If adapting to non-fossil fuel power is so easy and beneficial for our climate, why doesn't the government do it immediately?

Question

What would be wrong for the government to say by the year 2018 all Washington D. C. would only use non-fossil fueled power? It is a good start and, after all, they are leaders.

Answer 1

Excellent question! However, the Washington D.C. political 'Good old Boys and Girls' are not going to give up the trappings of office.....limos, air travel...etc. These are the same folks who would not dream of giving up their 'Platinum-level' health care plans in exchange for Obamacare. Elitist philosophy means that WE.....NOT they....have to sacrifice whenever a new cause is forced on us.



This mentality extends to many facets of society......You have approximately 40,000 attendees slated for the Paris climate conference at the end of this year.....most of whom will be travelling by 'terrible', CO2-spewing jet aircraft and burning fuel for ground transportation to get to their 'feel-good' sessions.....(How about video-conferencing?)............You have full-of-themselves, California celebrities who babble on about conserving and saving the planet but live in mansions that have heavily watered lawns and gardens while the common folk are dealing with a water shortage and 'admiring' their dead landscaping.



Finally, our top civil servant (he does not realize that he works for the American citizen)....Obama....who has spewed on about climate change/global warming....ad nauseum....but still burns plenty of fuel on the ground and in the air, along with his entourage of security and groupies....to play golf and attend fund raisers.



I don't want to get into that Gore critter.



IF CAGW was legitimate, all of these folks would be leading by example instead of perpetrating this criminal Hoax!

Answer 2

Sage, you should not ask questions like this. It is a classic example of "Do as I say, not as I do." It's the same reason why member of Congress don't have to contribute to social security (they are exempt) or federal employees are not subjected to Obama Care (even though it was explicitly written into the bill that they would be).



The Federal Government has NO INTENTION of moving away from fossil fuels. Why? Because they know fossil fuels are the cheapest and most efficient form of energy. They just want the rest of us to switch to renewables.



I am quite interested to see what the resident alarmists have have to say in response. I suspect there will be utter silence from the smarter ones and some name calling from the dumber ones. But nothing substantiate.

Answer 3

We're waiting for a American born President. Mike

Answer 4

It's beneficial. And it's certainly plausible for us to make the switch. But any big change in how things are done, no matter how beneficial, is generally also expensive and difficult, at least in the short term.



Imagine, for example, that we weren't switching to a new type of power, but simply wanted to replace *all* the existing coal and natural gas power plants with newer ones (with better pollution controls, perhaps). Even if there was no substantially new technology, that would be an expensive and difficult thing to do.



Now imagine that, on top of that, the technology we're switching to is relatively new--not completely strange, but not something we've worked with before on a large scale. There would be kinks to work out. We would have to figure out new ways of doing some things--often ways we should have been doing them all along, or at least ways that are better in some way (for example, having ways to automatically isolate parts of the grid so blackouts don't spread), but ways that are new and different. That increases the short-term difficulty, and the short-term expense.



I would actually agree that a major pilot project of some sort in Washington would be both a good test bed, and a potent symbol. But I think that, say, using 40% non-fossil fuel power by 2018 would be a more realistic goal at this point.

Answer 5

They are representatives of the people supposedly representing the desires of their constituents. The Federal Government should find ways to conserve and have a lesser environmental impact, but many of these people are the ELITE thinkers and are high-paid lawyers and business people themselves who are use to "having". I doubt that they are noble enough to give up what they "have". Washington, D.C. is the "limousine" Capital of the World.



Unfortunately, BIG BUSINESS requires lots of energy to process things and the modern era has not come up with a desirable energy replacement for these businesses. Still way too costly.



Arrogance comes with leading and vice-versa. They think they are making decisions that benefit the entire Nation, but these people are mainly BIG CITY representatives and are selfish towards their own constituency's desires and not the Nation as a whole. Rural America comes second. Most of the laws are designed to benefit the "sardines" of the BIG CITY.



Too many "Chiefs" representing various constituencies and they represent many BIG BUSINESSES rather than the populace.



Bottom Line :



There's way too much diversity for these people to agree on much of anything. The changes required to adapt are many and are far too costly. They are already "cash-strapped" plus they can hardly agree on what will benefit ALL of "The People" the most.

Answer 6

Because it is not so easy.

