Energy change subsidies that work......
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-31-2008
The Obama administration will do a good deal more than previous ones on installing more renewable energy generation.
Candidate Obama already said he would do so and has said so even more emphatically now that he is President-elect.
And, he has already suggested adding a massive energy conservation and weather stripping campaign for homes as a way to get people involved and to provide needed jobs right away.
Further, the Congress finally passed and President Bush signed an extension of the solar and wind energy incentives.
These steps will help us build more renewable energy sources. And, there is already some support for building large scale wind, solar thermal, and solar photovoltaic electricity generating plants in good locations and adding the new transmission lines needed to get this new electricity to the business and homes that will use it.
However, some thought needs to be given to making further subsidies help create self-sustaining renewable energy and energy efficiency businesses that do not need subsidies.
We close today’s post with some ideas on how to do that.
And, it is very important NOT to give subsidies to renewable energy methods that cause clearing of forests or taking over agricultural land or which require as much fossil fuel input as the renewable energy output achieved.
The subsidies for corn derived ethanol seem to have done all of the above—most unfortunately.
Subsidies WOULD make sense for research into biofuels that do the reverse of these things by using cellulosic ethanol from existing agricultural waste etc or by using algae tanks that can be located on land NOT used for farms & NOT on land which now has forest. And, funding for venture capital firms to help commercialize such efforts that turn out to work and be cost competitive.
(There ARE already companies and researchers working on such biofuels.)
By adding the biofuels from the successful efforts of this kind to some petroleum based fuels and some fuels made with pollution free conversion from coal while learning how to substitute electricity and/or energy efficiency for some fuel, we can continue having liquid fuels as needed while dramatically decreasing our oil use and eliminating the burning of coal to generate electricity.
Here’s how we can get to a renewable energy economy that is self-sustaining without the need for further subsidies.:
A. Renewable energy is already almost cost competitive or is so IF the capital cost of installing it can be covered and there are some current incentives in place we can make progress toward the massive installations of renewable energy we need.
We have the incentives in place. And, where needed they can be extended in the short term.
But some kind of Renewable Energy Funding group that could be set up (similar to that set up for FHA Real Estate financing to allow more people to become homeowners or like the SBA loan guarantees we have now that help businesses start or expand) that would act as a catalyst to homeowners, businesses, and utility companies installing new renewable energy sources.
This kind of financial entity for building the new transmission lines and for helping utilities add large scale renewable energy sources will be very important to do. Many states are already asking utilities to add such renewable energy generation and should require more. BUT, without the financing available, it won’t happen and cannot happen. So this government funding source is one kind of subsidy I think is critically important.
Also, a very critical policy is to require that all utility companies in the United States buy back renewable energy in excess of current demand by homeowners or businesses that are on its grid at market rates. In many areas now, you can zero out your utility bill in many months of the year if you have wind or solar generation; but your utility gets any excess renewable energy you produce beyond that free. This is a DIS-incentive to build and install renewable energy sources that should be immediately and permanently halted everywhere.
B. Then once we get started building more renewable energy it will gradually become clear how to incentivize the continued expansion of the renewable energy we need even more in ways that make sense. Providing capital to venture firms to expand renewable energy companies that are cost competitive with fossil fuels and profitable while continuing to catalyze the building of renewable energy with a federal financing arm for it will probably make sense.
C. We should begin to lightly tax all fossil fuels while their cost is temporarily low AND to give back the people and businesses taxed most of those funds to enable them to use less fossil fuels by taking energy efficiency steps or by building renewable energy sources as substitutes.
D. THEN, once all this is in place and there is an expanding base of energy efficiency actions and renewable energy sources, we should start adding restrictions and taxes on fossil fuels until their market cost is at least equal to the true overall lifetime cost of using them.
Roughly speaking that means that the delivered cost for natural gas would at least double; the delivered cost of fuels based on petroleum would go up four times; and the delivered cost of coal to be burned directly would go up ten times; and it would be gradually discontinued to be allowed at all.
The good news is that even in the initial stages, as the taxes increase the cost of fossil fuels and the new technologies and economies of scale begin to make renewable energy cheaper to use than fossil fuels, we will begin to get the massive expansion of renewable sources we need. The renewable sources will cost less and make the providers profits with no further subsidies needed.
Since we now rely on these fossil fuel sources for a huge amount of our transport, heating, and electricity generation and a huge part of our economy and existing jobs is connected to them, it’s also important that we may a huge and growing start with renewable sources and energy efficiency FIRST-- AND make these tax increases and restriction gradually to protect our economy.
That said, I think the process should be set up to be done in no more than 30 years. The taxes can be light until renewable energy costs less; and then moved gradually to very high as renewable replacements are brought online.
If all of the above steps or something very like them are taken, I think we can not only transition to an energy efficient and renewable energy economy and phase out of most use of fossil fuels but also do it with little harm our economy at first and a MUCH stronger and sustainable economy later.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Suggested ideas for Obama’s coal policy......
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-24-2008
The Obama administration will do a good deal more than previous ones on installing more renewable energy generation.
He’s already said he would do so and said so even more emphatically now that he is President-elect.
Both the Sierra Club and Al Gore’s group are lobbying to restrict or dramatically lessen the burning of coal for heating and electricity generation.
Burning coal for these reasons world wide is making global warming happen on steroids and producing world wide cuts in solar energy available for solar power and agriculture plus producing health harmful air pollution.
It’s extremely clear that such coal burning needs to be stopped as soon as it can be done safely. But it CANNOT be done safely or easily.
So, since the Sierra Club set up a way to email our support of their 4 policy ideas to the incoming Obama administration, I filled in their form and added my comments on my general support for those four points. And I added my ideas of how the process of winding down the direct burning of coal can safely be begun.
My ideas or something like them may help make achieving the goal of nor more direct burning of coal more economically and politically feasible.
And, I decided to make that my email my post here for today.:
“Please Adopt a Clean Energy Agenda
Dear President Obama, Weds, 12-24-2008
I voted for you because I thought you would and the other guy would not.
I like your other positions mostly but the different aspects of adding clean energy sources and taking energy efficiency steps while gradually turning off burning of fossil fuels was by FAR the MOST important issue.
1. Last week I posted some ideas I hope you can use at www.RenewableEnergyArrives.blogspot.com
"Fast progress on renewable energy jobs......
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-17-2008"
Please have your staff consider those ideas.
