As some of you may have noticed it has been a slow news day, actually a slow news couple of days, I blame the holidays. In the mean time however, instead of spouting off about whatever crazy move Congress has decided to make or interesting ruling the supreme court or federal district judges have made, I decided it’s time for another series on energy.
As you may have read in my last series, which detailed why Smart Grid would probably work if not for the legislation that is going to force it to pass, in which case it will fail miserably, I have a lot of problems with most people’s view of America’s energy future. Most people think that the energy of tomorrow is not the energy of today. Most people think that something really radical is going to happen in the field of science that is going to change everything. And most of you would be terribly terribly wrong.
For the average person, America’s energy future looks extraordinarily like America’s energy now. You’ll have a big wire that will go into your house and it will supply you with electricity. The electricity will be supplied by Coal, Nuclear, Hydro, Natural Gas, Oil, and Renewables in that order. Certainly there will be little changes like how you are metered for your electricity and the way they put up lines and such, but overall the average American ain’t gonna see much of a change.
But what about: All those government subsidies going to alternative energy solutions? All the research into better energy storage and distribution? All the nuclear plants we’re going to build? All the energy saving techniques and devices on the market and being installed in houses? Surely the future doesn’t look exactly like it does now? Does it?
Well I’ll tell you how it is and I’m going to tackle each of those problems in turn over the course of the week (unless something really interesting/scary happens in the news), but suffice to say, it is because the electricity market is both a monopoly and regulated in most places that will keep it from changing much in anything but the longest of terms (over 30 years).
