Warren Buffett’s utility subsidiary, MidAmerican Energy Holdings, has made a number of large investments in renewable energy over the past few years. But the famed investor doesn’t exactly make environmentalists jump for joy.
Stephen Lacey
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Warren Buffett’s utility subsidiary, MidAmerican Energy Holdings, has made a number of large investments in renewable energy over the past few years. But the famed investor doesn’t exactly make environmentalists jump for joy.
Stephen Lacey
The announcement itself is notable. But the real story is the way executives at the company are talking about the move. Greentech Media reported on the news this week:
“We look forward to expanding our wind, geothermal, solar and hydro portfolio,” said MidAmerican Energy chairman, president and CEO Greg Abel. “We believe the need for renewable energy will continue to grow.”
Like other well-capitalized, high-profile investors such as Google and Ted Turner, the Buffett company believes this increased emphasis on renewables in its portfolio is a solid business decision that will pay off over time.
“This is a vote for renewable energy,” Weisgall told GTM in discussing why Warren Buffett, perhaps the nation’s premier investment maven, is for this move. “It is not a bet.”
A real vote for renewable energy would be utilities leasing residential and commercial property space for solar and wind installation. The lease could be as simple as net metering. Once we have all the dual use property equipped on property the owners are willing to lease, we can go to single use installations in more remote areas to supplement this power generation. One advantage to this approach is the site of production is the site of use. Thus transmission distances are minimized.
There has to be back up systems in case of vandalism or a weather event that knocks it out.. like a looped system.. unlike the power companies we have now.. where if your line goes down .. everyone along a stretch goes down too.. It should be interconnected and doubled up for a duel source..
In case of a weather or natural damage outage, each distributed system has to be taken of grid. This is necessary for the safety of those repairing the damaged grid. So each house or commercial building has to have an emergency disconnect that is activated when a break occurs. That is already part of the codes.
But that doesn't mean that the individual building has to shut down its power. So even without storage, you have power as long as the sun is shining or the wind blowing depending on your personal mix. And this is why every system should have a minimum of 2 days stored power. That two days is at least partially replenished each day the sun shines or wind blows and gets stretched out to a week or more after the storm or accident. If nothing more it gives these people a chance to save their food, warm up during the day, have hot meals during the day and only have to tolerate cold at night. And that is a lot easier if one can get their core temperature up during the day.
If it is one of the disbursed utility installations that can be isolated without shutting down service to users and the distributed installations can power the grid with conservation measures. Or with the excess capacity that is built in to handle routine maintenance. Even coal plants have to shut down periodically for maintenance.
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