[Greenbuilding] between a rock and a shoulder season

[Reuben Deumling]

On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 5:05 PM, Steven Tjiang <steve at tjiang.org> wrote:

> Reuben
>
> do you share your misgivings about power grid with respect to any shared
> infrastructure like paved roads and of course, the internet.
>

Yes. I only was picking on the grid since I'm trying, for the umpteenth
time, to figure out how to provide hot water for my customers year round
using a minimum of fossil fuels.
Asphalt roads, airports, carsharing, monocropped organic food, smart
phones, rechargeable batteries, and the internet are other equally worthy
targets. Better than what we did in the Cold War, but hardly solutions once
we come to grips with the need to leave all remaining fossil fuels in the
ground.


>  After all, if we didn't have those civilization would use alot less
> fossil fuels.
>

Agreed.

>
> I see the power grid as an enabler for renewable energy, not a barrier.
>

So defined, it is of course.
But I'm disagreeing with the way we (commonly) define renewables--as
specific infrastructure that manages to harvest the sun and wind, but won't
work without ongoing injections of fossil fuels in perpetuity. As such I
don't see renewables, so defined, as any kind of solution, just an
augmentation of the direct use of fossil fuels.
Secondly, on the whole our use of fossil fuels hasn't decreased as the
share of renewables has increased.
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