Editor,
I’m writing in response to the Jan. 17 article “Post-storm lessons” by Matt Grocott, which was about the recent storms in California and what we can learn from them. I agree that there is a need for a “rainy day fund” for disasters and that it is concerning that California does not currently have one. However, I would like to focus on the second lesson mentioned in the article, which is the need for diversity in our energy sources.
Mr. Grocott contends that people need gas-fueled homes and cars during an electrical outage. The burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of climate change, which leads to the extreme weather events that can cause power outages. By electrifying buildings and installing local power storage systems, we can ensure that, even when the electrical grid goes down, we still have access to heat, hot water and other essential services without the use of fossil fuels.
Additionally, by transitioning to clean electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind, we can further reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Investing in building electrification and residential power storage not only makes our energy systems more resilient, but also helps address one of the underlying causes of climate change.
While electric-grid improvements and building electrification will require significant investments, they are crucial for ensuring the long-term sustainability and resilience of our energy systems ... and our climate. I urge our government officials to prioritize these investments and to ensure that we are prepared for future storms and other emergency situations.
Sarah Hubbard
San Mateo
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(3) comments
Ms. Hubbard, thank you for being one of the very few contributors to propose a solution to your climate change predicament… However, do you know how much battery power is required to access heat, hot water, and other essential services should the grid go down? Assuming you have enough space and funds to install a large backup battery system, how much does it cost in carbon emissions to mine the materials for these batteries, in addition to used battery hazardous waste disposal costs? Multiply these mining costs and waste by millions. BTW, I recently read an article that shows it costs more per mile to charge up an electric car than it does to gas it up. I can’t recall whether this was over in Europe or here in the States. Maybe both...
Dear Sarah - your projections are a pipedream. Imagine that our very own Peninsula Clean Energy system which has a peak demand of 800 megawatts, annual energy sales of almost 4 million megawatthours which would have to be backed up with batteries? Come on, even low ball projection for such a cost is $100 per kWh. It would take a gargantuan effort to build and pay for these batteries, and we are just talking about the Peninsula. Lets be realistic and state that renewable energy and batteries are certainly a supply component but it will not likely ever pencil out as rosy as your description seems to indicate. When the term sustainability first came into common use, there were always three legs under that stool, economics being one of them. For some mysterious reason that leg is being ignored as you are making clear. environment, ecovoque
All great ideas and they will come only after we develop affordable green energy that's available all the time.
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