2. I'm an email member of your email list; & my wife Abigail & I are of the Sierra Club's.
I mostly support their four points but will add my comments.:
There are four decisions you can make on Day One of your administration, independently of Congress, that will have an immediate impact on cutting global warming pollution and spurring a clean energy economy.
Please use your Presidential power to:
1. Direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to grant a waiver that will allow California and over a dozen other states to limit global warming pollution from cars.
I expect you already plan to do this one; & it IS a good idea.
2. End the rush to build dirty coal plants by directing EPA to require all new and existing power plants limit their global warming emissions.
Their air pollution and global warming contribution are so bad, it's unfortunate we cannot just evaporate them all now. But we currently get about half our electricity from them and more in some important states -- plus many jobs in them and in coal mining are involved which affects some State's politics.
Here's my ideas on this one:
a) start immediately to begin to require 100 percent retrofitting to eliminate air pollutants such as the chemicals that cause acid rain and high levels of small sized particulates.
That will increase the cost of running coal fired plants and the electricity they provide to be sure. But it will also make clean energy more competitive and may save more health care costs overall than it costs. Then, lobby China to do the same thing!
b) start immediately to build the new clean energy sources and transmission lines to replace the electricity now generated by coal.
c) task the coal industry to begin planning to build pollution free plants to make cleaner burning and easier to transport methane, diesel, and gasoline which will help replace imported gas and oil.
d) task the coal industry to begin planning to build
pollution free plants to make what are now petrochemicals.
That way the coal industry will survive after we stop burning coal directly which is and should be our goal.
e) If they actually demonstrate cost competitive ways to burn coal in a way that produces ZERO air pollution and 100 % sequestration of CO2, fine. But let them know the time is coming when no other kind of direct burning of coal can be allowed.
Since as renewable sources come down in price, the cost competitive part of this will likely become impossible, suggest they concentrate 100 % on b, c, & d above.
3. Direct your EPA to end irresponsible mountaintop removal coal mining by stopping coal companies from dumping rock and waste into valleys and streams.
This will increase the costs to the mining companies but not drive them out of business plus eliminate the pollution this practice causes. Definitely do this one!
4. Restore America's international leadership in the fight to end global warming by publicly committing the U.S. to cut its CO2 emissions by at least 35% by 2020.
You already said you would. Good job!!
Warmest & Best Regards,
David Eller“
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-24-2008
The Obama administration will do a good deal more than previous ones on installing more renewable energy generation.
He’s already said he would do so and said so even more emphatically now that he is President-elect.
Both the Sierra Club and Al Gore’s group are lobbying to restrict or dramatically lessen the burning of coal for heating and electricity generation.
Burning coal for these reasons world wide is making global warming happen on steroids and producing world wide cuts in solar energy available for solar power and agriculture plus producing health harmful air pollution.
It’s extremely clear that such coal burning needs to be stopped as soon as it can be done safely. But it CANNOT be done safely or easily.
So, since the Sierra Club set up a way to email our support of their 4 policy ideas to the incoming Obama administration, I filled in their form and added my comments on my general support for those four points. And I added my ideas of how the process of winding down the direct burning of coal can safely be begun.
My ideas or something like them may help make achieving the goal of nor more direct burning of coal more economically and politically feasible.
And, I decided to make that my email my post here for today.:
“Please Adopt a Clean Energy Agenda
Dear President Obama, Weds, 12-24-2008
I voted for you because I thought you would and the other guy would not.
I like your other positions mostly but the different aspects of adding clean energy sources and taking energy efficiency steps while gradually turning off burning of fossil fuels was by FAR the MOST important issue.
1. Last week I posted some ideas I hope you can use at www.RenewableEnergyArrives.blogspot.com
"Fast progress on renewable energy jobs......
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-17-2008"
Please have your staff consider those ideas.
2. I'm an email member of your email list; & my wife Abigail & I are of the Sierra Club's.
I mostly support their four points but will add my comments.:
There are four decisions you can make on Day One of your administration, independently of Congress, that will have an immediate impact on cutting global warming pollution and spurring a clean energy economy.
Please use your Presidential power to:
1. Direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to grant a waiver that will allow California and over a dozen other states to limit global warming pollution from cars.
I expect you already plan to do this one; & it IS a good idea.
2. End the rush to build dirty coal plants by directing EPA to require all new and existing power plants limit their global warming emissions.
Their air pollution and global warming contribution are so bad, it's unfortunate we cannot just evaporate them all now. But we currently get about half our electricity from them and more in some important states -- plus many jobs in them and in coal mining are involved which affects some State's politics.
Here's my ideas on this one:
a) start immediately to begin to require 100 percent retrofitting to eliminate air pollutants such as the chemicals that cause acid rain and high levels of small sized particulates.
That will increase the cost of running coal fired plants and the electricity they provide to be sure. But it will also make clean energy more competitive and may save more health care costs overall than it costs. Then, lobby China to do the same thing!
b) start immediately to build the new clean energy sources and transmission lines to replace the electricity now generated by coal.
c) task the coal industry to begin planning to build pollution free plants to make cleaner burning and easier to transport methane, diesel, and gasoline which will help replace imported gas and oil.
d) task the coal industry to begin planning to build
pollution free plants to make what are now petrochemicals.
That way the coal industry will survive after we stop burning coal directly which is and should be our goal.
e) If they actually demonstrate cost competitive ways to burn coal in a way that produces ZERO air pollution and 100 % sequestration of CO2, fine. But let them know the time is coming when no other kind of direct burning of coal can be allowed.
Since as renewable sources come down in price, the cost competitive part of this will likely become impossible, suggest they concentrate 100 % on b, c, & d above.
3. Direct your EPA to end irresponsible mountaintop removal coal mining by stopping coal companies from dumping rock and waste into valleys and streams.
This will increase the costs to the mining companies but not drive them out of business plus eliminate the pollution this practice causes. Definitely do this one!
4. Restore America's international leadership in the fight to end global warming by publicly committing the U.S. to cut its CO2 emissions by at least 35% by 2020.
You already said you would. Good job!!
Warmest & Best Regards,
David Eller“
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Fast progress on renewable energy jobs......
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-17-2008
The Obama administration will do a good deal more than previous ones on installing more renewable energy generation.
The current website for the administration for participation by individuals is
http://change.gov/ under the agenda tab and then by clicking on Energy and Environment lists the goals they have now.
