Why is it difficult to get cheap, clean energy?

[SHRED]

One reason, I believe, is because the corporate energy producers do not want to decentralize energy distribution and they have a "special interest" legislative stranglehold, over our government, to make sure that decentralization does not occur on a broader scale.

If individual homes and/or neighborhoods produced their own energy via solar, wind, etc..then the major power producers would be reduced to selling energy products instead of having monopolistic control over the means of production.
Not gonna happen.

It won't happen until the population at large become aware of this fact and starts voting in Representatives that will fulfil this vision.
It will be an uphill battle getting the word out. Especially via the mega-corporate controlled television media.

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[bluerum]

1. Yes - I would add that corporations are more than happy perpetuate

ignorance and misinformation in the public at large.

Corporate interests guard the technology and economic data around energy technologies. They use government to legislate on their behalf.

Until the population at large educates itself it will be at the mercy the corporate monoliths and the government.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. B/c a small group of people have an inordinate amount of power and money

if there were. The incentive just isn't there. That's why FDR made utilities public works to take the control away from such people.

[moblsv]

3. right

It is difficult to make these changes as an individual. My vision of the future is a distributed grid, where every house / property / business can produce energy via solar, wind, tidal, stream, or whatever else may be at hand. The power goes into a distributed system where you can make money by producing more than you need, or simply suppliment your needs and be billed for what you use. At this point, things like electric or hydrogen cars start to make a lot more sense. Now we have eliminated much of the overhead of producing power elsewhere and just moving the problem, or even making it worse due to transportation costs.

Instead, we are seeing MORE privatization. My fear is that this will simply lead to more greed, more price fluctuations, more artificial energy shortages and more opportunity for those in power to use energy as a means of holding more power and control over the population.

Stop this privatization-of-everything agenda before your power bills start to fluctuate like your gasoline pump prices.

[greenman3610]

4. in the case of Electric utilities

the problem varies state by state, but by and large,
there needs to be a change in the rate structures that
create the current incentive to make money by
building large, central power plants.

Utilities should be incentivized to meet demand through
conservation efforts in their service area, and consumers
need to be empowered, thru "net metering" law, to be able
to produce, and sell back, their own power.
Many states are moving on this, but progess has been slow.
When the "Electranet", as Al Gore calls it, is in place,
we will see a dramatic change in the way electricity is
produced and distributed, and literally thousands of
unique new approaches to production.

[ThomWV]

5. Are You Really Interested In A Discussion About It?

I ask because I think a good discussion on the subject can reveal much for anyone and everyone who might participate, but I don't think that what you've said above had a whole lot do do with where the answer might be found.

It is a very good question to wonder why our energy isn't clean and cheap. Notice I said 'our' energy. What I mean by that is the energy we try to trap and use. There is plenty of free and clean energy available - just go lay on a beach and soak it up - but that energy isn't being put to human use in any important or continuing way so it doesn't count. No, the energy of concern is the energy that we as a society use.

There is a reason that large energy producers do not want to decentralize (that term applies to generation, not distribution) and that is because every producing device and scheme suffers from inefficiencies and it is much less expensive to deal with inefficiencies in one place than in many places. One of the main inefficiencies in our electrical system is actually in its distribution. About a third of the power available from the fuel in a power plant is lost to heat in distribution between the source and the end use. The more generation sources you have the more distribution channels you need and the more distribution channels you have the more power loss to heat you suffer. Consequently the more you disperse power sources the more waste you have in the system.

How's that for a statement to start a discussion?

[Kolesar]

6. US electricity generation is trending toward "distributed generation"

This was described in Rifkin's "The Hydrogen Economy". Corporate power users are generating their own electricity because rates are too high. This is especially true in Ohio; it led to a "deregulation scheme" in the First Energy customers' geographic area. The scheme fell apart when the only other electricity vendor withdrew.

[razzleberry]

8. what country should go first?

what country do you think should go first?
...
my suggestion would be Denmark.
With the world's highest electricity rates,
they would seem to need more electric power.

also, in a smaller, more homogeneous country,
it will be easier to get concensus to monkey with the electricity supply.

[The2ndWheel]

7. "become aware of this fact and starts voting in Representatives that will fulfil this vision"

So there will be politicians that are running on getting to Washington, only to lose the power the vote gave them by decentralizing our energy system? I have a hard time believing anything like that would happen. How is a politician supposed to promise growth and a better future if they no longer have the process with which things will get bigger and better? Centralization is the only reason America exists as it does today.

"Why is it difficult to get cheap, clean energy?"

Because nothing comes for free. If you want cheap and clean energy, something has to give somewhere else.

[soothsayer]

9. ask tesla

[XemaSab]

10. I'm not in agreement

I think it's simple market forces that make it hard to generate your own electricity and easy to just cut a check to the utilities every month.

I don't need to see a vast conspiracy here.

Also, what constitutes "cheap" in your book? You want to pay 6 cents? 'Cause that's what dirty coal costs. Or do you want to pay 20 cents for large-scale PV?