Q: Dear 100 Hour Board,
Unsolicited opinion?
-La Jirafa [macho] Anónima
A:
Dear dude Giraffe,
C'mon, fella. They're called hot takes.
-Cognoscente
A:
Dear Jirafa,
Hamilton is just okay.
-Concorde
A:
Cara girafa,
My child is adorable:
~Professor Kirke
A:
Dear you,
Mother's Day speakers in church need to just be assigned random Gospel topics instead of told to talk about mothers. They can bring motherhood into it if they want, but I was not edified last Sunday by a talk on how the armies of Helaman were taught by their mothers (for the 22nd year in a row).
-Zedability
A:
Dear Llama (close enough),
Alright, here's the deal. Renewable energy sources (specifically wind, solar, and biomass) are currently not worth our investment by any meaningful measurement. We need to burn more natural gas and build more nuclear power plants.
Let me break this down with data. All numbers come from the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) conducted in 2009 by the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA) as well as other resources on the EIA website. The numbers exist for the entire country and are broken down by state. For this response, I will be using Massachusetts numbers because it takes me hours to compile them and I've already done it for the state of MA. Let's start with a brief introduction.
Fossil Fuels vs Renewable Fuels Introduction
Currently fossil fuels make up the vast majority of our share of energy sources (which we use to create electricity, heat our homes, manufacture things, operate businesses, and transport ourselves). In MA, more than 80% (source, and source) of our source energy is natural gas, propane, or oil. In general, fossil fuels are burned to produce heat energy which we turn into other useful types. For example, we burn natural gas in a power plant to spin a generator and create electricity. We burn in it our house to heat air that keeps us warm or cooks our food. We burn gasoline in our car engines to heat gasses which expand and push pistons to make our cars go. Harnessing combustion is one of the most useful engineering advancements in history. However, it has its side effects. Combustion produces as a byproduct carbon dioxide and water vapor (which we call "smoke") and we currently measure the human output of carbon into the atmosphere in millions of tons. This is generally regarded as having a negative impact on the earth and its climate. As a result, people have developed a fascinating interest in developing fuels that do not produce carbon emissions by using natural energy sources like wind, water, and the sun to spin our generators or create electricity in some other way (as with solar panels). The argument for renewable energy is (1) that we will not run out of the sun and (2) that we will not destroy the planet. As it stands, this is what most media outlets present as the fundamental argument in energy sources in the United States. Fossil fuels = bad because they destroy the planet. Renewable fuels = good because they give us the same thing but without all the Earth destruction. Seems like a simple argument to win.
Unseen Costs
The problem with renewable energy, however, and the problem that proponents of renewable energy fail to point out is that all of its drawbacks are removed enough from the consumer that they are hard to notice. However, they are there.
First and most important is cost. In April 2016, 40% of Americans polled by Gallop responded that some economic concern was "the most important problem". 2% reported that it was the environment or pollution (source). In short, people judge their quality of life in large part by their ability to make ends meet. Let's take a look at the cost of some of the prevailing sources of energy in terms of how much it costs to build (installation cost) and maintain. To clarify, I've colored each cell so that the most expensive is shaded red, the least expensive is shaded green, and the exact middle between the most and the least is yellow.
Source
Install ($/MW)
Maint. ($/MWh)
Natural Gas
2,600,000
22
Nuclear
6,100,000
14
Wind (onshore)
6,500,000
13
Coal
6,900,000
22
Hydroelectric
10,300,000
5
Solar
11,900,000
9
Biomass
18,100,000
111
Wind (offshore)
18,400,000
25
(source)
Ok, so biomass (converting crops to biodiesel fuels and burning them) is obviously ridiculous by this standard. But don't also miss the fact our three renewables are the three most expensive to install. Yep, the three most expensive. "But wait!" you say, "natural gas might be cheap to install, but look at how much it costs to maintain relative to the others!" Yes, let's. Let's look at the installation and operation of two 100 MW power plants: one solar and the other natural gas. That natural gas plant costs 100 MW x $2,600,000/MW = $260 Million to install while the solar plant that produces the same amount of energy costs 100 MW x $11,900,000/MW = $1.2 Billion. For maintenance, the nuclear plant costs 100 MW x (8760 hrs/yr) x $22/MWh = $19.2 Million per year while the solar plant costs 100 MW x (8760 hrs/yr) x $9/MWh = $7.8 Million per year.