It begins with this:
“The Obama-Biden comprehensive New Energy for America plan will:
Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.”
It seems clear to me that the initial job program in an economic stimulus package is likely to include many jobs upgrading infrastructure across the country driven by projects that are needed in the part of the country that are represented by each of the members of congress. The votes need to come from somewhere; and the jobs created will be in the state or district represented or near it in a way that will benefit their constituents.
These jobs will also help improve the economy by increasing safety on our roads or by making our drinking water more reliable and safer to drink and avoiding or postponing expenses for the communities involved. New, safer, bridges will get built. Highways will be made smoother and safer that are in bad shape now. And, water systems will get upgraded so they will last longer, deliver cleaner water, and leak enough less of it to cut the need to in put water in half or more.
This is actually desirable and good for the economy as well as politically doable and even likely.
However, it also quite clear that we now ALSO need to have a huge effort to add jobs that actually make fast contributions to energy efficiency or to adding renewable energy capacity. And we need it immediately.
Here are some ideas on HOW to do this.:
As we posted last week:
A. “One of the backers of the CleanTech for Obama group has pointed out that many already cost effective steps to energy efficiency can be taken throughout the United States to lower our energy use without harming our economy.” I added that this includes such things “as adding insulation, heat proofing buildings with peaked roofs, and weather stripping windows all of which can be done by people in the United States needing jobs.”
In many parts of the United States houses already tend to be well insulated and weather-stripped; but even there it’s not 100 %. Why not help lower income homeowners and apartment owners in lower income areas to do this even if federal money &/or money from that state with add-on money from the federal government is needed to make that happen?
And, in many parts of the West and Southern United States, the need is far greater because for much of the year people can get by with no weather stripping and little or no insulation. But this causes a large use of wasted energy each winter. Why not add jobs in those communities to correct this?
These jobs will be somewhat temporary though this process might take10 year or more to be completed. But even a ten percent start almost immediately would put thousands of people to work all over the country.
In areas where people use air conditioners now, typically well over half and often as much as ninety percent of the energy used is wasted to remove heat from the building that could have been prevented from entering at a dramatically LOWER cost in energy.
Adding insulation and double pane windows will help do this.
Even more effective in houses and apartments with peaked roofs is adding well screened air access ports around the base of the roof and installing convection powered turbines toward the peak of the roof. Other than those areas so hot that a powered and thermostatically controlled extractor fan needs to be added, once these heat proofing methods are installed, they cut 50 to 95 % from the energy needed to cool the house or apartment building every summer and need ZERO energy to do this once they are installed.
So, once this is done, will cooling the house to slightly too cool temperatures first thing in the morning and then turning off the air conditioning until the temperature goes above 75 degrees. In a heat proofed building this will not even happen on most days. And at 75 degrees you can be decently comfortable if you have installed ceiling fans.
So, heat proofing is only moderately expensive and saves huge amounts of electricity every summer after it’s done.
Projects like these across the United States would provide a huge number of jobs if it were to be done in every community in the United States and to every building that now needs it.
We should definitely come as close to making that happen as possible in the next 4 to 8 years.
We need the jobs now. And, it will save more in energy costs than the money to do it will cost our economy. This is well known but has NOT been acted on yet.
This can also be accomplished by raising the money to replace and properly dispose of energy-inefficient refrigerators; and to give all our homes and businesses an energy management system that will safely power down TV’s, video game players, and other devices that now use energy while they are NOT in use.”
Doing this would also create jobs.
B. I also suggested this. “We need to set up national prizes and funds for the kind of venture capital that rolls out new technology that works; and we should do this to incentivize the development and rapid deployment of new energy technology generally.
This will create jobs here. And these companies can bring money here by selling these products to the rest of the world.
In particular, we need to do this for LED light bulbs that are available at the cost today of fluorescent light bulbs or less and which will fit all the sockets that have been used for incandescent bulbs. Such bulbs use even less electricity than fluorescent light bulbs, perhaps a full third as much in fact. And, they won’t poison our homes, businesses, and planet with mercury as using fluorescent light bulbs looks likely to do and very likely IS doing now.
GE is developing a kind of wallpaper that lights up walls and ceilings with an ideally dispersed light source that uses LED’s. That’s a superb idea.
But for now, the glaring need is for cost effective and readily available LED light bulbs to replace incandescent light bulbs and fluorescent light bulbs in the light bulb sockets people have NOW. (Pardon the pun.)
Again, this is an energy efficiency method that will save huge amounts of energy that both creates jobs and continues to give us the light we need.
It does NOT sacrifice our prosperity or quality of life like purposely living in dimly lit rooms to save energy would do.”
Many of these ideas can be put into place or initiated in the first 6 months of the Obama administration.
C. Solar thermal “farms” in just the appropriate parts of the United States has the capacity to generate all the electricity we currently use. (See
http://www.ausra.com/ .)
In addition, it efficiently stores the heated medium to allow electricity generation up to 16 hours a day.
The federal government could ask each utility within a reasonable distance from these areas and in them to create a plan to add close to 100 % of the thermal solar capacity available by 2030 and to find the best sites to do first that will add at least 10 % of this capacity in the next 4 years and calculate what dollar amounts this would cost and what new transmission lines would be needed.
Then the government could help pay for the transmission lines to be built and do some kind of loan guarantees or partial financing and fast tracking approvals to enable utilities to put these farms in place.
(Later it will make sense to extend this to building such solar farms in Mexico because jobs there will help solve the immigration problem here and because the solar thermal potential there is perhaps as much as THREE times the potential in the United States.)
There will be jobs created to build these plants and transmission lines soon if this is done. But the reliable and abundant electricity generated can also power plug-in hybrid cars and energy and cost efficient and partly automated new manufacturing facilities that will add even more jobs.
D. The administration could also offer some tax credits to businesses that: install solar photovoltaic panels on their building roofs;
& to those that add roof canopies over their parking lots and also install solar photovoltaic panels on them;
& to those that reduce waste of energy and add energy efficient devices to lower their energy needed & with a bonus to those companies that harvest enough solar electricity over a year’s time to exceed 50 % of their energy use by doing all three.
E. Germany has a fraction of the solar photovoltaic potential as the United States but has installed dramatically more solar photovoltaic capacity per capita than the United States. They do this because of the way the utilities there help pay for these installations through slightly increasing utility bills and by giving people who generate more electricity than they use a payment equal to the costs of the utility to generate it otherwise.
