In my house the sun moves through windows that do not use thermal panes, are not filled in the gap between panes with argon gas and that are efficient only as a reminder of extremely high gas and electricity bills.
To provide the efficiencies required to assist in lowering my drag on greenhouse gas emissions from electrical power generation using fossil fuels I estimate it will cost me roughly $30,000. The figure is so high because not only will windows and doors have to be replaced, but all exterior walls will have to be torn out and replaced for insulation to be installed.
Add to this that the house is a storey-and-a-half without a 'proper' or more energy efficient roof design and you begin to see how little just one change will begin to pay for itself.
I seem stuck with this infrastructure like we all seem stuck on fossil fuels and the supporting role such choices play in our economic well being. Fossil fuels grease the gears and form the foundation of the 'modern' western world.
Automobile companies are stuck with their infrastructure too. Transportation, it could be argued, is the single most important technology behind our economies with the most impact on our social structure than anything man has yet to devise. Its supply chains are just that. Chains to imperfect technology made to depend on itself for creating a market. The side effect is jobs. And so, with perfection and with change automobile manufacterers act with a conservative kind of sluggishness, placing aftermarket parts in front of emission controls, weakening legislation by failing at targets for the simple fact that it is not in the interest of cash flow or product turn over. Why else would car manufacturers float the suggestion that cars of the future that would last longer would also cost more...
Fuel companies too are hardly able to take any of the studies they fund on the growth of the renewable energy market and market penetration of renewables seriously because it would devalue the immensity of their resource and power base. An infrastructure that turns to dust isn't worth selling to anyone. And if that's where your equity is and where your business turns a profit then it is very difficult to accept change other than in word, certainly not in deed. Funny enough government is now in collusion with these powerful interests -- on your behalf.
When was the last time you questioned how much tax money was spent in finding oil or natural gas deposits domestically or within easy trade-reach of your government?
In Canada the Sierra Club makes annual 'Green Budget' recommendations. Perhaps the most disturbing point to be made about Canada's readiness for decentralized, distributed power generation in the latest issue relating to using renewables is the absolute lack of centralized planning using resources that are otherwise engaged in sourcing fossil fuels. Canada has not performed a national wind mapping analysis, yet there are field personnel still working on finding and exploiting fossil fuel deposits in cooperation with the oil industry. Should the oil companies be on the tax payer's welfare role or is the way our money is spent merely a way for a nation to finance future energy security?
And if security is a matter of priority wouldn't a nation be best served by producing energy from renewables domestically?
This is where the hydrogen economy makes no sense. In reality the hydrogen economy will not fully materialize unless vehicles use hydrogen as a fuel. Similarly, decentralized power generation from renewables will not materialize unless the cost per Mw in capital costs is brought down. It is perhaps relevant then to join fuel cell vehicles using hydrogen to 'store' electricity and the distributed generation electricity grid. Making 'electric' cars that could carry a certain amount of hydrogen and that would recoup this same supply by recharging (electrolysing water to form hydrogen and oxygen) would serve emissions standards by zeroing emissions and place a demand on power from the grid.
With foresight and the appropriate legislation beefing up the power grid could be accomplished using renewable energy from decentralized sources.
As it stands, my personal infrastructure has to be paid for so that the roof over my head doesn't leak. It doesn't make me any money maintaining this. It just keeps me comfortable. That is the difference between the infrastructure my money buys me and the infrastructure car companies and fuel producers build to shelter themselves. Their infrastructure exists to earn money. Mine exists to burn it.
-- the candidate is chosen for nascent intelligence, a fertile mind in which to plant the seeds of obeisance under mentorship, and the wisdom to keep silent any secret learned --
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