Energy Notes

Traveled north yesterday to attend a meeting of the Southern Oregon Renewable Energy group that is being led by Oregon Solutions. This meeting has been attended by county commissioners and other local leaders who are looking at a regional strategy to address the issue of energy independence. The meeting is at noon today - one of the topics on the agenda is a coordinated education effort. The plan is to have one high school in each county do an energy audit.

Of course - energy distribution does not act all like what people think. Even though we have inexpensive hydroelectric power here in the Pacific Northwest, Pacific Power pumps energy here via the grid from the coal burning plants in Montana. Our cheaper power is sold to California to keep up the profit margins. A concept called net metering allows personal generation of power to offset consumption, but the utility retains the rights to any excess power generated. There is a somewhat expensive process to allow industrial engineers to investigate system that actually sell power to the grid if you can generate a reliable load for a long period of time. Essentially, the system is stacked in favor of the local monopoly (with franchises assigned to ensure non-competition).

Perhaps the real solution to the energy crisis is not to generate more electricity, but to increase the efficiency of energy use. Better capacitors and batteries could be designed to allow the electrons to be stored and used on demand. A new nationwide grid can be build to distribute this energy - although it should consist of autonomous local units that can connect or detach depending on regional circumstance. There are many options - solar, wind, ocean current, bio-mass. If there is interest, mebbe we can delve deeper in a your classroom environment.

The one major transformation that i can envision is an individual portable energy box that can generate enough power to provide a mobile outlet. A single unit that can capture sunlight, wind or water flow, or just excess heat and reflect it back as electrical current. We already an draw current off a car battery through the cigarette lighter - it shouldn't be difficult to imagine a magic generator box attuned to non-combustible alternatives.