It would create jobs across the country if it became a country wide requirement for each utility here to adopt that policy by the end of 2009.
It’s been so effective there I cannot fathom why even the Bush administration didn’t do this already.
I think it is imperative that the Obama administration do everything it can to get this done country wide in 2009.
F. I think that the federal government should back the wind electricity generation and the added transmission lines part of the “Pickens Plan” in every part of the United States that has enough wind.
(I think plug in hybrids and all electric cars powered by renewable energy are a superior solution to using natural gas. So I think that the use of the natural gas not needed once the wind power is in place to generate electricity should not get extra funding. That said, it would replace gasoline now made from imported oil.
My hope is that we will be able to use plug-in hybrids and biofuels and liquid fuels made from coal instead. Here’s why: Natural gas is a superb fossil fuel for cooking and heating. To generate any electricity we still need besides what we get from renewable sources natural gas is dramatically cleaner than burning coal and far easier to transport. And, natural gas too is a finite resource that we should conserve.)
However, even without adding the costs of medical care caused by burning coal and the costs generated by doing so to fight the global warming effects this causes to its use to generate electricity with taxes or carbon cap & trade systems, wind power is already competitive with burning coal in cost. So, backing the nationwide implementation of the wind powered electricity generation and added transmission lines part of the Pickens plan is a way to add jobs and renewable energy that deserves an extremely high priority.
G. We can also add jobs and renewable energy by enabling every competent company now installing photovoltaic panels in homes and apartment buildings and small businesses to have some kind of subsidy that helps pay their installers.
And, we can see to it that every community college in the United States has an effective program that will train an installer in a year or less that the federal government helps to fund.
What’s the right answer to adding jobs
AND renewable energy at the same time?
I’m virtually certain there’s a list as long as this one of other ways that might work that I simply don’t know about yet. Many of them should also be used.
But I DO know ONE right answer likely to be adequate to get the job done already.
It’s to see to it that everything in this list of things here in this post that are already known to work be done as early as possible during the next four years.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-17-2008
The Obama administration will do a good deal more than previous ones on installing more renewable energy generation.
The current website for the administration for participation by individuals is
http://change.gov/ under the agenda tab and then by clicking on Energy and Environment lists the goals they have now.
It begins with this:
“The Obama-Biden comprehensive New Energy for America plan will:
Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.”
It seems clear to me that the initial job program in an economic stimulus package is likely to include many jobs upgrading infrastructure across the country driven by projects that are needed in the part of the country that are represented by each of the members of congress. The votes need to come from somewhere; and the jobs created will be in the state or district represented or near it in a way that will benefit their constituents.
These jobs will also help improve the economy by increasing safety on our roads or by making our drinking water more reliable and safer to drink and avoiding or postponing expenses for the communities involved. New, safer, bridges will get built. Highways will be made smoother and safer that are in bad shape now. And, water systems will get upgraded so they will last longer, deliver cleaner water, and leak enough less of it to cut the need to in put water in half or more.
This is actually desirable and good for the economy as well as politically doable and even likely.
However, it also quite clear that we now ALSO need to have a huge effort to add jobs that actually make fast contributions to energy efficiency or to adding renewable energy capacity. And we need it immediately.
Here are some ideas on HOW to do this.:
As we posted last week:
A. “One of the backers of the CleanTech for Obama group has pointed out that many already cost effective steps to energy efficiency can be taken throughout the United States to lower our energy use without harming our economy.” I added that this includes such things “as adding insulation, heat proofing buildings with peaked roofs, and weather stripping windows all of which can be done by people in the United States needing jobs.”
In many parts of the United States houses already tend to be well insulated and weather-stripped; but even there it’s not 100 %. Why not help lower income homeowners and apartment owners in lower income areas to do this even if federal money &/or money from that state with add-on money from the federal government is needed to make that happen?
And, in many parts of the West and Southern United States, the need is far greater because for much of the year people can get by with no weather stripping and little or no insulation. But this causes a large use of wasted energy each winter. Why not add jobs in those communities to correct this?
These jobs will be somewhat temporary though this process might take10 year or more to be completed. But even a ten percent start almost immediately would put thousands of people to work all over the country.
In areas where people use air conditioners now, typically well over half and often as much as ninety percent of the energy used is wasted to remove heat from the building that could have been prevented from entering at a dramatically LOWER cost in energy.
Adding insulation and double pane windows will help do this.
Even more effective in houses and apartments with peaked roofs is adding well screened air access ports around the base of the roof and installing convection powered turbines toward the peak of the roof. Other than those areas so hot that a powered and thermostatically controlled extractor fan needs to be added, once these heat proofing methods are installed, they cut 50 to 95 % from the energy needed to cool the house or apartment building every summer and need ZERO energy to do this once they are installed.
So, once this is done, will cooling the house to slightly too cool temperatures first thing in the morning and then turning off the air conditioning until the temperature goes above 75 degrees. In a heat proofed building this will not even happen on most days. And at 75 degrees you can be decently comfortable if you have installed ceiling fans.
So, heat proofing is only moderately expensive and saves huge amounts of electricity every summer after it’s done.
Projects like these across the United States would provide a huge number of jobs if it were to be done in every community in the United States and to every building that now needs it.
We should definitely come as close to making that happen as possible in the next 4 to 8 years.
We need the jobs now. And, it will save more in energy costs than the money to do it will cost our economy. This is well known but has NOT been acted on yet.
This can also be accomplished by raising the money to replace and properly dispose of energy-inefficient refrigerators; and to give all our homes and businesses an energy management system that will safely power down TV’s, video game players, and other devices that now use energy while they are NOT in use.”
Doing this would also create jobs.
B. I also suggested this. “We need to set up national prizes and funds for the kind of venture capital that rolls out new technology that works; and we should do this to incentivize the development and rapid deployment of new energy technology generally.
This will create jobs here. And these companies can bring money here by selling these products to the rest of the world.
In particular, we need to do this for LED light bulbs that are available at the cost today of fluorescent light bulbs or less and which will fit all the sockets that have been used for incandescent bulbs. Such bulbs use even less electricity than fluorescent light bulbs, perhaps a full third as much in fact. And, they won’t poison our homes, businesses, and planet with mercury as using fluorescent light bulbs looks likely to do and very likely IS doing now.
