what about a small government regulation, i know government interference is not exactly a new idea, but we don't have a lot of regulations for energy usage.
my thoughts is that if 10% of a new buildings estimated energy usage were required to come from an alternative renewable energy source, it could lead to a 20% reduced energy draw, lowered cost of alternative energy, and could make alternative energy cost less than fossil fuels within a couple of decades.
point 1. how 10% becomes 20%. lets say we take a building that has an estimated energy average usage of 2000kwh per month. this would mean that 10% renewable alternative energy would require an energy system that generated an average of 200kwh per months at lets say enestimated $10,000. Now if this same building were to tighten up a few things during the building phase, lets say better insulation, maybe a lower roof with less pitch to create a smaller volume of space to be heated etc. to bring the estimated average power usage down to 1700kwh per month for an estimated cost of $1000. now the building would only require power generation of 170kwh per month, assuming costs are constant per kwh it would cost $8500 for said system. this brings our costs down from $10000 to $9500, making this the probable route. meanwhile our power consumption drops from 2000kwh -200kwh net of 1800kwh to 1700kwh-170kwh to a net of 1530kwh for net total of 24% power savings over our original 2000kwh per month starting power draw. now obviously this is just a hypotheticl situation and system, with made up costs, but the principal stands even if actual results may be increased or decreased from this idea.
point 2. lowered costs of alternative energy. after first introduction of such a mandate costs would probably go up for a while since supply would not immediatly increase the way that demand would, but the increased demand would lead to an increase of technologies and companies competing for the new market share. increased competition and increased r&d money would lead to lowered costs and better energies. i think that we would see 2 major increases in technology "cheap" energies such as solar derivitives. this would fuel the inexpensive buildings trying to reach that 10% as cheap as possible. the second would be what i call "invisible" energy sources. because i believe that the asthetic cost of many forms of alternative energy may be as prohibitive as the dollar costs fo many forms of alternative energy (in other words solar panels are "ugly").
point 3. alternative energy sources could cost less than fossil fuels within a couple of decades. the cost analysis of alternative energy vs fossil fuels is of course subjective. cost analysis of most alternative energies vs fossil fuels over a 100 year period would prove them to be cheaper. where as over a 1 year period it is doubtful that we will see many alternative energies surpass fossil fuels in our lifetime. so the timeline i would suggest is over the average lifetime that someone both lives in and is paying off their home. The us government puts average duration of residence at 10.2 years for a home you own yourself (http://www.census.gov/prod/3/98pubs/p70-66.pdf) so for my statement that alternative energies would surpass fossil fuels in costs would be for the duration of 10.2 years (in other words i would expect alternitave energy payoff times to be about 10.2 years in just a few decades). the logic for this is simple. right now most people are finding the repayment schedule for alternative energy to be 15-30 years. two decades of mass commercialization for alternative energies with multiple competing technologies and companies could easily drop the price of the technology by the 30-60% required to allow a 10 year payback period. this is assuming that fossil fuel prices stay constant to the rate of inflation.
i know that there are vagueties in my arguments, and that these vagueties are probably the weakest part of my argument. i tried to use a set of realistic numbers where i could, but some research and real world numbers could help create a stronger (or weaker depending on the numbers) argument. I would love to see what all of you guys think about such a proposition. maybe point out some flaws that i have yet to account for. maybe even some things you like about the idea.
Posted Monday 7 Mar 2011 @ 4:25:11 am from IP
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