or mp3 player because you forgot to charge it last night? Elon Musk of Tesla Car company fame is building a manufacturing plant for batteries and one of the goals is to build batteries for houses. He is so committed to having these batteries developed that he made his research and technology for the batteries open source – anyone can get them and work with them. His goal? Get the collective brilliance together and make the technology work and be affordable. (I hate to blow sunshine at Musk, but his idea is good and exactly what we need to save the planet. Let's get worker coops building these panels and batteries.)

And we are almost there - a firm in St Catherines, Ontario took his work and believes that they can take the same storage battery that Tesla would produce for $10,000 USD and produce it for $2000 USD. They are in field testing now from what I understand. Strange that the Buffalo News today brings up the necessity of fossil fuels because of the “limits” of truly green energy but seem to have forgotten their own article on the St Catherines battery development. Selective memory?

So we have a problem – irregular energy production – being solved by open sourcing, collaboration, and some sort of competition. Isn't that part of what capitalism claims it can do?

Or am I not supposed to mention that?

Second – The energy distribution companies. They make their money off of the electricity that they sell and deliver. I looked at my last bill – half of the bill was delivery costs. Now, if I have solar on my house and I don't buy any electricity from them, how much money do they make?

And if I produce more energy than I use, they have to buy it from me. So I become an electrical producer. And Harvey Wasserman brings this point up – the producers and distributors don't want the competition. They want strict rules on who can produce and distribute power – only them. Any sort of competition is not allowed because it affects their profits.

But doesn't that go against the spirit of capitalism? Don't capitalists say that competition brings out the best and new ideas and drives the inefficient and bad ideas out of business?

And that is what they – the coal, gas, oil, and nuclear – producers are afraid of. The new solar panels are getting more and more efficient, as well as the wind turbines. There are smaller turbines now that are generating 10+ kW with a smaller profile. And with the battery technology that is coming out, individual producers of solar and wind electricity will be able to store their excess energy and save it for a “rainy day” (or windless). This decentralized production will render them less necessary, profitable, and potentially bankrupt.

It's the stages of death from psychology class and the fossil fuel industry is doing everything it can to stave off its inevitable death. (No resurrection please.) The industry knows its days are numbered and are fighting against what everyone knows is inevitable.

So there is a ghost haunting the energy companies. It is the ghost of …. capitalism?

So, how do the capitalists defeat the monster that they created and say is the end all and be all of civilization?

To destroy it is to destroy themselves.

Decisions decisions.