- By Dan Veaner
- Opinions
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I am working on an article about crowd-funded products. These are products that people buy before they exist in the hope that they will receive one at or around the time the company estimates they can have it ready. My article will explore a widespread failure of these companies to follow through on their promises. With all of the flap about the Cayuga Power Plant I am worried that if it closes the new greener technologies will be a lot like phantom crowd funded products: not ready enough soon enough. It's like a bait and switch con. Get everybody excited about a really great idea, but not have the realistic capability to deliver.
I understand not wanting unrenewable fuels. It's a lot like a bank account. Once it's spent it's gone. And it's true, fossil fuels put stuff in the air we don't really want there. We have to be very careful, though, to make sure that we don't kill the goose before we have another realistic source of eggs. That this particular plant is the cleanest coal-powered plant this side of the Mississippi doesn't seem to matter to people who want it closed. Or that gas is cleaner than coal... same thing. But it means something to me, because I want to be able to charge my phone and have hot water for a shower in the morning, and not in a theoretical sense. It has to work. And it has to be affordable.
People opposing the plant are arguing that ratepayers will have to pay to repower it to keep it open. That isn't incorrect. But if a solar or wind plant costs more, then ratepayers will pay more. People with money seem to be happy to spend it for things they care about, but they also seem to think people without money should be compelled to do the same, regardless of circumstances or -- in some cases -- reality. Technology must not only be technologically capable, but it has to be competitive in the market. Not only that, but if the plant is not replaced with something greener here -- and there are zero plans at the moment to do that (unless you consider that natural gas is actually greener than coal) -- we'll just import power from some state nearby that permits hydrofracking and coal plants that run quite a lot dirtier than ours.
Subsidies are making it possible in Tompkins County for people to convert their homes to solar power, but that doesn't make the solar option competitive in the market or affordable for most people. It just means we all pay to help some folks have solar. I would love to convert my house to solar power, by the way, but it wouldn't make sense financially. It also wouldn't make sense scientifically since the house is surrounded by woods that block out most of the light most of the time.
I have often felt that cell phones are a technology way ahead of their time. They have the wow factor, and all the things they can do are awesome, but actually hearing the person you are talking to on the phone -- remember, we still call them phones and use them as phones -- is a frequent challenge. I called a company for technical support the other day and just couldn't hear the technician, who sounded like she was blowing bubbles inside a big tank. In a way cell phones are phantom products, too, because of that. At least they exist and people have decided they are worth ridiculously high fees.
Functionality and market competitiveness. New technologies simply can't succeed without both elements. I have been told that a key reason various green technologies were not considered for the Cayuga Power Plant was that they are not yet capable of producing the amount of power needed, and they cost too much. In the real world that is a compelling argument to accept the best of less desirable choices, and make a plan to get what we want up to speed as soon as possible, since we actually do only have one planet at the moment.
Buying something that doesn't exist yet can be mighty disappointing, as I will chronicle in that article, coming up soon.
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