05-17-01
I do not understand this whole concept of there not being enough energy to go around in one area, and a surplus of energy available in another.
I mean, I understand the fundamental principles of how electricity is made: by wind, water, shuffling your woolen-socked feet on the carpet, taking towels out of the dryer, etc. I can even appreciate the chemical process that makes alkaline batteries store energy and provide current.
But I do not understand how once you make your energy, you store it, dole it out to the people that give you money, and have rolling blackouts for the people that you don't like very much.
I took physics, I know about potential and kinetic energy, and how energy can't be destroyed, it is only converted into other forms, blah blah blah, or maybe they were talking about matter. Oh well, it doesn't really matter* that much.
I see water towers and know that they are filled with water. I see liquid propane tanks and know that they are filled with liquid propane. I even see highlines overhead and know that electricity is traveling through them constantly. But electricity isn't stored in the highlines overhead. It's stored in some big electricity holding area that boggles my mind.
However, I don't understand how we as Iowans can buy electricity from down south and have it shipped up here because they have a surplus of energy, and we have a deficit. How does one go about having a surplus of energy? I can understand having a surplus of water or natural gas, those both being tangible things that I can touch, smell or ignite with an aim-n-flame.
Well, I suppose I do understand the whole doling out of electricity thing. I mean, if your house doesn't have power, someone somewhere flips a switch, and current is then run from the electric company's stores of power, through some wires buried underground or hanging overhead, and into your house so you can make margaritas and watch television. I suppose the same principle would apply to getting power from another state: they flip a switch and shoot us up some power from their source, along the complex route of wires and thingies, to our source, where it is stored to sell to consumers.
But how do you really run out of electricity, or have an insufficient amount of electricity available to provide for your consumers, as an power company? I know that demand can't always meet supply, and that more and more people are using greater amounts of energy-using equipment, which puts a higher draw on the energy supply.
I personally envision a source of electrical energy like a generator or a wind turbine. As long as the generator is maintained and has an adequate source of fuel, or the turbine has enough wind, it will mechanically do a series of actions that yield electrical energy for whatever purpose desired. I know that if you have a limited supply of fuel for your generator, that you should only run it as needed, essentially creating a blackout part of the time. However, wind and water are always there to be utilized, it's not like they are fossil fuels that have a finite supply.
I suppose I'm forgetting that not all electrical plants are so green in nature. Many are fossil fuel or nuclear-powered. Okay.
Supply has to meet demand. If people are using too much electricity and there isn't enough being generated by all of the available power-generating sources, obviously there are going to be blackouts.
Maybe it's the idea of energy being a tangible commodity that can be passed around. I don't feel comfortable with the idea that there are gobs of energy sitting around somewhere, waiting to be used to keep my ice cubes solid and my milk cold.
I think I'd feel more comfortable with the whole idea if you had to make energy as it was needed. But then I would probably get pissed if I had to go run in a gigantic hamster wheel everytime I wanted to watch television**.
*Terrible pun. Sorry. I could have said that it wasn't important, but how often do you really get to use the two primary meanings of the word 'matter' in the same paragraph?
**I think that this whole near-incoherent ramble can be boiled down to this one question: Once you make electrical energy, how is it stored for future use***?
***And, hypothetically, were I to rub my sock-covered feet on the carpet regularly, thusly generating a good supply of static electricity, how would I go about storing that for future use****?
****Because I'm thinking that you get a room full of sock-wearing rugrats all hopped up on sugar, some wool carpet and a way to store the generated static electricity, and you just might be able to keep all of California's ice cubes solid. Well, maybe not just one room full of rugrats, but many rooms filled with rugrats, in various locales. You could franchise the idea*****.
*****Static Power Daycare, coming soon to your area.