GE is developing a kind of wallpaper that lights up walls and ceilings with an ideally dispersed light source that uses LED’s. That’s a superb idea.
But for now, the glaring need is for cost effective and readily available LED light bulbs to replace incandescent light bulbs and fluorescent light bulbs in the light bulb sockets people have NOW. (Pardon the pun.)
Again, this is an energy efficiency method that will save huge amounts of energy that both creates jobs and continues to give us the light we need.
It does NOT sacrifice our prosperity or quality of life like purposely living in dimly lit rooms to save energy would do.”
Many of these ideas can be put into place or initiated in the first 6 months of the Obama administration.
C. Solar thermal “farms” in just the appropriate parts of the United States has the capacity to generate all the electricity we currently use. (See
http://www.ausra.com/ .)
In addition, it efficiently stores the heated medium to allow electricity generation up to 16 hours a day.
The federal government could ask each utility within a reasonable distance from these areas and in them to create a plan to add close to 100 % of the thermal solar capacity available by 2030 and to find the best sites to do first that will add at least 10 % of this capacity in the next 4 years and calculate what dollar amounts this would cost and what new transmission lines would be needed.
Then the government could help pay for the transmission lines to be built and do some kind of loan guarantees or partial financing and fast tracking approvals to enable utilities to put these farms in place.
(Later it will make sense to extend this to building such solar farms in Mexico because jobs there will help solve the immigration problem here and because the solar thermal potential there is perhaps as much as THREE times the potential in the United States.)
There will be jobs created to build these plants and transmission lines soon if this is done. But the reliable and abundant electricity generated can also power plug-in hybrid cars and energy and cost efficient and partly automated new manufacturing facilities that will add even more jobs.
D. The administration could also offer some tax credits to businesses that: install solar photovoltaic panels on their building roofs;
& to those that add roof canopies over their parking lots and also install solar photovoltaic panels on them;
& to those that reduce waste of energy and add energy efficient devices to lower their energy needed & with a bonus to those companies that harvest enough solar electricity over a year’s time to exceed 50 % of their energy use by doing all three.
E. Germany has a fraction of the solar photovoltaic potential as the United States but has installed dramatically more solar photovoltaic capacity per capita than the United States. They do this because of the way the utilities there help pay for these installations through slightly increasing utility bills and by giving people who generate more electricity than they use a payment equal to the costs of the utility to generate it otherwise.
It would create jobs across the country if it became a country wide requirement for each utility here to adopt that policy by the end of 2009.
It’s been so effective there I cannot fathom why even the Bush administration didn’t do this already.
I think it is imperative that the Obama administration do everything it can to get this done country wide in 2009.
F. I think that the federal government should back the wind electricity generation and the added transmission lines part of the “Pickens Plan” in every part of the United States that has enough wind.
(I think plug in hybrids and all electric cars powered by renewable energy are a superior solution to using natural gas. So I think that the use of the natural gas not needed once the wind power is in place to generate electricity should not get extra funding. That said, it would replace gasoline now made from imported oil.
My hope is that we will be able to use plug-in hybrids and biofuels and liquid fuels made from coal instead. Here’s why: Natural gas is a superb fossil fuel for cooking and heating. To generate any electricity we still need besides what we get from renewable sources natural gas is dramatically cleaner than burning coal and far easier to transport. And, natural gas too is a finite resource that we should conserve.)
However, even without adding the costs of medical care caused by burning coal and the costs generated by doing so to fight the global warming effects this causes to its use to generate electricity with taxes or carbon cap & trade systems, wind power is already competitive with burning coal in cost. So, backing the nationwide implementation of the wind powered electricity generation and added transmission lines part of the Pickens plan is a way to add jobs and renewable energy that deserves an extremely high priority.
G. We can also add jobs and renewable energy by enabling every competent company now installing photovoltaic panels in homes and apartment buildings and small businesses to have some kind of subsidy that helps pay their installers.
And, we can see to it that every community college in the United States has an effective program that will train an installer in a year or less that the federal government helps to fund.
What’s the right answer to adding jobs
AND renewable energy at the same time?
I’m virtually certain there’s a list as long as this one of other ways that might work that I simply don’t know about yet. Many of them should also be used.
But I DO know ONE right answer likely to be adequate to get the job done already.
It’s to see to it that everything in this list of things here in this post that are already known to work be done as early as possible during the next four years.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Extra Effort on getting to Renewable Energy soon......
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-10-2008
Just a few weeks ago, Al Gore said we should move to 100 % renewable energy in 10 years or by 2018.
In a report called “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World”, various experts & analysts in the US Intelligence organizations and from other places state that renewable energy will NOT be commercially viable by 2025.
And, this report was supplied to President-elect, Obama recently a current news article said.
If we don’t take action, massive coordinated action on several fronts to come much closer to Al Gore’s goal than this new report suggests is likely, we are in very serious trouble. Costs from global warming will begin to destroy our economy while our economy starves for energy at reasonable costs. For example gasoline prices of more than $5 a gallon in today’s dollars will return as the world’s economy tries to recover from the current recession.
Given that we may already have more CO2 in our air than is safe, the status quo of simply drilling for more oil and building more coal fired plants world wide is extremely dangerous.
Yet, a prosperous economy needs more usable, effective, energy to achieve that prosperity and keep it – not less.
That’s why we need not just an effort comparable to the Manhattan Project; but an effort comparable to the entire United States effort to win World War II to start immediately to begin to tax coal and oil use commensurate with their real economic costs; & to regulate their use; AND to use the funds generated plus further investments to increase energy-efficiency and add renewable energy on a huge scale as quickly as we ramped up war production in World War II—or faster.
1. Wind power is already competitive in costs with fossil fuels.
That’s why T Boone Pickens’ plan, or at least the part that adds lots of wind powered electricity generation and new transmission lines to transport it needs to be immediately expanded and implemented in every place that has enough wind.
2. Large solar thermal farms are very close to being competitive with fossil fuels. And there are huge areas in the United States and even more in Mexico (and in other parts of the world) that work well to build them. Plus we also need to add the new transmission lines to these solar thermal farms to deliver their electricity.
We need to have the United States government act in some way to make immediate financing on favorable terms available to build these plants and the transmission lines.
And, we need to have every utility reachable by those lines be required to get perhaps as high as 60 % of their electricity from that source alone by 2030.