So how long would it take to catch up? Let's look at it graphically (desmos!). In the graph, the orange line represents the cost of solar power and the black line represents the cost of natural gas power where the x axis is measured in years and the y axis in millions of dollars. Note that the black line does not go above the orange line until year 82! In other words, it would take 82 years for a solar plant to recuperate its installation cost and make itself worth it. Solar panels are rated to last not much longer than 25 years. In other words, they will never recuperate the cost. These costs are directly commuted to you through your taxes and your energy bills.
Don't believe me? I pay $0.23/kWh for my electricity here in Massachusetts. That's up 25% from three years ago (when I was paying $0.17/kWh) before the state government declared a law that all coal plants got shut down. That is, I (and every MA resident) am paying a quarter again what I paid a few years ago to use the same amount of energy. Now maybe that doesn't hurt me so much that I am incapacitated, but you know all those people asking for a $15/hr minimum wage all over the country? They definitely can't afford an energy bill that's 25% higher than it should be.
Space Problems
"But wait!" you say. "Look at onshore wind energy. That's pretty cheap and easy to maintain. Let's just do that." That brings me to my second point. Renewable energy takes space that scales with the amount of energy output that you want. If you want to double your coal output, you can simply burn coal twice as much at the power plant. But if you want to double the amount of solar energy your produce, you have to literally double the amount of space that you're taking up. Here are some quick workups for how many square feet of space you would need to power one single, average MA household (HH) for a year (which is approximately 121,500 kWh/yr) For those of you playing at home, the middle column numbers are conservative estimates based on latitude, weather, and the fact that the sun does not shine on us when it's night (this last one is important).
Source
kWh/m2/day
ft2/HH/yr
Solar
32.9
40,000
Wind
5.3
246,000
Biomass
2.9
451,000
So, as some tens or hundreds of thousands of square feet per household, trying to supply Massachusetts residents with all of their current energy needs creates a serious space problem. At best (using solar power), you would need to dedicate a little less than half of the entire state's land area in order to give all needed energy to Bay Staters (the official demonym). At worst (biomass), you would need 520% of MA (or more than five Massachusettses). Remember that 100 MW solar power plant that costs 1.2 billion dollars? Yeah, it also costs 10 square miles of space. In other words, even if we could afford to, there is no possible way to even get enough space to convert our energy production completely to renewable sources. Doing it on a small scale might be fine for a few houses, but it just doesn't scale.
Other Factors
Then we have to consider that the sun doesn't shine on us at night[citation needed] and that the wind doesn't blow all the time. This means we don't get energy when we want it. For solar, that means no power at night or on rainy days, for wind that means no power if the wind is blowing too fast or too slow. I don't know about you, but I like my refrigerator to run at night, too. Energy storage is neither scale-able nor affordable (just double ALL your costs for a conservative estimate).
We also have to think about production. Here's a source that estimates that a wind turbine would take a full year (5% of its life span) just to make up for the energy that it took to build it. All of that energy, by the way, as well as the production process, is not carbon-free as building it "incorporat[es] the equivalent of about 90 million metric tons of crude oil."
And what about transportation of the products (panels, windmill blades)? Laying wire to transport the energy? Lubricating oil for turbines? Replacement parts? All of this would have to be installed whereas the current fossil fuel infrastructure is already installed and ready to go. It is simply not as clean as we'd like to think it is. Then again, all we normally think about is how neat windmills look when we drive past fields of them.
Summary (tl;dr)
Look, it just isn't feasible on a large scale. It costs too much. Some people might be able to pay for this, but it's a sucker punch to the poor who have enough problems. And even if we could afford it, there's not enough space in the United States to actually put enough of it to make a difference in the amount of emissions we put out. At best, renewable energy is right now a good idea with infant-stage execution. At worst it's an ego boost to the environmentally conscious at the expense of the lower class.
Our quality of life is directly tied up in our energy consumption. Countries that are well-developed and that can provide more for their citizens uniformly use more energy than those that don't (source). While I understand that we need to be good stewards of our planet and I don't dispute that we should be looking at ways to decrease the amount of pollution we put into our environment, I also contend that there are other important factors (many of them much more important) that we cannot afford to overlook related to the welfare and well being of the people who are living now. Dumping money into "sustainability" projects that themselves are financially unsustainable is grossly negligent. In my mind, the best option for proponents of renewable energy implementation is to put the money into research instead of implementation to develop systems that can accomplish what they want without putting undue stress in other places.
For my money, the solution lies in nuclear power supplemented by natural gas. Nuclear power plants are ridiculously powerful compared to other plants, operate on a fraction of the cost of fossil fuels, and produce zero carbon emissions after installation. The installation cost is among the cheapest and, spread out over 20 or 30 years, could affordably replace our entire infrastructure incrementally such that replacement costs are equally spread out for the following 20 or 30 years. In the meantime, natural gas plants would make a great crutch.
