Just over 40 years since the disastrous local oil spill occurred along our coast, we are now in the midst of what could surmount to be one of the greatest ecological disasters in the history of mankind. My heart goes out to all that remain to be impacted by this great tragedy, and my heart is renewed to work even harder to remove fossil fuels from our energy landscape.
It is in the midst of such disasters that large change agents take place such as the modern environmental movement and renewed political support for clean energy such as Schwarzenegger’s withdrawal of support for offshore drilling here in Santa Barbara. I am thankful that we may not be subject to such risks in the near future, but also have been noticing for the last few weeks that drilling capacity has increased dramatically at the mouth of the Ventura River Watershed. What are the environmental hazards and risks associated with this drilling?
Last month the OVGC Energy Committee was reinvigorated with ideas and support, and I invite everyone that has a stake in the local energy future for the Ojai valley to please attend the upcoming meeting on May 12th to further develop our strategic path toward a fossil free Ojai Valley.
With the support of everyone in the Ojai valley, we can achieve results that will become legendary. Our great-grandchildren will tell stories and read in their history books about the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, the incredible task that was at hand, and how so many people across the globe took interest in making a major change toward a sustainable future.
Respectfully,
Shawn Jacobson
Chair, Ojai Valley Green Coalition Energy Committee
Comments (6)
The term” Renewable” energy, is the cornerstone of current environmental doctrine. But what are these “renewable” energy sources and how do we get to a point where all of our energy is produced this way? And is it really advantages to do so? When speaking of renewable energy sources the most commonly referred to ones are solar (photovoltaics), wind power, and hydroelectric power. These are the main ones, there are others but none of these have been developed yet. We have seen over the coarse of the past few years how damaging certain so-called renewable energy sources can be to other segments of society and to the economy. Ethanol and biodiesel are good examples of this. When resources were diverted to making ethanol from corn the consequences to agriculture were dramatic and very harmful to farmers and to end consumers of corn as a food staple. Analysis of the energy benefit of producing ethanol for fuel shows that it takes an equal amount of energy to produce the ethanol as you ultimately get out of it. With all of the activities of planting, harvesting and fermenting ethanol there is no benefit to use it over fossil fuels. The wisdom of substituting food growing farmland for growing fuel for our cars must also be questioned.
Solar energy, that is, photovoltaics, are an excellent way of producing electricity directly from the sun. They are especially useful in remote areas where power from the grid is not available. However, will photovoltaics be able to supply all of our energy needs in the future? Some of the sobering realities of photovolaics are the cost. Luckily we have some existing installations to gage the economic feasibility of solar systems. In November of 2001 a majority of the San Francisco voters agreed to issue “solar bonds”. The passage of the bond referendum allows San Francisco to borrow up to $100 million to install solar power and other clean energy technologies. The city will partially finance these loans with savings resulting from the energy efficiency upgrades. In 2007 results of the solar performance were evaluated.
Cost of the solar system on the Moscone center was $4,200.000.
The annual output per year is 759,817 kWh which is a 12.7% capacity factor.
The annual savings is (759,817 kWh)x $0.12 per kWh = $91,178 per year
Cost to pay off the 5% bonds per year is $270,158 per year
Even though the cost of energy will go up, it is obvious that this proposition is a gross financial looser. The performance of solar Photovoltaics is very poor the performance numbers are being hidden.
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