World Class Renewable Energy in the U.S. ....

Today’s post: Wednesday, 5-27-2009

We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.

Since the energy independence of the United States from imported oil is so critical and the global importance of turning off CO2 release from burning fossil fuels is even more critically important, it seems clear that the best thing to do is to have a massive, country-wide emphasis on increasing energy efficiency and rapidly building and connecting renewable power sources everywhere in the country.

And, here in the Silicon Valley with its many solar and biofuel companies, it seems as if the United States is developing the companies and technologies needed to do this.

So, it was with a good bit of shock I read John Doerr’s comments at:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/PERAB-First-Official-Memo

In this position paper supporting the use of cap & trade in part by noting the strong success in its use in controlling sulfur emissions, he points out something I had no clue was happening.:

“If the U.S. fails to adopt an economy-wide carbon abatement program, we will continue to cede leadership in energy technology to other nations.

The U.S. is now home to only two of the ten largest solar Photo-Voltaic producers in the world, two of the top ten wind turbine producers and one of the top ten advanced battery manufacturers. That is, only one-sixth of the top renewable energy manufacturers are based in the United States. To lose our advantage in technologies that were pioneered in the U.S. may cost us dearly if not reversed.

Sustainable technologies in solar, wind, electric vehicles, nuclear and other innovations will, in the view of many on our board, drive the future global economy. We can either invest in policies to build U.S. leadership in these new industries and jobs today, or we can continue with business as usual and buy windmills from Europe, batteries from Japan and solar panels from Asia.

The new green economy could be transformational for our country. Compare it to the internet. Fifteen years ago there was no web browser. There was no internet at your fingertips, no ecommerce, no search engines. Now, the internet has transformed our lives: how we learn and inform, how we entertain and communicate, how we buy and sell goods. Today, the internet economy is estimated at $1 trillion with 1.5 billion internet users worldwide—and growing.

The new green economy has greater potential. Energy is a large and growing global market with 4 billion users of electricity—and usage doubling in 25 years. It is perhaps the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century. With the right policies driving innovation and investment, America can retake the lead in energy technology and create millions of new green jobs and industries, preserve millions of indirect jobs and repower our economy.”

Seeing the many Silicon Valley companies in renewable energy, I had no clue until I read his comments that we are lagging the rest of the world so badly.

It IS true that we have been installing renewable energy at something like one percent of the amount needed to transition to it as much as we need to do.

In the rest of his position paper, John Doerr explains why he believes passing Cap & Trade legislation in the United States will help us to grow our innovative renewable and other related energy companies enough to begin reversing this situation.

Another thing I think is imperative is that we have national guidelines for enacting the precise kind of contracts for renewable energy, called feed-in tariffs that have enabled Germany to build half the world’s solar installation and create 250,000 jobs. They have perfected this and proved it worked. So we should use their model and see to it that it is enacted in every state and city in the United States.

Given the very large amount of potential renewable energy in the United States, if we do the same, we can create 5,000,000 million new jobs and harvest enough renewable energy to provide at least half our energy needs.

But we also need to do more. The German government also, according to a Parade magazine article last Sunday, “worked to promote a green culture through all levels of society.” They also began to promote every kind of energy-efficiency program that was workable they could find. They also set up several competitions “to see who could save the most power.”

What was the return on this investment of effort and new incentives? And what did it cost?

“The green-jobs creation program costs the average German family $38 a year on its utility bill.”

And, how much revenue do they now have from the industries employing the people holding those 250,000 new jobs? $240 billion per year.

So, this means that as a country, we need to do far more than we are now. We need to do it much better. And, we need even more leadership from our national government than we have now.

Mercifully we now have some leadership as I’ll show directly. But we need closer to the level of national effort the United States used during World War II – far more than was used for the Apollo moon program or even the Manhattan Project.

It has worked for Germany. And if we do it here in the United States as well, other countries will do it also & we may have a fighting chance to turn down global warming enough to save our economy, our coastal cities, and our ability to grow food.
We need to use every workable good idea we can.

One notable example of the several hundred ideas we need was in the news yesterday.

This story was reported by LONDON(AFP) Tues, 5-26-2009

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that it is both important and desirable to paint as many roofs in the United States white as possible.

If virtually all roofs and roads were painted white or a close and “paler” color he said it would “have the equivalent effect of taking every car in the world off the road for 11 years, Chu said.”

The mechanism for this would be twofold – by reflecting some solar heat back into space and more directly by cooling buildings during sunny weather enough to reduce the energy needed for air conditioning.

The news article also said that scientists have also developed colors besides white that reflect heat nearly as well as white but look like normal colors to the eye.
The article went on to say that painting cars and other vehicles white or in one of those colors would save large amounts of energy air conditioning these cars and other vehicles.

This is just one of several hundred ideas we need to make use of.

For example, preventing solar heated air from being trapped under peaked roofs but to escape and draw in outside air prevents plus good ceiling insulation in hot, sunny weather saves even more on air conditioning than does painting the roof white.
Most houses with peaked roofs in the United States do not yet have that system in place. The results as I’ve posted about in this blog are spectacular. Instead of needing heavy use of air conditioning to fight the trapped heat, you need none at all on many summer days – or you need 10 % as much. That’s a huge difference.

I think that it may be even more useful to see to it that all roofs are covered with solar hot water collectors, focused solar cells, and thin film solar rather than be painted white. (Though it could be that thin film solar might be made that reflected heat that the solar photovoltaic film did not use to create electricity.)

However, other than using solar cells on their roofs and hoods, painting cars white or one of these heat reflective colors is clearly a winning idea.

Try this experiment. On a sunny day touch a black or dark colored car. And be careful so you don’t get burned. At the very least you’ll feel definite warmth. Then touch a white car at that time. It will feel surprisingly cool.

That means that the white car will also be much cooler inside and need far less air conditioning.

We need to find and use every workable idea of this kind we can and see to it that such ideas are used all over the United States.

But the most important thing is to build new renewable energy both on the buildings where it will be used or their covered parking lots AND large renewable energy installations that feed into a new and better connected grid for electricity that gets it where it is needed.

Germany has done this with a feed-tariff that adds a bit over $3 a month on the average families utility bill. With inflation and more renewable energy potential, it might cost more like 5 or 6 dollars a month here in the United States.

But we would also create up to 5,000,000 jobs and 4.8 Trillion dollars year in new revenue in those industries! (Both numbers are 20 times that of Germany due to the very large photovoltaic and thermal solar potential in the United States and the larger potential for wind energy.)