Let's Reorganize the Department of Energy!
When faced with the challenge of 9/11, what did we do? We reorganized our government! Today, suddenly faced with the spectre of a sinister societal addiction to oil, our first response must be to reorganize! But reorganize what? The Department of Energy comes to mind.
It's doubtful anyone really knows the organizational structure of the U.S. Department of Energy, but whatever it is, it's got to be screwed up. What else could explain the hopeless energy mess we're in? It's D.O.E.'s job, after all, to keep exactly such a mess from ever happening! So obviously, some sort of reform, if not outright reorganizing needs to happen here.
So let's do it. Let's Reorganize the Department of Energy!
OK, how about "zero-sum" reorganizing. Start from scratch. Don't conform to what we've got, but rather to what we'd like to have as if we were starting out all over again.
So what do we have here . . . the Department of Energy . . .
OK, it seems like the first cut would be a "Supply" Division and a "Demand" Division. Like this:
Of course, these two divisions would get equal funding, since in the end they have to be equal. If they weren't equal, then we'd be violating The Law of Supply and Demand, and we can't do that, now can we? But wait a minute. What's going to keep them equal? Market Forces? Adam Smith's Invisible Hand? These govenrment entities tend to grow unpredictably on their own accord. Maybe we need a thrid division here.
Let's add an Invisible Division. The Invisible Division wouldn't have much to do, and even if it did, we'd never know it since it was invisible. So maybe it wouldn't even need much of a budget. But we better keep it in there, just in case. So now we have:
Next, we probably need to split each of these into rational Sub-Divisions.
The Supply Division would be split according to the basic energy sources of Solar, Tidal, Geothermal, and Nuclear. Solar includes fossil fuels, hydro, wind, waves, ocean currents and thermal stratification, biomass, visible daylight, photovoltaics and solar thermal. Tidal energy comes from the gravitational interaction of the moon, sun and oceans. Geothermal draws upon the heat of the interior of the earth, and nuclear comes from busting up or slamming together atomic nuclei. These would not be equally funded since Solar is so much bigger than the others. We might rely on the Invisible Division to do the balancing here, but that's just a detail.
The Demand Divsion can be split into a Needs subdivision, and a Wants subdivision. The Invisible Division would take care of balancing these. Both the Needs and Wants sub divisions need Efficiency sub-sub-divisions, since efficiency is always a concern. It wouldn't be adviseable to have Conservation sub- or sub-sub divisions since we'd then have to balance it with a Liberation Division to achieve political parity. We might also consider a few sub or sub sub divisions in there somewhere designed to deal with how "demanding" the demand is . . . as is in Now or Later. The "Now" Sub-Division of the Demand Division of the Department of Energy would include electricity and daylight, the ones that are really instant, while the "Later" Sub-Division would encompass everything else, like and all the various sort of fuels that you can store for a while before you use.
So our stucture now is:
There's no law that says that all these sub divisions have equal funding, so maybe we could trust Congress to decide and periodically adjust the relative proportions. On second thought, we better give that task to the Invisible Division and just have Congress appropriate one big fat lump sum each year in proportion to how important energy is to our economy. For starters, let's say 25% of GNP. That's a lot, but energy is actually a very big deal.
How about let's start with:
Getting back to the Supply Division. . . there'd be no sense including nuclear weapons research and development in the Nuclear Sub-Division of the Supply Division of the Energy Department, Nuclear weapons are, after all, such a clear and colossal waste of energy. This is the Energy Department we're talking about here, not the Waste-of-Energy Department. All that bomb stuff really ought to be in the Department of Defense, which could be split into the sub department of actual defense, and the sub department of actual nonosense. This way, we don't have to lay off so many people. But that's a whole different reorganizational thing!
So I feel better already.
It's doubtful anyone really knows the organizational structure of the U.S. Department of Energy, but whatever it is, it's got to be screwed up. What else could explain the hopeless energy mess we're in? It's D.O.E.'s job, after all, to keep exactly such a mess from ever happening! So obviously, some sort of reform, if not outright reorganizing needs to happen here.
So let's do it. Let's Reorganize the Department of Energy!