I mean if they are willing to not have lights on, or heating and air conditioning, when the sun is not shining or the wind blowing, well yes it could be done at huge expense, but where would they find the huge area to site them all?

Answer 7

Who or what is "the government?" In the USA there are two levels, federal and state. At the federal level the efforts have been made to go green for some time. Many military bases have solar panels and have eco friendly vehicles. There are many federal buildings that are very green. At the state level the issue is different since there are 50 states. As to "immediately," I have to wonder what you mean by that.

Answer 8

Our government has made efforts to get off of fossil fuels and has been blocked on many efforts to do so.



http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/congress-blocks-use-of-alternative-fuels-for-the-military?news=844535



Our military is the largest user of fossil fuels of any of the government users of fossil fuels.



As far as taking Washington D.C. to alternative energy sources our government does not own Washington D.C., but the same Congress funds Washington D.C. Have you ever heard of the District of Columbia home rule?



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_home_rule



You can be certain that our government will never make any serious efforts to move to alternative fuels for as long as our voters are electing representatives that only have an 18th century understanding of the 21st century Science. The Republican gerrymandering efforts and voter suppression campaigns are helping to assure that the most ignorant of representatives will remain in power. Ottawa Mike may as well run for office here. His being Canadian has not hampered Ted Cruz in any way in his bid for president.



Update

Sagebrush, it was the Pentagon that wanted to switch to alternative fuels in the name of national security going forward. How do you get that this was something that Obama was doing? Where do you get the $2,300/gal. price tag from? How does your response to me now alter my response to your question? Our government's attempts to move to alternative fuels is being subverted by policy makers that only have an 18th century understanding of the 21st century Science. That is the answer to your question in a nut shell.

Answer 9

If the political party in government told you that you could not drive any more, would you vote for them? Or if they said you cannot heat your house in winter? Nor use electricity? Doing what is right is not that easy!

Answer 10

Corrupt dependence upon fossil fuel industry funding for campaign spending.

Answer 11

Can't get our money that way.

Answer 12

No one said it would be easy, that's just a lie you've made up.

Answer 13

Firstly (depending on the government) because they are often backed by fuel companies that use coal, oil, ect. Secondly, because it is very expensive

Answer 14

Adapting non-fossil fuel power unless it is hydro or nuclear is just plain suicide. It will literally kill thousands if not millions as it is already doing in the UK.



The US electric grid is already at its limit.

, April 23, 2014 -- America’s power grid at the limit: the road to electrical blackouts

QUOTE

This past winter, bitterly cold weather placed massive stress on the US electrical system―and the system almost broke. On January 7 in the midst of the polar vortex, PJM Interconnection, the Regional Transmission Organization serving the heart of America from New Jersey to Illinois, experienced a new all-time peak winter load of almost 142,000 megawatts.



Eight of the top ten of PJM’s all-time winter peaks occurred in January 2014. Heroic efforts by grid operators saved large parts of the nation’s heartland from blackouts during record-cold temperature days. Nicholas Akins, CEO of American Electric Power, stated in Congressional testimony, “This country did not just dodge a bullet―we dodged a cannon ball.”



Environmental policies established by Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are moving us toward electrical grid failure. The capacity reserve margin for hot or cold weather events is shrinking in many regions. According to Philip Moeller, Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, “…the experience of this past winter indicates that the power grid is now already at the limit.”

http://www.commdiginews.com/life/americas-power-grid-at-the-limit-the-road-to-electrical-blackouts-15826/

UNQUOTE



FUEL POVERTY DEATHS in the UK

10/20/2011 Almost 3,000 people die each year as a result of fuel poverty, inquiry finds

http://metro.co.uk/2011/10/20/almost-3000-people-die-each-year-as-a-result-of-fuel-poverty-inquiry-finds-188063/



March 24, 2013 Freezing Britain's unusually harsh winter could have cost thousands of pensioners their lives.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/182901/uk-suffers-coldest-march-50-years-global-warming-daniel-greenfield



QUOTE

...About 2,000 extra deaths were registered in just the first two weeks of March compared with the average for the same period over the past five years.



'An increase in fuel costs and the extended winter means that more people are going to suffer, and more will be unable to afford to eat and heat their homes. It's a scary prospect.'...

UNQUOTE



Solar and Wind is intermittent it can never replace base load. More over that means you lose power in the middle of snow storms when the solar panels and wind turbines are iced up. and when the electric demand is highest.