This is because the energy is there NOW on that large a scale to be harvested; and the heated media can be efficiently stored to deliver power for several hours after the sun heats it and sets.
3. We also need to increase the incentives enough and drive down the costs enough over the next few years to build both solar photovoltaic farms in favorable locations AND to add roof top solar to virtually every usable rooftop of every building standing AND to build roofs over most of our parking lots that also have solar photovoltaic cells on them.
4. We need to begin to scale up the successful experiments that produce usable biodiesel, ethanol, and jet fuel and chemical feedstocks from algae or other methods that do NOT compete with growing food so that most liquid fuels can be made from processes that remove CO2 in addition to adding it back to our air.
5. We need to stop burning coal for fuel and to convert the coal we have into cleaner burning liquid fuels and gas that can be added to biofuels or used to replace petroleum.
In the near term this will prevent the coal businesses in the United States from a collapse immediate enough to dislocate the economies of the communities where they now are. And, it will provide these fuels while biofuels are just beginning to ramp up.
6. We need to start planning to replace all the coal burning plants we have now with renewable sources such as wind or solar or with plants that burn biofuels and cleaner burning fuels made from coal.
(It may be possible to sequester the CO2 and other pollutants 100 % that burning coal releases. We should certainly research that.) But meanwhile we should be winding down our use of the kinds of coal burning plants we have now towards zero.
And, both here and in the rest of the world, we should act NOW to prevent new coal burning plants from being built and used.
It’s clear in China and everywhere immediately downwind from China that the air pollution alone from burning coal on a very large scale costs almost more in added medical costs than the value of the electricity it generates. And, adding lots more CO2 to our air instead of less makes ZERO sense. So absolutely NO new coal burning plants should be built anywhere.
7. One of the backers of the CleanTech for Obama group has pointed out that many already cost effective steps to energy efficiency can be taken throughout the United States to lower our energy use without harming our economy such as adding insulation, heat proofing buildings with peaked roofs, and weather stripping windows all of which can be done by people in the United States needing jobs.
This would provide a huge number of jobs if it were to be done in every community in the United States to every building that now needs it.
We should definitely come as close to making that happen as possible in the next 4 to 8 years.
We need the jobs now. And, it will save more in energy costs than the money to do it will cost our economy.
This can also be accomplished by raising the money to replace and properly dispose of energy-inefficient refrigerators; and to give all our homes and businesses an energy management system that will safely power down TV’s, video game players, and other devices that now use energy while they are NOT in use.
8. We need to set up national prizes and funds for the kind of venture capital that rolls out new technology that works; and we should do this to incentivize the development and rapid deployment of new energy technology generally.
This will create jobs here. And these companies can bring money here by selling these products to the rest of the world.
In particular, we need to do this for LED light bulbs that are available at the cost today of fluorescent light bulbs or less and which will fit all the sockets that have been used for incandescent bulbs. Such bulbs use even less electricity than fluorescent light bulbs, perhaps a full third as much in fact. And, they won’t poison our homes, businesses, and planet with mercury as using fluorescent light bulbs looks likely to do and very likely IS doing now.
GE is developing a kind of wallpaper that lights up walls and ceilings with an ideally dispersed light source that uses LED’s. That’s a superb idea. But for now, the glaring need is for cost effective and readily available LED light bulbs to replace incandescent light bulbs and fluorescent light bulbs in the light bulb sockets people have now. (Pardon the pun.)
Again, this is an energy efficiency method that will save huge amounts of energy that both creates jobs and continues to give us the light we need.
It does NOT sacrifice our prosperity or quality of life like purposely living in dimly lit rooms to save energy would do.
I believe each of these goals is doable by 2030. But they will only happen and make the intelligence community report look timid and incorrect if we take massive action to achieve them all.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-10-2008
Just a few weeks ago, Al Gore said we should move to 100 % renewable energy in 10 years or by 2018.
In a report called “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World”, various experts & analysts in the US Intelligence organizations and from other places state that renewable energy will NOT be commercially viable by 2025.
And, this report was supplied to President-elect, Obama recently a current news article said.
If we don’t take action, massive coordinated action on several fronts to come much closer to Al Gore’s goal than this new report suggests is likely, we are in very serious trouble. Costs from global warming will begin to destroy our economy while our economy starves for energy at reasonable costs. For example gasoline prices of more than $5 a gallon in today’s dollars will return as the world’s economy tries to recover from the current recession.
Given that we may already have more CO2 in our air than is safe, the status quo of simply drilling for more oil and building more coal fired plants world wide is extremely dangerous.
Yet, a prosperous economy needs more usable, effective, energy to achieve that prosperity and keep it – not less.
That’s why we need not just an effort comparable to the Manhattan Project; but an effort comparable to the entire United States effort to win World War II to start immediately to begin to tax coal and oil use commensurate with their real economic costs; & to regulate their use; AND to use the funds generated plus further investments to increase energy-efficiency and add renewable energy on a huge scale as quickly as we ramped up war production in World War II—or faster.
1. Wind power is already competitive in costs with fossil fuels.
That’s why T Boone Pickens’ plan, or at least the part that adds lots of wind powered electricity generation and new transmission lines to transport it needs to be immediately expanded and implemented in every place that has enough wind.
2. Large solar thermal farms are very close to being competitive with fossil fuels. And there are huge areas in the United States and even more in Mexico (and in other parts of the world) that work well to build them. Plus we also need to add the new transmission lines to these solar thermal farms to deliver their electricity.
We need to have the United States government act in some way to make immediate financing on favorable terms available to build these plants and the transmission lines.
And, we need to have every utility reachable by those lines be required to get perhaps as high as 60 % of their electricity from that source alone by 2030.
This is because the energy is there NOW on that large a scale to be harvested; and the heated media can be efficiently stored to deliver power for several hours after the sun heats it and sets.
3. We also need to increase the incentives enough and drive down the costs enough over the next few years to build both solar photovoltaic farms in favorable locations AND to add roof top solar to virtually every usable rooftop of every building standing AND to build roofs over most of our parking lots that also have solar photovoltaic cells on them.
4. We need to begin to scale up the successful experiments that produce usable biodiesel, ethanol, and jet fuel and chemical feedstocks from algae or other methods that do NOT compete with growing food so that most liquid fuels can be made from processes that remove CO2 in addition to adding it back to our air.
5. We need to stop burning coal for fuel and to convert the coal we have into cleaner burning liquid fuels and gas that can be added to biofuels or used to replace petroleum.