In Other Words (tl;dr was tl, so you dr)
For the time being: burn, baby, burn.
-The Man with a Mustache
A:
Dear Jafar,
I'm baffled and enraged that Congress has continued to stall on providing immediate funding for Zika research and response. Twice now, Congress has gone into recess without accepting either President Obama's emergency request of $1.9 billion (made months ago in February) or (as of this week May 9, 2016) a bi-partisan proposal of $1.1 billion. Reportedly, house Republicans would prefer to wait until normal appropriation decisions are made in the fall. The concession the White House made to try and motivate Congress to act? To borrow (or pre-borrow) half a billion dollars already allocated for Ebola responses with the expectations that those funds can later be replenished (at some magical date when it becomes easy or politically prudent to spend money? Forgive my skepticism.). I wrote to my Senators and the response I got back from Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) was essentially that there was enough Ebola money there to do everything that needed to be done. The utter decimation of the West African nations' health care systems due to Ebola (though decimation literally means decreased by a 10th and it has been far, far worse than that) leaves those nations wide open to future epidemics, like the one the previously controlled yellow fever threatens to become. Leveraging "extra" money for that effort of Ebola recovery (and suppressing the still-present Ebola flare-ups) is a whole other level of callous and mis-informed.
This is an egregious dereliction of responsibility. The long-term outcomes of a Zika epidemic are obviously not entirely known at this point, but the possibilities are frightening. Scientists and doctors are already calling on women in Zika endemic areas to delay pregnancies during mosquito season. That may be of limited efficacy however, because Zika, unlike every other mosquito transmitted virus known to man, can also be sexually transmitted, and live virus has been found in semen for at least 2 months after the end of disease symptoms and after the period when virus can be detected in the blood (it should be obvious that routine semen screening for viruses is not done). Things are so grim that, though the Brazilian government has declared that the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro will proceed, this week there have been calls for the games not to proceed in part because Rio de Janeiro has been affected by the virus far worse than previously reported.
Some other Zika facts:
1) The research the United States (and the world) desperately needs into Zika, how it is transmitted and what could be causing the birth defects is already happening - but at the sacrifice of what those resources were allocated for. The NIH is "mortgaging" money allocated for other grants and diseases to study Zika (read this interview with Dr. Anthony Faucci, one of the smartest people in America and head of the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Disease at the NIH).
The only reason we know as much about the Zika virus as we do now is because virologists studying other, more well-known (which means more well-funded) diseases included Zika as interesting side projects. There was no money to study this mild, relatively mild disease. Until it became a legitimate health crisis - and the way that science has been moving forward is inspiring and unlike anything seen in modern research. To expect answers, vaccines, and therapies without providing money for that to happen is absurd.
2) Once Zika becomes endemic in the United States, it will likely become permanent, with ample reservoirs among humans and plenty of Zika-transmitting Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Given the severity of the birth defects present in a percentage of births to Zika-infected mothers, it is likely that once (or if) a Zika virus vaccine becomes available it could become a standard vaccine. Not aggressively moving forward with research into methods to prevent the disease and control mosquitoes makes no sense.
3) As of this writing (May 12, 2016) there have been 472 cases of Zika reported in the United States, 112 in the state of Florida alone. While most of these are traveler-associated disease (they came back from other countries), I should be obvious that the disease is already here, already affecting American citizens. In the United States there were only two (2) cases of locally-acquired Ebola (two nurses who treated a man who had returned from Liberia and succumbed to Ebola in a Dallas hospital) and two other confirmed Ebola in Americans who had gone to Africa to help with the outbreak there. That Zika seems insufficient to instill the same sense of fear and seriousness as a hemorrhagic fever isn't surprising. But why Congress would drag its feet on funding an clear and present danger is utterly inexplicable.
Two final opinions on Zika:
1) As mentioned (and as countless pictures of babies with microcephaly in new reports can attest), the severest outcomes of Zika seem to be on developing fetuses. There are some recent reports (again, the way Zika research has proceeded is remarkable - scientists are amazing) suggesting that the severity of the microcephaly due to this strain of Zika might be related to presence of circulating antibodies against a related flavivirus, Dengue. But currently why fetuses are so affected, with brain damage being "far worse than doctors expected" is unknown.
