In My Backyard - April 24, 2022

You have all heard of the Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) phenomenon. I’d rather replace that with IMBY. If something is worth doing, it can’t be worth doing only if others do it. We have to make a commitment to what enhances the public welfare, and then do our part. 

People don’t like power lines, especially in their backyards. Windmills often suffer that same fate. We seem to generally prefer clean energy over natural gas, but because pipelines are buried and wellheads are small and hidden, we seem to tolerate dirty fossil fuels to heat our homes. Out of sight and out of mind. 

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Even the emissions arising from fossil fuels are out of sight. I think if a black cloud was emitted from every tailpipe and natural gas furnace, we might feel differently. But, since carbon dioxide and methane emissions are invisible, and since the real repercussions are doubted by some and won’t affect the current lives of many, we seem to tolerate that energy source. Again, out of sight and out of mind. 

We need energy to survive. The new energy sources that are being developed are greenhouse-gas benign and are also reaching economies of scale that make them cheaper than fossil fuels. But, they demand a redesigned electric grid. 

The 21st Century grid must be able to transport more energy and from different places. It is also fragmented, operated by myriad regional electricity companies who might offer cheap power, for whatever political purpose, to, say a Bitcoin miner, when a neighboring community must crank up a natural gas power plant to take care of heating and lighting in their community. This is a 21st Century problem because we are suffering from 19th century industry fragmentation. 

The entire network can be redesigned. We must first create one unified grid, not an association of grids that partner when convenient. We must set up a system of transfer prices that allow the entire grid to share energy in a way that minimizes electricity transportation costs. And we must shed load from every unnecessary function, for instance Bitcoin mining everywhere, before we start up a single peaker natural gas electricity plant anywhere. 

If we did these simple things, my intuition suggests we can improve overall efficiency by 20%. 

For our major trunk lines, especially those that bring power from large wind and solar farms to where people live, we can much better optimize our existing high voltage power lines. 

If you are a nerd like me, you may have found fascinating the Current Wars between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Alva Edison, two of my innovation heroes. Fortunately, Tesla won out by developing alternating current, which had one big advantage. It could be “stepped up” to very high voltages using transformers. A high voltage is like high water pressure. It is able to move more electricity with less resistance, and hence less wasted electricity. Once it gets to its destination, transformers can lower the voltage back down at a power substation you occasionally see on your drives. Then, the transformer on top of the pole outside your home drops the voltage down to the 120 volts to power your appliances and 240 volts to what and run your stove. 

That was then. Now, we can use new semiconductor technology to raise and lower direct current voltages as needed. In fact, our solar farms run on DC, as can our windmills. This means fewer conversions are needed, and hence less energy is lost. 

Finally, DC current more effectively uses the wires already strung across our grid. Our grid can transport about 50% more energy over the existing wires, and also improve efficiency by 5% to 10%. 

The combination of an optimized DC grid, more solar and wind, and new nuclear power that safely consumes the spent fuel left in storage at every nuclear power plant in the country can all combine to satisfy all the needs of our country. If we can also rely more on heat pumps rather than gas or oil furnaces or resistance heating, we can easily be electric energy self sufficient by the end of the decade. 

Most of the technology is already available. Some of it may still need to come down in price, which greater demand and economies of scale can ensure. And some requires more engineering. 

The hardest part is not the engineering, though. Fortunately, we are only half a foot away from meeting these goals and our obligations to future generations. The remaining six inch gap we must bridge is the space between our ears. 

We need an attitude change to study what is possible, invest what is needed, and replace NIMBY with IMBY. It’s probably obvious at this point we can’t rely on the sage advice of our leaders to guide us here. We are on our own, and only our willingness to educate ourselves, have faith in science, and invest today in our electricity infrastructure will get us there. These sacrifices we make today will pay for themselves many times over in the next generation or two alone.

Then, we can enjoy clean and sustainable energy in perpetuity. 

Don’t you think our kids and our planet are worth it?