In the near term this will prevent the coal businesses in the United States from a collapse immediate enough to dislocate the economies of the communities where they now are. And, it will provide these fuels while biofuels are just beginning to ramp up.
6. We need to start planning to replace all the coal burning plants we have now with renewable sources such as wind or solar or with plants that burn biofuels and cleaner burning fuels made from coal.
(It may be possible to sequester the CO2 and other pollutants 100 % that burning coal releases. We should certainly research that.) But meanwhile we should be winding down our use of the kinds of coal burning plants we have now towards zero.
And, both here and in the rest of the world, we should act NOW to prevent new coal burning plants from being built and used.
It’s clear in China and everywhere immediately downwind from China that the air pollution alone from burning coal on a very large scale costs almost more in added medical costs than the value of the electricity it generates. And, adding lots more CO2 to our air instead of less makes ZERO sense. So absolutely NO new coal burning plants should be built anywhere.
7. One of the backers of the CleanTech for Obama group has pointed out that many already cost effective steps to energy efficiency can be taken throughout the United States to lower our energy use without harming our economy such as adding insulation, heat proofing buildings with peaked roofs, and weather stripping windows all of which can be done by people in the United States needing jobs.
This would provide a huge number of jobs if it were to be done in every community in the United States to every building that now needs it.
We should definitely come as close to making that happen as possible in the next 4 to 8 years.
We need the jobs now. And, it will save more in energy costs than the money to do it will cost our economy.
This can also be accomplished by raising the money to replace and properly dispose of energy-inefficient refrigerators; and to give all our homes and businesses an energy management system that will safely power down TV’s, video game players, and other devices that now use energy while they are NOT in use.
8. We need to set up national prizes and funds for the kind of venture capital that rolls out new technology that works; and we should do this to incentivize the development and rapid deployment of new energy technology generally.
This will create jobs here. And these companies can bring money here by selling these products to the rest of the world.
In particular, we need to do this for LED light bulbs that are available at the cost today of fluorescent light bulbs or less and which will fit all the sockets that have been used for incandescent bulbs. Such bulbs use even less electricity than fluorescent light bulbs, perhaps a full third as much in fact. And, they won’t poison our homes, businesses, and planet with mercury as using fluorescent light bulbs looks likely to do and very likely IS doing now.
GE is developing a kind of wallpaper that lights up walls and ceilings with an ideally dispersed light source that uses LED’s. That’s a superb idea. But for now, the glaring need is for cost effective and readily available LED light bulbs to replace incandescent light bulbs and fluorescent light bulbs in the light bulb sockets people have now. (Pardon the pun.)
Again, this is an energy efficiency method that will save huge amounts of energy that both creates jobs and continues to give us the light we need.
It does NOT sacrifice our prosperity or quality of life like purposely living in dimly lit rooms to save energy would do.
I believe each of these goals is doable by 2030. But they will only happen and make the intelligence community report look timid and incorrect if we take massive action to achieve them all.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Help increase support for rapid increases in Renewable Energy......
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-3-2008
1. First, burning fossil fuels is already harming our economy, our health, and our entire world’s environment.
And, it will act as an increasingly worse brake on our economy the longer we continue to do it. So, developing abundant renewable energy to replace that will begin to remove that brake. This alone will improve our economy.
One analyst was recently quoted as saying most developed countries will need $50 billion or more each year to overcome the costs created by ongoing global warming.
The medical costs of the huge amounts of air pollution alone may begin to cost that much.
2. But the upside is MUCH better. We are beginning to develop the technologies & build the companies that clearly will allow us to build so much new renewable energy generation and add or retrofit so much energy efficiency into our economy that within 15 to 30 years we can double our current use of energy and increase by four times the usable or effective energy that we have AND do all that with just renewable energy alone.
Eventually this will result in a MUCH stronger economy that needs perhaps 10 percent or less of the fossil fuels we currently use. And this will keep declining in both percentage and total use each year after that until it approaches zero. (However, we will still use petroleum for petrochemicals as oilman J. Paul Getty long ago foresaw.)
Readers of this blog & other people who have been following the sources I have know this information. A dramatically stronger economy with more energy and much more effective energy that is nearly 100 % based on renewable sources IS possible.
BUT, as many as 50 or 60 percent of the people in the United States do NOT yet know or believe that the cumulative effects of these developments CAN be that large if we act now to begin putting them in place.
Even worse, many otherwise intelligent and educated people are in that very large group of people.
The problem is that they have NOT been following the kinds of developments that have been posted here and in the news elsewhere enough to realize that this CAN be done OR how bad things will get if we don’t.
Unfortunately, unless this group of people can be brought up to speed on these developments and how fast the different technologies are improving and what is already doable, they won’t give our new President and others who are taking action the support they need to do the job.
Today, you have an opportunity to help change this.
Al Gore is raising money to put coverage of this information on TV on the 60 Minutes TV program.
To be sure, many people don’t watch this program. BUT, the people who DO watch it are well educated and well informed. They make more money than the average person. And, the people who know them know and respect them for these being well informed.
This effect is multiplied by the fact that many journalists and other new professionals watch 60 Minutes, particularly for important new stories.
This means that when the people who see 60 Minutes see that truly HUGE gains in renewable energy ARE possible, they will be very influential in transmitting the information to other people.
So, I think this is a very good thing to do.
Here’s how you can help.:
Here’s the info I got by email from Al Gore’s group.
