Last month, Grist staff writer David Roberts posted an interesting piece on how the inability to indemnify risky energy enterprises (i.e., nuclear power plants, deep-sea oil drilling) places an undue burden on the public. Roberts’ article focuses primarily on the economic and societal costs associated catastrophic disasters like the BP oil spill, but he does discuss how distributed energy and onsite renewable power can help mitigate the risk involved in generating and delivering power to an energy hungry nation.
To summarize Roberts’ main point—oil drilling in general carries with it the risk of oil spills; spills that are so catastrophic that insurance becomes a moot point. The bottom line: The public ends up shouldering the costs when things go wrong. There doesn’t seem to be a solution when it comes to paying for these risky activities because, as Roberts says, the public burden is “built into the model.”
So what’s the solution? How about distributed renewable energy. We’ve discussed many times how renewable energy is a perfect partner for onsite power; and now—in light of the BP oil spill in the Gulf, and the increased scrutiny it has inspired on our current energy sources—renewable distributed energy is once again being put forth as a viable solution.
Roberts does a good job of outlining why onsite renewable energy makes sense:
• Renewable energy, like solar or wind, does not carry the same risk associated with oil drilling.
• Onsite renewable energy “is more resilient in the face of unforeseeable error; no one node is so big that failure is catastrophic.”
• Because renewable energy is “iterative and innovative” the risks (and rewards) are “borne by private actors in competitive markets.”
Roberts also believes that onsite renewable energy is “ultimately more democratic: It doesn’t just distribute energy, it distributes social and economic power.”
So what do you think? Is there a real public benefit to be had by shifting away from traditional energy generation (with its uninsurable risks) to renewable energy (where the risks are borne by private actors)? Can distributed energy empower the public to make better energy choices? And if we accept that implementing renewable onsite power is a costly undertaking, are those costs outweighed by the reduced risk and increased reliability?