Overlooking the objectively obvious?

Today we barely climbed into the single digits. Also at some point today, the Star Tribune added a story to its online edition: What will best keep Xcel's grid reliable in a pinch: Gas plants or batteries?

With the kinds of cold we get in winter, and heat with humidity in summer. the answer to that question is of significance to quite a few Minnesotans, including our household, for which the monthly energy costs for December increased by $100 between 2020 and last year.

if the wind blows or the sun shines...

Photo by J. Harrington

As a long time fan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Systems Dynamics section and their work on Limits to Growth, I searched the internet using the phrase “MIT US grid modeling.” I was pleasantly surprised to discover a research report online: “The Future of the Electric Grid.” I was even more pleasantly surprised to learn it’s one of a series.

Other Reports in This Series

• The Future of Nuclear Power (2003)
• The Future of Geothermal Energy (2006)
• The Future of Coal (2007)
• Update to the Future of Nuclear Power (2009)
• The Future of Natural Gas (2011)
• The Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle (2011) 

I fear that our state government, including and perhaps especially the Public Utilities Commission, may be overly reliant on testimony from those with “skin in the game” or a “dog in the fight,” depending on which cliche you prefer. Does Minnesota have a legal requirement that state agencies seek and use relevant information from neutral parties in adjudicating contentious issues? If not, why not?

That’s it for today from a taxpayer who doesn’t mind paying taxes but hates to see them wasted on poor decision-making systems crafted, and often run, by undereducated and untrained amateurs such as those regularly elected to office in this state.

Statement on Energy Policy

By Carter Revard

It’s true we have invented quark-extraction,

and this allows our aiming gravity at will;

it’s true also that time

can now be made to flow

backward or forward by

the same process. It may be true as well that

what is happening at the focal point,

the meristem of this process,

creates a future kind of space,

a tiny universe that has

quite different rules. In this, it seems,

whatever one may choose to do or be becomes

at once the case. In short,

we have discovered heaven and

it’s in our grasp. However,

the Patent Office has not yet approved and cites

less positive aspects of this invention. First, it

does not generate profit, and

it does make obsolete all present

delivery systems for our nukes. Then,

it will let private citizens do things that only

a chosen few, that is, OUR sort, should be allowed—

fly freely from one country

to any other, spreading diseases

and bankrupting transportation.

Home-heating, auto-making industries will be trashed,

employment shelled, depressions spread worldwide,

sheer anarchy descend.

For these and other reasons,

no one must know of this. . . .

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