“Dear David, The incoming administration is deciding right now how ambitious they can be on climate and energy policy. We need to help build broad public understanding and strong support for the kind of deep, structural change needed to end the climate crisis and revive our economy.Our next series of ads paints portraits of Americans making this change happen. It launches nationwide this week, and we could really use your help getting out the word. If we can raise $121,000 by Thursday, we'll extend our airtime purchase to get the first new Repower America ad on 60 Minutes this weekend.See the first ad in this new series here, and please help if you can. I think you'll really like it. Just click here:http://www.repoweramerica.org/60minutesad
This series of ads is designed to make the opportunity real and concrete. Ranchers making money from wind. Electricians wiring old buildings to be energy efficient. Jobs, clean energy, a strong economy. The climate crisis averted. This is the future under a 'Repower'ed America'. Most people don't realize that the proven technologies needed already exist today. We have to show them. And we don't have much time.For years, the fossil fuel industry has worked overtime to brand renewable energy as a tree-hugger delusion. But exactly the opposite is true. For example, wind power is cheap and a mature technology. Wind turbines produce electricity for less cost than oil or natural gas plants, and are competitive with new coal plants, even today. And building the wind turbines to capture this energy will create good manufacturing and construction jobs here in America. Of course, once you build the turbines you don't have to pay for any expensive foreign oil or dirty coal. American workers making the tools to harness clean American energy -- that's what the Repower America plan is all about.This ad also depicts an electric pickup truck, which is particularly head turning. The oil companies have worked for years to make people think that electric cars can never rival internal combustion in power or performance, and that's just plain wrong. Hybrids are ready today, as you know. And cars build with electric motors are four times as efficient as today's cars with gasoline engines. That's why electric cars can run on less than $1.00 per gallon-equivalent, if you get your clean power from wind, for example. And electrics can deliver all the torque and power anyone could want. It's time for Detroit to begin building this new fleet of 21st century cars.Can you help us get this ad on the air? Just go to:http://www.repoweramerica.org/60minutesad
In their hearts, everyone knows that Al Gore is right. That our biggest problems are all intertwined. That "we're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet." And that "Every bit of that's got to change."Now it's time to start talking about what that change should look like. The oil and coal companies have thousands of lobbyists on Capitol Hill promoting their idea of change. Which is,of course, really more of the same. Together, we need to work to get out the truth. Because the future is bright, if we'll just build it.Thanks,Cathy ZoiCEOwww.RepowerAmerica.org “
Today’s post: Wednesday, 12-3-2008
1. First, burning fossil fuels is already harming our economy, our health, and our entire world’s environment.
And, it will act as an increasingly worse brake on our economy the longer we continue to do it. So, developing abundant renewable energy to replace that will begin to remove that brake. This alone will improve our economy.
One analyst was recently quoted as saying most developed countries will need $50 billion or more each year to overcome the costs created by ongoing global warming.
The medical costs of the huge amounts of air pollution alone may begin to cost that much.
2. But the upside is MUCH better. We are beginning to develop the technologies & build the companies that clearly will allow us to build so much new renewable energy generation and add or retrofit so much energy efficiency into our economy that within 15 to 30 years we can double our current use of energy and increase by four times the usable or effective energy that we have AND do all that with just renewable energy alone.
Eventually this will result in a MUCH stronger economy that needs perhaps 10 percent or less of the fossil fuels we currently use. And this will keep declining in both percentage and total use each year after that until it approaches zero. (However, we will still use petroleum for petrochemicals as oilman J. Paul Getty long ago foresaw.)
Readers of this blog & other people who have been following the sources I have know this information. A dramatically stronger economy with more energy and much more effective energy that is nearly 100 % based on renewable sources IS possible.
BUT, as many as 50 or 60 percent of the people in the United States do NOT yet know or believe that the cumulative effects of these developments CAN be that large if we act now to begin putting them in place.
Even worse, many otherwise intelligent and educated people are in that very large group of people.
The problem is that they have NOT been following the kinds of developments that have been posted here and in the news elsewhere enough to realize that this CAN be done OR how bad things will get if we don’t.
Unfortunately, unless this group of people can be brought up to speed on these developments and how fast the different technologies are improving and what is already doable, they won’t give our new President and others who are taking action the support they need to do the job.
Today, you have an opportunity to help change this.
Al Gore is raising money to put coverage of this information on TV on the 60 Minutes TV program.
To be sure, many people don’t watch this program. BUT, the people who DO watch it are well educated and well informed. They make more money than the average person. And, the people who know them know and respect them for these being well informed.
This effect is multiplied by the fact that many journalists and other new professionals watch 60 Minutes, particularly for important new stories.
This means that when the people who see 60 Minutes see that truly HUGE gains in renewable energy ARE possible, they will be very influential in transmitting the information to other people.
So, I think this is a very good thing to do.
Here’s how you can help.:
Here’s the info I got by email from Al Gore’s group.
“Dear David, The incoming administration is deciding right now how ambitious they can be on climate and energy policy. We need to help build broad public understanding and strong support for the kind of deep, structural change needed to end the climate crisis and revive our economy.Our next series of ads paints portraits of Americans making this change happen. It launches nationwide this week, and we could really use your help getting out the word. If we can raise $121,000 by Thursday, we'll extend our airtime purchase to get the first new Repower America ad on 60 Minutes this weekend.See the first ad in this new series here, and please help if you can. I think you'll really like it. Just click here:http://www.repoweramerica.org/60minutesad
This series of ads is designed to make the opportunity real and concrete. Ranchers making money from wind. Electricians wiring old buildings to be energy efficient. Jobs, clean energy, a strong economy. The climate crisis averted. This is the future under a 'Repower'ed America'. Most people don't realize that the proven technologies needed already exist today. We have to show them. And we don't have much time.For years, the fossil fuel industry has worked overtime to brand renewable energy as a tree-hugger delusion. But exactly the opposite is true. For example, wind power is cheap and a mature technology. Wind turbines produce electricity for less cost than oil or natural gas plants, and are competitive with new coal plants, even today. And building the wind turbines to capture this energy will create good manufacturing and construction jobs here in America. Of course, once you build the turbines you don't have to pay for any expensive foreign oil or dirty coal. American workers making the tools to harness clean American energy -- that's what the Repower America plan is all about.This ad also depicts an electric pickup truck, which is particularly head turning. The oil companies have worked for years to make people think that electric cars can never rival internal combustion in power or performance, and that's just plain wrong. Hybrids are ready today, as you know. And cars build with electric motors are four times as efficient as today's cars with gasoline engines. That's why electric cars can run on less than $1.00 per gallon-equivalent, if you get your clean power from wind, for example. And electrics can deliver all the torque and power anyone could want. It's time for Detroit to begin building this new fleet of 21st century cars.Can you help us get this ad on the air? Just go to:http://www.repoweramerica.org/60minutesad
In their hearts, everyone knows that Al Gore is right. That our biggest problems are all intertwined. That "we're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet." And that "Every bit of that's got to change."Now it's time to start talking about what that change should look like. The oil and coal companies have thousands of lobbyists on Capitol Hill promoting their idea of change. Which is,of course, really more of the same. Together, we need to work to get out the truth. Because the future is bright, if we'll just build it.Thanks,Cathy ZoiCEOwww.RepowerAmerica.org “
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