OK, how about "zero-sum" reorganizing. Start from scratch. Don't conform to what we've got, but rather to what we'd like to have as if we were starting out all over again.
So what do we have here . . . the Department of Energy . . .
OK, it seems like the first cut would be a "Supply" Division and a "Demand" Division. Like this:
The U.S Department of Energy
Supply Division ---------------- Demand Division
Supply Division ---------------- Demand Division
Of course, these two divisions would get equal funding, since in the end they have to be equal. If they weren't equal, then we'd be violating The Law of Supply and Demand, and we can't do that, now can we? But wait a minute. What's going to keep them equal? Market Forces? Adam Smith's Invisible Hand? These govenrment entities tend to grow unpredictably on their own accord. Maybe we need a thrid division here.
Let's add an Invisible Division. The Invisible Division wouldn't have much to do, and even if it did, we'd never know it since it was invisible. So maybe it wouldn't even need much of a budget. But we better keep it in there, just in case. So now we have:
The U.S Department of Energy
Supply Division --------- Invisible Division --------- Demand Division
Supply Division --------- Invisible Division --------- Demand Division
Next, we probably need to split each of these into rational Sub-Divisions.
The Supply Division would be split according to the basic energy sources of Solar, Tidal, Geothermal, and Nuclear. Solar includes fossil fuels, hydro, wind, waves, ocean currents and thermal stratification, biomass, visible daylight, photovoltaics and solar thermal. Tidal energy comes from the gravitational interaction of the moon, sun and oceans. Geothermal draws upon the heat of the interior of the earth, and nuclear comes from busting up or slamming together atomic nuclei. These would not be equally funded since Solar is so much bigger than the others. We might rely on the Invisible Division to do the balancing here, but that's just a detail.
The Demand Divsion can be split into a Needs subdivision, and a Wants subdivision. The Invisible Division would take care of balancing these. Both the Needs and Wants sub divisions need Efficiency sub-sub-divisions, since efficiency is always a concern. It wouldn't be adviseable to have Conservation sub- or sub-sub divisions since we'd then have to balance it with a Liberation Division to achieve political parity. We might also consider a few sub or sub sub divisions in there somewhere designed to deal with how "demanding" the demand is . . . as is in Now or Later. The "Now" Sub-Division of the Demand Division of the Department of Energy would include electricity and daylight, the ones that are really instant, while the "Later" Sub-Division would encompass everything else, like and all the various sort of fuels that you can store for a while before you use.
So our stucture now is:
The U.S Department of Energy
Supply Division --------- Invisible Division --------- Demand Division
Solar - Tidal - Geothermal - Nuclear --- ???????? --- Efficiency - Needs - Wants -Now - Later
Supply Division --------- Invisible Division --------- Demand Division
Solar - Tidal - Geothermal - Nuclear --- ???????? --- Efficiency - Needs - Wants -Now - Later
There's no law that says that all these sub divisions have equal funding, so maybe we could trust Congress to decide and periodically adjust the relative proportions. On second thought, we better give that task to the Invisible Division and just have Congress appropriate one big fat lump sum each year in proportion to how important energy is to our economy. For starters, let's say 25% of GNP. That's a lot, but energy is actually a very big deal.
How about let's start with:
Supply Division Funding
OK, that should be enough to get started. All we need now is someone to head this thing and make it all work. Dick Cheney already has a job, so he's out. There's Michael Brown or Michael Moore, or somebody.- 75% Solar
- 2% Tidal
- 8% Geothermal
- 10% Nuclear
- 80% Efficiency
- 10% Needs
- 10% Wants
- 10% Now
- 10% Later
Getting back to the Supply Division. . . there'd be no sense including nuclear weapons research and development in the Nuclear Sub-Division of the Supply Division of the Energy Department, Nuclear weapons are, after all, such a clear and colossal waste of energy. This is the Energy Department we're talking about here, not the Waste-of-Energy Department. All that bomb stuff really ought to be in the Department of Defense, which could be split into the sub department of actual defense, and the sub department of actual nonosense. This way, we don't have to lay off so many people. But that's a whole different reorganizational thing!
So I feel better already.
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