Linear and Cyclical Models of Energy Production and the Problem of Distributive Justice
Author: Rainier A. Ibana
Institutional affiliation: Ateneo de Manila University
Abstract:
This paper will show that the inefficiencies of linear energy production lines are inherent in the mass production technologies of energy and that a more efficient model are now being made available from cyclical patterns of production that imitate the laws of nature. These new technologies, moreover, can be produced and consumed at the local level and therefore will not be susceptible to the inefficiencies of mass production. They also empower consumers instead of becoming dependent on capital-intensive energy production technologies. Examples from the Asia-Pacific Region will be cited.
Introduction
A careful examination of electric bills in the Philippines will yield such items as “system loss, distribution costs and transmission charges.”[1] Thirty percent of our own electric bills in the province, just to cite an example, are spent on such items every month.[2] Although such charges include human foibles such as pilferage and theft, these charges are also inherent to the mass production of electric power due to the loss of energy when transferred from one form or level of electric power to another.[3] Such charges, therefore, can be minimized if the frequency of the transmission of energy is reduced from its source to its end user. Small-scale renewable energies that are being developed in many parts of the world today, particularly in the Asia-pacific region, have a better chance of optimizing power generation, mitigating global warming and addressing the energy requirements of vulnerable populations.
The Laws of Thermodynamics and Linear Production Lines
Our basic physical science courses taught us that energy is neither created nor destroyed; it is however, degraded whenever energy is transferred from one form to another and the difference between the infused power and the reduced energy within an energy system are dispensed to the environment in the form of heat. The total amount of energy therefore remains constant and merely degraded by consumers and diffused to the environment whenever energy is converted. But the more frequent an energy source is converted from one form or place to another the more heat is expelled to the environment and the less energy is made available to the next consumer.
The Philippine Distribution Code promulgated by the Energy Regulatory Commission in 2011, for example, defines system loss in terms of “the difference between the electric energy purchased and/or generated and the electric energy sold by the distributor. Electric consumers are therefore being charged not only with the energy that they actually consumed but also billed with the amount of dispersed energy. Transmission system cost are included in the electric bill in order to pay for the conveyance of electricity through the grid or transmission system composed of “the high voltage backbone System of interconnected transmission lines, substations and related facilities for the conveyance of bulk power.” Distribution system cost, moreover, pays for “the system of wires and facilities between the generating plant or transmission system to the premises of the end-user.”[4]
The underlying paradigm behind these energy costs are linear production systems that extract energy from a resource base and expel wastes along the way until the energy residues are exhausted or merely dumped at the end of the production line. Once the tipping point towards the depletion of these non-renewable energy is reached, however, it will require more actual energy to extract the potential energy of such forms of energy as fossil fuels and therefore the production costs of power generation and distribution will become more expensive than economical because the setting up of the technologies to harness and distribute non-renewable energies will actually require more energy than its potential output.[5] Alternative sources of energy are therefore necessary in order to continue the modern lifestyles that human beings would like to pass on to the next generation.
Renewable energies and the “maximum power principle”
Unlike the linear production lines of mass-produced fossil fuel generated energy systems, renewable energies abide by the cyclical patterns of nature to create feedback loops that reproduce self-maintaining power resources.[6] The entire biosphere, for example, receives energy from the sunlight that is converted into food by plants and other organisms that are consumed by carnivores whose wastes return to the environment for reuse. The act of breathing in and breathing out also demonstrates these loops in the manner by which oxygen consuming organisms are empowered by plants who in turn consume the carbon dioxide expelled by oxygen consumers.
These feedback loops are used as models to design renewable energy technologies in order to continuously support energy consumption and even stimulate growth from the excess energy produced by these systems. What is distinctive about self-maintaining energy resources, moreover, is that it can be scaled down and consumed at the local level so that it will minimize the transfer of energies and thus reduce wastes along the way.
Solar panels and hydro-electric energy resources are typical examples of so-called green technologies that have been harnessed by local communities and households especially in far-flung areas that could not be reached by electric power lines. The recent awardees of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards, Asia’s equivalent of the nobel peace prize, have been cited for reengineering these technologies for the consumption of the marginalized sectors of society. Harish Hande, for example, has customized solar panels so that they can meet the demands of consumers and encouraged the poor to become “asset producers” instead of merely becoming dependent on energy providers. Tri Mumpuni, another Magsaysay laureate, was able to bring electricity to half a million people in Indonesia by building small hydro-electric energy systems in far-flung communities. In the Philippines, a Non-government organization, the Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation, Inc. (AIDFI), reengineered the ram pump in order to bring water upland for farming and livestock raising.
Development of Human Capabilities
These alternative renewable energy resources do not merely contribute to the solution of the problems of energy crisis and climate change; they also address the problems of poverty and inequality by empowering the vulnerable sectors of society to contribute to human development by enhancing their inherent capacities to take charge of their own lives.
The Magsaysay laureates who introduced these renewable energy technologies did possess the intellectual capital that they merely applied towards the solution of social problems.[7] But the multiplier effect of their innovative ideas extends to those who would otherwise not have the opportunity to improve their living conditions. The kind of empowerment that they have imparted, therefore, is not merely measurable in terms of physical or economic advantage but a contribution to the building up of self-confidence among the vulnerable sectors of society in their capacity to also make a significant contribution to human development.