Those were all facts - here's the opinion: a sizable cornerstone of conservative (generally Republican) politics is opposition to abortion and protecting the lives of developing fetuses. The shuttering of Planned Parenthood clinics, the passing of fetal-anesthesia laws (which are unsupported by medical professionals), all of this is done in the name of protecting fetuses. That the (frankly) inevitable threat of Zika-induced microcephaly in newborns in the United States doesn't immediately rally pro-life politicians to alleviate this possibility is, to me, gross hypocrisy. The tragic lack of access to contraceptives in Latin American countries makes the advice "don't get pregnant" cruelly ironic. Even the Pope suggested that contraceptives could be acceptable to slow Zika (yes, the Catholic pope. Yes, him.). In the U.S., the above-mentioned targeting of family planning clinics eliminated what was, for many, an essential sources for contraceptives, and opposition to comprehensive sex-education is still very common. We need to rationally looking at who is most at risk from Zika (fetuses), who will be most involved in the difficult care and medical decisions relating to children with severe brain damage from microcephaly (their mothers), and who is most at risk this and all disease epidemics (the poor and the medically under-served). Considering what needs to be done to help those at risk means enacting policies that will actually help them and mitigate the effects of this disease.
2) This probably all sounds really scary. In a lot of ways, it is. I probably sound really mad. I am. The good news is that, if you're reading this (I'm just guessing here) you are likely an American with at least some college education, are at least upper middle class, and most of you probably live in Utah or at least the Mountain West. Using mosquito repellant is about all you're going to have to do about Zika. But you also live in a country and a world where we have responsibilities toward other people. Instead of being scared or mad about how Zika will affect you (hopefully very little to not at all) and convert that emotional response into something productive. Write to your congress people (sometimes it takes a while but, I've found, they do answer). Get informed about Zika, about public health responses, about research. Maybe we don't have a good response to public health that finds the zone between apathy and fear mongering-meltdown. Try to find a sweet spot where you see that this is a problem that makes you want to do something about, but that you aren't going to lose a ton of sleep over. Good night and good luck.
- Rating Pending (who is fine if you lose SOME sleep over Zika. It's important.)
A:
Dear LJMA,
No.
-TEN, who is technically expressing an opinion by refusing to express an opinion
A:
Dear asker,
Okay, but it's really going to offend you:
My dog is cuter than yours.
Marzipan
A:
La Jirafa [macho] Anónima,
You know what, just this and all of its implications for the Berners. (It starts about halfway down.) I caucused for Bernie back in February, and I would do it again, but something about the attitude of the Berners just turns me off and I think President Obama hit it on the head. (Please understand, Bernie supporters and Berners are not necessarily the same group of people. Also, many Berners are lovely and I agree with many of their ideas, just not their tactics or attitude.) I'm a liberal and I've done my fair share of activism but I just think they've got this one wrong. (I feel like I have to use a parenthetical statement here to even things out.)
- The Black Sheep
A:
Dear Giraffe my Machismo,
You may have three. Behold:
I can't understand the quantity of LDS people who have told me that they don't give money to homeless people because "they'll spend it on drugs" or "they should just get a job flipping burgers" or "they're just faking" when we have the single most cut-and-dried condemnation of such justification just sitting there in our scriptures. Come on, folks. People in indigent circumstances are THE EXACT PEOPLE that Christ sought out in order to give them succor.
Eating whole foods really isn't that hard.
Suburban landscapes are totally unsustainable. We need to make community centers that are walkable and self-contained.
-Inverse Insomniac
A:
La Jirafa [macho] Anónima,
Shiny things are much better than bacon.
-Niffler
A:
Dear you,
Maternity leave in Utah is crap, especially if The Family and Medical Leave Act does not apply to you.
-a writer
A:
Dear E'lir,
Donald Trump's past of flagrantly and publicly objectifying and demeaning women is more important than his present and private moves to promote and empower women.
Sincerely,
The Soulful Ginger
A:
Dear Lama,
First, I would like to wholeheartedly endorse The Man With A Mustache's response above. If you didn't read his answer, you should. I will admit that since I work for a natural gas company I am biased, but I still believe that increased investment in nuclear and natural gas power plants will pave the way for the other renewable energy sources.
To give an unsolicited opinion, allow me to share some of my favorite oil/gas cartoons.
Source
Source - Cartoons by Josh
As a reference, here is a picture I took last year standing on a shale gas pad.
I sure hope this helps. Please don't hate me.
- Brutus
A:
Dear but if you solicited it then it's not unsolicited,
In the same vein as TEN, I'll give my opinion that it's often better to keep one's unsolicited opinions to oneself (specifically in real live conversations).
-Mico
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