California: Conventional vs. Renewable Energy

A Perspective on Conventional vs. Renewable Energy
I left David and Janet’s farm early on the morning of 14 July and drove back south to the Bay Area where I linked up with a couple friends I’ll call Jon and Amy. I’m giving them aliases because I want to relate a conversation we had about renewable energy development and Jon is afraid of problems at work if I quote him on my blog. Guess I should be flattered that Jon thinks that enough people will actually read this blog so that his paraphrased quotes will go viral maybe?

Landscape at the north end of Napa Valley

Jon works as an environmental/permitting manager for a renewable energy company. I asked him why he thought that conventional energy companies like oil and gas, coal, and nuclear producers aren’t heavily investing in renewable energy R&D and production in order to gradually make the switch to renewables. After all, the writing is on the wall, especially for coal. Oil and gas production will continue for some time to come but I’m guessing it will eventually be cut back as renewable technology improves, renewables become cheaper than fossil fuels, regulations make it tougher for conventional energy to compete, and automakers and power companies transition to renewables. After all, Fisher made carriage bodies more than 100 years ago. As the automobile gradually replaced the horse and buggy in the early 20^th Century, Fisher didn’t dig in its heels and refuse to get involved with these newfangled horseless carriages. That’s why GM cars (at least when I was growing up) had a little plaque on the bottom of the driver’s door frame which read, “Body by Fisher”.

Jon thinks the conventional producers are too invested in their products to look at the new alternatives. He recalled asking a former employer, a large oil and gas producer, why they didn’t put up wind turbines on some of their vast oil and gas lease land in windy places like Wyoming. Their dismissive answer: “We’re an oil and gas company. We don’t do that.” End of discussion. After all, petroleum and mining engineers as a group are not known for forward thinking when it comes to anything outside their comfortable boxes.

It unfortunate that most conventional energy companies are unwilling and psychologically unable to think outside these self-imposed boxes. But here is the part that Jon didn’t want to be quoted about. He feels that the conventional energy producers have strong lobbies and are able, as a result, to get around regulations that might place uncomfortable roadblocks to their operations. If you don’t believe that, just look at how coal companies like Massey Energy were able to get away with innumerable safety violations leading to the Big Branch mining fiasco last year in West Virginia which killed a bunch of miners. The coal companies flaunt black lung regulations and remain untouchable despite large spikes in black lung cases and deaths in recent years. It’s hard to believe that their management and stockholders give two shits about the health and safety of their employees.

By contrast, Jon notes that renewable energy companies are the new kids on the block. They don’t have strong lobbies, pocket-pet congress people, and huge capital reserves that companies like Exxon-Mobil or Peabody can bring to bear to smooth out and speed up the permitting process. For example, Jon’s company has spent millions on mitigation for an endangered species on a large property they are trying to develop. The biologists with state and federal agencies reviewing the project would just as soon destroy his company’s financial ability to produce a vast amount of renewable energy than allow one endangered animal to die. The oil and gas industry has avoided these bio-nazis by developing reserves in states where regulators are more flexible. Jon’s company is small by comparison and doesn’t have that luxury.

What this points out to me is the need for impartial planners at the highest levels of government who can address these types of conflicts and come up with some reasonable compromises. If the US wants to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels (both for environmental and security reasons), some compromises are necessary. No, I’m not advocating that we scrap the Endangered Species Act and neither is Jon. Certainly renewable energy producers need to find better solutions to reduce the risk of bald eagles flying into wind turbine blades and desert tortoises getting crushed by solar panel maintenance trucks. However, if you want to shut down a largely beneficial industry because one threatened or endangered animal might be “taken”, you just aren’t looking at the big picture. Hell, using the logic of the bio-nazis, maybe we should shut down Interstate Highway 10 through eastern California because a desert tortoise might occasionally get hit by a semi-truck.

[For a perspective on the issue of alternative energy development versus desert tortoises, check out the August 5, 2013 issue of High Country News, http://www.hcn.org/issues/45.13]

Chillin’ at Smugglers Cove

My time with Jon and Amy wasn’t all doom and gloom. After a brisk walk from the San Francisco Embarcadero, up hundreds of stair steps to the Coit Tower, through China Town to Market Street, and past San Francisco City Hall we headed for their favorite haunt near the corner of McCalister and Gough streets. It’s a little hole-in-the-wall called Smugglers Cove and barely has a sign on the entrance. Jon and Amy claim it may well be the world’s best tiki bar and I wouldn’t argue with them after seeing the huge menu of exotic drinks, sipping Jon and Amy’s drinks, and nursing a Painkiller Number 4 (highly recommended by Amy) which consists of pineapple and orange juice, coconut cream, ground nutmeg and 4 ounces of Pusser’s Navy Rum from the British Virgin Islands. I don’t usually like sweet drinks and found this one not overly sugary or syrupy. Taste was superb as were the sips I had of Amy and Jon’s drinks (they always try something different). I finished off my lovely “painkiller” though it took me well over an hour and considered myself pretty spry after I was able to walk rather well after we left Smugglers Cove. Thankfully, we had some good Indian carry-out AFTER drinking and the next morning when I got up to catch my flight to Honolulu – aah, no hangover!