Amartya Sen, nobel peace laureate for Economics in 1998, made a distinction between human capital and human capability by emphasizing the need to develop human resources not only in terms of their contribution to economic production systems but also in terms of developing the human capacity to choose the kind of lives that people have reason to lead.[8] Empowering the vulnerable sectors of society with energy resources do not only mean improving their income but also enhancing their self-worth and dignity as human beings who can begin to lead decent lives for themselves and their surrounding communities.
The fundamental laws of energy conservation and degeneration are applicable not only to the physics and biology of animate and inanimate entities but also relevant in performing such spiritual acts as thinking, creating and worshiping. The brain can function properly only with the proper management of energy-infused resources such as nutrition, learning materials and learning environments. Energy therefore is an omnipresent power that can be harnessed by humans through their thinking faculties by creating feedback loops in energy systems. Reflective thinking, the highest form of human activity, also exhibit a kind of feedback loop that bends back into itself in order to generate more ideas that can ultimately be applied to physical and biological realities.
Distributive Justice: Building energy resources from the ground
Instead of merely waiting for capital-intensive and centralized energy providers to bring electricity to end users through power lines, alternative renewable energy generators are building energy resources from the ground by harnessing the eternal cycles of nature of their local environments.
This pattern of decentralization runs parallel to similar efforts that are being initiated in the delivery of other public services such as education, health, agriculture, and environmental protection as a consequence of the enactment of the Philippine Local Government Code of 1991. This law aims to allow local governments “to enjoy genuine and meaningful local autonomy to enable them to attain their fullest development as self-reliant communities and make them more effective partners in the attainment of national goals.”[9] A similar trend of devolution of energy resources can be discerned in the series of laws that have been enacted by the Philippine Congress in order to dismantle power generation monopolies. These include such legal instruments as Republic Act No. 7156: An Act Granting Incentives to Mini-hydroelectric power developers and for other Purposes promulgated in 1990 and the Electricity Reform Act of 2001.
The difference that energy generation makes, however, is its pervasive effect not only at the local level of political governance but its profound implications in the behaviour and attitudes of human and collective persons. We are today more aware of our carbon footprints and individual water consumption levels and their effects on the environment. But overall energy consumption can also be measured in terms of calories that health conscious individuals fret about while the malnourished children of the marginalized sectors of society are worried about their next meal.
Such higher levels of ecological awareness implies that individual human beings are viewing their place in social systems not only as producers and consumers but also as intricately connected to the broader physical and biological contexts of their behaviour. The enhancement of such higher order kinds of thinking makes the job of philosophers and metaphysicians to be ever more relevant today because of their vocation to articulate the distinctive place of humans and all beings within the context of a synoptic vision of a moral universe.
Conclusion
Abiding by the laws of nature means that the length of our systems of energy distribution should be made closer to consumers in order to reduce waste and save on such energy bills as system loss, distribution costs, and transmission charges. That we cannot break the laws of nature does not hinder us, human beings, from creating social systems of production and consumption that take into account the inefficiencies that may be generated by linear production systems. Our knowledge of the workings of nature will allow us, human beings, to create the necessary social and technological mechanisms that will harmonize our relationship with nature and our fellow human beings.
[1] http://www.meralco.com.ph/pdf/rates/2011/September/summary_schedule_rates_September2011.pdf
[2] Camarines Norte Electric Cooperative, Electric Bill for Henry A. Ibana (September 2011).
[3] http://powertracker.doe.gov.ph/epira-updates/ptcategory.2007-06-18.9003299921/ptactivity.2007-06-18.9436494132/pttask.2007-06-18.9620003366
[4] http://www.docstoc.com/docs/26283369/Philippine-Distribution-Code, pp. 21, 29-30. (Accessed on November 6, 2011).
[5]Nathanile Grownwold, “Does Economics Violate the Laws of physics?” Scientific American (October 23, 20090, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=does-economics-violate-th (Accessed on November 6, 2011)
[6] Howard T. Odum and Elisabeth C. Odum, Energy Basis for Man and Nature (New York: McGrawhill Book Company, 1976), pp. 44ff.
[7] Harish Hande earned an engineering degree and was a graduate student at the Massachussets Institute of Technology when he was inspired to develop and introduce small scale solar energy technologies in India. Tri Mumpuni, another recent Magsaysay awardee who established small scale hydro electric power in far flung communities in Indonesia was supported by her husband, Iskandar Kuntoadji, an engineer who instituted the Yayasan Mandiri, a pioneering non-government organization that promoted hydro electric power technology in the country sides. . Auke Idzenga, a Dutch marine engineer and one of the founders of AIDFI, reintroduced the ram pump technology that led to the revitalization of their NGO. Cf.: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=720953&publicationSubCategoryId=68 (Accessed on November 10, 2011)
[8] Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 1999), p. 293.
[9] Republic Act No. 7160: An Act Providing for a Local Government Code of 1991, Section 2, Chapter 1, Title 1 Book I.
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