Letter To Jay Nixon – Failure Of Energy Plan

From David Epps…

 

Governor,

Your Comprehensive State Energy Plan took a terribly wrong approach!

For home and business owners/renters It is not about sources and demands of electrical energy as the plan is written it is about sources and demands of heat energy

Energy use in the US homes is all about BTUs (heat energy). 70% of the energy consumption in home is derived from sources of and measured in units of BTUs (heat energy) not KWh’s (electrical energy).  Your furnace, hot water heater, and air conditioner are sized based upon the amount of BTUs required.

I demand a rewrite of your Comprehensive State Energy Plan basing your analysis on the sources and demands of BTUs. This will give the true picture of the challenges and solutions facing Missourians high cost of energy.  You directed the Missouri Department of Energy to prepare a plan to “balance the need for low-cost, reliable energy with our duty to be responsible stewards of the environment”.  The current plan does not satisfy your requirements.

Upon a rethink of the plan, you will find that Missouri has countless BTUs of geothermal energy below our feet, all of which can be harvested by ground source heat pumps (GSHP).

$100’s of millions have been spent over the last 6 years on solar electricity and wind mills and their electrical generation has barely scratched the surface of the demand while the generation of boundless heat energy in the earth has been ignored.  It is movement of heat energy (BTUs) using electricity and natural gas that cost so much and is in so much demand by Missourians. Moving Geothermal energy, which is free and inexhaustible, costs significantly less.

Only a pitiful 0.25 trillion BTUs were generated by all solar electric panels in Missouri thus far. While, if in just 2014, the $187 million invested on solar installations in Missouri were invested in GSHP’s, 1.44 trillion BTUs of heat energy would have been generated and consumed in Missouri homes for heating and cooling and hot water.

Your recommendations in paragraph 3.1 Strengthening Missouri’s Renewable Energy Standard are mostly poor as they require more regulations, but specifically:

• Geo thermal AKA GSHP is a renewable resource and is not even mentioned
• You failed to prioritize your recommendations and that is needed for any legislative action to proceed
• Priority should be given to rental property rehab and upgrades where about 60% of Missourians live as most of these apartments use electric resistive heat, the most expensive heating there is by whatever means the electricity is generated.
• GSHP in the winter reduce electrical consumption by 75% over a electric resistive heater and thus electrical consumption is reduced.

By your focus on electrical energy and ignoring heat energy, your Department of Energy is a dismal failure (they don’t know energy), and your plan does not guide Missourians to the correct solutions to reduce their utility bills.

Thank You

David Epps