let's think big with

Friday February 16, 2001 Marin Independent Journal

Let’s think big with micropower

Dwayne Hunn

When an economy goes south, small business innovations and investments often revive it. When deregulation hit the telecommunication industry, smaller companies like Excel Telecommunications and a plethora of 1010 dial-arounds insured competition.

When California’s utilities were deregulated, customer-owned, self generating utilities like Los Angeles smiled while exporting surplus power and looking forward to producing its own green power. Sacramento merely blinked while producing almost 2/3^rd of its needs. Both are engaged in ambitious photovoltaic installation programs (100,000 installs in LA) as part of Clinton’s Million Solar Roof campaign.

When E. F. Schumacher wrote the book and popularized the term “Small is Beautiful,” it was not to be cute but to plant ideas that could build a better, more sustainable life by matching appropriate technology with needs. The World Watch Institute’s “Micropower - The Next Electrical Era” suggests how policy makers and investors can help fix the State’s shaky economy in this dimly lit deregulation maze.

As the pamphlet points out, Thomas Edison’s historic Pearl Street station produced steam to run reciprocating engines to serve nearby customers. Edison’s work anticipated a highly dispersed energy system wherein individual businesses generated their own power. By the 1890’s Edison had laid the framework for many small, localized electrical firms and generating plants that provided district heat and reused their waste heat. Wouldn’t Silicon Valley be grinning today if they had invested some of their bubbled and real profits into similar appropriate, state of art backyard generators?

And just what is that appropriate technology? Well, today’s Edison would probably say it ain’t fission nuclear plants spinning off spent fuel rods. Instead he’d probably suggest:

Microturbines. A regenerative gas turbine and a single shaft compressor, the most advanced versions are air cooled, can vary their speed electronically. With only one moving part, they have no gearbox or lubricating oil requirements. Offer low capital costs with mass production, low maintenance costs, high stability for cogeneration applications and low nitrogen oxide emission levels. A number of firms, many with aerospace experience, are bringing microturbines to the commercial market.

Fuel cells. Electromagnetic devices that combine hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity and water. The past decade has yielded designs that could lead to far lower costs. Canadian based Ballard Power, DaimlerChrysler, General Motors, Ford, Honda, and Toyota are involved in quickly commercializing fuel cells

Solar/photovoltaic. In 1980 the world price for a watt of photovoltaic power was approximately $22. and about 30 megawatts shipped. By 1999 a $3.50 price shipped 1200 megawatts. At this price, solar cells, where regulations allow, are increasingly being tied into the power grid via residential and commercial rooftops.

Wind power. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, wind power is now directly competitive with new gas fired plants in some regions of the country. California’s Altamont Pass wind farm generates environmentally beneficial power, but our state’s farmers may want to explore how the farmers of Germany and Denmark, the world’s two leading users, save and make money on wind. Many of those farmers site their wind turbines individually, in clusters, and/or as part of a farmers' co-op where they sometimes sell power back to the grid.

Venture capitalists. In 1980 they invested about $50 million dollars in the U.S. Telecommunications Industry. By 1998 investments totaled about $600 million. During that same period venture capitalists grew their investments in the U.S. Electric Power industry from about $12 million to $140 million. Hope for bigger investments to decentralize our growth into a hopefully more appropriately generated energy future.

In his waning years Edison told friends Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait till oil and coal run out before we tackle that.” Now is the time for California – via tax credits, policy initiatives, and investments to push the appropriate micropower Edison would have favored.

Dwayne Hunn has managed land development projects that included solar designs. He has also worked on smaller appropriate technology projects while employed with the California Conservation Corps.

(unedited by IJ version)