Our Future energy production.
With energy cost soaring trough the roof, more and more people are providing new alternative energy solutions.
Since the last energy crises in the 70's the establishment has been searching for the Holy Grail to replace oil as the primary source for energy. This has been a fruitless quest as we all know and we are paying the price for it.
But with US gas and energy prices getting close to what people in the European countries and most other counties in the world are paying, the brains and entrepreneurs in the US are jumping on the train and they do it fast. Innovative giants like IBM and others has already jumped on the "green energy band wagon".
Guatemala Times will present a series of articles about new and old innovations regarding renewable energy production.
It seems that suddenly everyone has understood that the future is NOT gigantic power plants and refineries. It is the backyard production of energy that is hot just now.
The grid will not disappear and the off-grid energy production will probably be for enthusiasts and people living in remote areas. But the use of the grid will change from one way delivery to a two way delivery system. We could probably compare this with the Internet and World Wide Web (WWW), a totally decentralized information system. The producers of information like this web site is hooked up to you the user, over a grid of communication lines. There are millions of producers, web servers and billions of users getting information. Perhaps its time for Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web to put is two cents into this?
In the old days you got your information from, buying a news paper or magazine from a BIG publishing company or news from your large TV channel, often controlled by the Government. This was one-way communication. Compare this with what you are now reading. You probably found us and you get it for free, well you probably pay something for hooking up to the Internet if you didn't steal your Wi-Fi from your neighbor. But you don't pay us, the producer, anything.
Your future energy supply will probably work just the same. Small relatively cheap producer will provide energy to the grid and you will use it, not knowing where it came from.
The energy producers that we pay the bill to today will become energy distributors in the future and you will probably benefit from lower cost as a result.
The technology is there and it is relatively simple. A small producer connects his generating equipment on the "home side" of the meter and if he produces more than he uses, the meter will run backwards and lower his bill.
So why are we not doing this? Well there are a few problems with this.
- Legislation, there is a lot of laws protecting the energy companies in most countries.
- There are no rules of how the power companies should pay the small producers. As an example, if you produce more than you use will the power company pay you instead of invoice you?
- Energy storage. This is probably the most difficult part. With a zillion small producers delivering energy in an irregular form how do we handle the fluctuations? Think about it. Most small power plants will probably be solar panels and they only work during the day and we use a lot of energy even when the sun is down.
- The renewable energy sources is most abundant in the regions ware consumption is low like in the developing countries around the equator and not so good in the industrialized countries in the north. This is pretty much like it is now with the big oil reserves in the same low energy consumption regions and less oil in the high consumption regions. The difference is that oil is relatively easy to store and transport. THAT is the main reason for its popularity.
All of this is pretty easy to overcome but we need a lot of political initiatives and a re-thinking from the energy companies. Much like what happened to the telecommunications companies when the Internet hit them. Rest assured they will find a way to earn some money if they get challenged!
But saying all this most important thing is to save the precious energy we have and not waste it.
Did you know that a normal light bulb uses more than 90% of its energy consumption to produce heat NOT light?
The good old economic rules like "it is not your high income you get rich on it is your small expenditures" could also be used when it comes to your energy use.
Think smart, think green, think global, act local.