Second and more important, solar and wind are diffuse. They are weak. Renewable-- incident solar power or wind power will never meet our required energy needs. They can NEVER be met that way. It is physically impossible without a return to 1700s technology and even that required coal for producing iron. It is a pipe dream. Solar, wind, biofuel, geothermal, can never do it. They WILL never do it. The watts just don’t exist in the required density, and never will.



EXAMPLES ---

SOLAR:

There are now 1.5 million rooftop installations in Australia. The average for all of them is 2.2KW, and that is virtually the same on a Worldwide basis. Because of the nature of solar PV, they only generate power while the Sun is shining on them, and even that is variable., The absolute best case for a Mid Summer day which is cloud free, sort of looking like a half sine wave during daylight hours, so the only time it is even close to maximum generation is for a couple of hours at Peak Sun. Keep in mind that this is for a large array totalling 1300KW at that time, so even then, it never reaches the total Nameplate.



This is expressed as the Capacity Factor, (CF) and for Australia, the average year round CF for rooftop solar power is around 12.5%. They have an absolute best case life span of 25 years, and after ten years, generation steadily decreases, so that CF falls away, and in most cases, it starts to fall away after five years.



Using BEST Case.



the total power generated by the average rooftop system of 2.2KW over the full 25 years at best case CF is as follows.



0.0022 X 24 X 365.25 X 0.125 X 25 = 60.266MWH (MegaWattHours)



(where 0.0022 is Nameplate, here 2.2KW or 0.0022MW, 24 hours in a day, 365.25 days in a year, leap year as the extra .25. 0.125 is 12.5% CF, and 25 years, with the answer expressed in MWH)



60.266MWH



Have you got that. That’s over the full 25 year life span of the average 2.2KW rooftop system.



SIXTY MegaWattHours – six zero.



Sunk in yet?



Bayswater has a Nameplate of 2640MW, so if that plant ran all four units, (typical) for one hour then it generates 2640MWH.



Bayswater will generate 60.266MWH in ….. one minute and 22 seconds.



So, the average rooftop system will generate for 25 years the same power as Bayswater delivers in 82 SECONDS.



So, effectively, that average rooftop system on ONE home has save 82 seconds worth of CO2 emitted from Bayswater.



Don’t you just love it when the reality of Mathematics reduces the seemingly sublime to the absolutely ridiculous.



82 bl00dy seconds of coal power = 25 years worth of solar power generation.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>



Next look at wind power.



Let's look at the new Obama plan, that would only cost around $8.4 Billion.



let’s pretend they can construct these wind plants for around half of what they are currently costing.



So then, $8.4 Billion would see, under this cheaper costing, eight new huge scale wind plants.



That’s 8 plants of 200 towers, each topped by a 3MW generator nacelle, so, a 600MW wind plant, and eight of them in all.



So, that gives us a Nameplate of 8 X 600MW, so 4800MW Nameplate.



Total yearly power generated is:



4800 X 24 X 365.25 X 0.3 giving us a yearly power delivery of 12,623GWH



Now keep in mind that this will be the ultimate cost to replace 32% of the coal fired power fleet.



So, the current delivery from that coal fired power fleet is 1,585,697GWH.



Then, 32% of that is 476,000GWH, and that’s the power he’s cutting, with this 32% reduction in the coal fired fleet.



So, we are replacing 476,000GWH of existing power delivery with 12,623GWH of new power delivery.



What the!



That’s getting rid of a whole lot of electrical power (over 12% of current, 476,000GWH) and replacing it with only 2.65% of what they just gotten rid of.







Why are we pursueing this idiocy? Because it is a big money transfer from the poor and middle class to the elite. The oil companies LOVE renewables. Renewables are a great way to get government money. Virtually all large oil companies own wind plants and some solar. They make a guaranteed amount of money from these whether or not they produce what was promised. They get generous tax breaks and generous handouts. The Greens are in effect giving the oil companies many millions of dollar through their green subsidies because there is no requirement that the builder not hold oil, gas or coal plants. Nor will there ever be. Warren Buffet, Anschutz in Colorado, Duke Energy will all make absolutely certain the gravy train keeps rolling. I keep pointing out that those “green projects” make tons of money for oil and gas, directly.



Enron And BP Invented The US Global Warming Industry

http://dailycaller.com/2010/12/15/lessons-from-the-global-warming-industry/

Answer 15

Debt.