"The answer is efficiency, using less so that even if the price rises, the bill does not,” said Dr. Chu. To be succesful, the administration needs to actually break open the electricity markets, leaving physical distribution under state regulation.


Dr. Chu backed away slightly

By José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D.
Systemic Consultant: Electricity

First posted in the GMH Blog, on January 13th, 2009.

Copyright © 2009 José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without written permission from José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. This article is an unedited, an uncorrected, draft material of The EWPC Textbook. Please write to javs@ieee.org to contact the author for any kind of engagement.


I read the New York Times’ article “Energy Nominee Shifts His Stance,” published today 13th of January, 2009, by MATTHEW L. WALD. While Dr. Steven Chu shifted his stance, his statement that “The answer is efficiency, using less so that even if the price rises, the bill does not,” reaffirms the key essence of the EWPC articles Steven Chu: Four Years of Low Hanging Fruits and The End of the Vicious Pervasive Fossil Fuels is Near .

That answers the question of the need to shift the inertia now held by the obsolete IOU paradigm (key piece of the vicious pervasiveness of fossil fuels) to the leveled playing field of the EWPC market architecture and design paradigm leads to 'The End of the Vicious Pervasive Fossil Fuels...'? Investment in energy efficiency is certainly a key short term device for "low hanging fruits."

The pressure at the Senate committee on Energy and Natural Resources is the first test on the question of the EWPC article Will Dr. Chu Turn Around the Power Industry? In fact, Mr. Wald writes that “Dr. Chu’s plans for steps that would reduce consumption of oil and electricity may come at an inopportune moment, as consumption is falling anyway, taking pressure off the electric grid and other energy systems.”

The moment is inopportune for the IOUs paradigm, which is based on mass market assumptions that involve decreasing returns. No so, for the EWPC market architecture and design paradigm, which, like cell phone technologies, involves large increasing returns for the development of the resources of the demand side. With EWPC the state and federal jurisdictional barrier to open the electricity market is addressed in my January 13th comment under the EWPC article Will Anyone Pay for the SmartGrid? To be succesful, Mr. Obama and Dr. Chu need to actually break open the electricity markets, leaving physical distribution under state regulation.

Mr. Wald adds “Another problem is nuclear waste. Dr. Chu repeatedly said that of the carbon-free power generation in this country, 70 percent is nuclear. But Mr. Obama has expressed deep skepticism about the plan to bury nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, the site near Las Vegas that the government has worked for 20 years to develop. A solution would have to be found, Dr. Chu said, but construction of new plants should resume now, after a hiatus of 30 years, even before the solution is developed.” The simplest solution is to have all generation compete and hedge their risks, whose costs should be added to the costs.