courtesy NASA (our tax dollars at work)

  Tweet  It sounds too good to be true:

*   100 gigawatts of offshore wind, $300 Billion,
*   100 gw of landbased wind, $200 Billion,
*   75 gw of solar, $300 Billion,
*   75 gw of geothermal, $200 Billion.
*   200 gigawatt equivalents of efficiency – $200 Billion.
*   100 & Clean, Renewable, Sustaianble Energy: 1.2 Trillion.
*   2.7 Million New Jobs and a Healthy Economy: Priceless!

This is happening, slowly, inexorably, by the “invisible hand of the market.” But it will happen faster if the “invisible mind of the community” acts. This means the government!

In his “General Theory on Employment, Interest, and Money ” John Maynard Keynes argued that the only employer with the resources to create large numbers of jobs and dramatically unemployment is the government. It can take risks entrepreneurs cannot because it can’t go out of business. The Keynsians are not arging that government spending – when done correctly – will create jobs and stimulate the economy. They know it does. The only question is “How many jobs will be created?”

To raise revenues the government can either borrow money or raise taxes. It made sense to cut taxes to eliminate the surplus that Bill Clinton’s Presidency facilitated. And it makes sense to raise taxes to deal with the deficits today. Tax rates are such, particularly for wealthy people, that they can help finance investment in infrastructure projects that will create jobs and position the United States for the future.

Investment in shifting our energy infrastructure from coal, oil, methane and nuclear power to a sustainable framework built around wind, solar, geothermal, bio-fuels, and efficiency – clean, renewable, sustainable energy will, according to Bruce Katz at the Brookings Institution, create 2.7 million jobs. By itself this will lower the unemployment rate from 9.2% to 7.4% and cut unemployment from about 13.5 million people to about 10.8 million people. In addition, it will spur growth in other sectors – cars, housing, entertainment.

But will it work? Even if we can power our economy by a paradigm shift to sustainable energy, can we power our lifestyles with wind, solar, geothermal, renewable fuels and efficiency? Between 2000 and 2010, before Fukushima, Germany cut nuclear from 29% to 20%. Renewables make up the difference. After Fukishima, Angela Merkel announced that Germany will accelerate its transition from nuclear and coal to wind, solar and efficiency technologies. Germany will be at 40% renewable by 2025. They will be at 100% renewables by mid-century.

We can do this here – 100% renewable for about $1.2 Trillion – about the cost of the war in Iraq:

*   100 gigawatts of offshore wind, $300 Billion,
*   100 gw of landbase wind, $200 Billion,
*   75 gw of solar, $300 Billion,
*   75 gw of geothermal, $200 Billion,
*   200 gigawatt equivalents of efficiency – $200 Billion,
*   100 & Clean, Renewable, Sustaianble Energy: 1.2 Trillion,
*   2.7 Million New Jobs and a Healthy Economy, Priceless!

There are environmental impacts – wind turbines make noise, solar energy require various heavy metals in the manufacturing processes. However, these are negligible compared to the arsenic, lead, mercury, uranium, zinc and other heavy metals released when coal is mined, processed, transported and burn, or the tritium and the other radioactive wastes produced by “business as usual” operation of nuclear power.

New renewable energy systems are also cheaper to build than new coal, oil, methane, and nuclear.  New nuclear is probably on the order of $6 to $10 billion per gw, new coal w carbon sequestration is $18 b / gw. The costs of new oil and methane w sequestration are probably on the order of coal.

But … it means the government must act!

Tweet President Obama’s speech on Fiscal Policy was summarized by Hans Nichols and Roger Runningen on Bloomberg.com here.”

“President Barack Obama vowed to cut $4 trillion in cumulative deficits within 12 years through a combination of spending cuts and tax increases, setting the stage for a fight with congressional Republicans over the nation’s priorities.

“In presenting his long-term plan for closing the federal budget shortfall, Obama set a target of reducing the annual U.S. deficit to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2015, compared with 10.9 percent of GDP projected for this year. He reiterated his support for overhauling the tax code to lower rates while closing loopholes and ending some breaks to increase revenue.

“We have to live within our means, reduce our deficit, and get back on a path that will allow us to pay down our debt,” Obama said in a speech today at George Washington University in the capital. “And we have to do it in a way that protects the recovery.”

The full text can be found at Whitehouse.gov.

Extract of Remarks by the President on Fiscal Policy, George Washington University, April 13, 2011.

“One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party’s presidential candidates.  It’s a plan that aims to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next ten years, and one that addresses the challenge of Medicare and Medicaid in the years after that.

“Those are both worthy goals for us to achieve.  But the way this plan achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we’ve known throughout most of our history.

“A 70% cut to clean energy.  A 25% cut in education.  A 30% cut in transportation.  Cuts in college Pell Grants that will grow to more than $1,000 per year.  That’s what they’re proposing.  These aren’t the kind of cuts you make when you’re trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings in the budget.  These aren’t the kind of cuts that Republicans and Democrats on the Fiscal Commission proposed.  These are the kind of cuts that tell us we can’t afford the America we believe in.  And they paint a vision of our future that’s deeply pessimistic.

“It’s a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can’t afford to fix them.  If there are bright young Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can’t afford to send them.  Go to China and you’ll see businesses opening research labs and solar facilities.  South Korean children are outpacing our kids in math and science.  Brazil is investing billions in new infrastructure and can run half their cars not on high-priced gasoline, but biofuels.  And yet, we are presented with a vision that says the United States of America – the greatest nation on Earth – can’t afford any of this.

“This is a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit.  And who are those 50 million Americans?  Many are someone’s grandparents who wouldn’t be able afford nursing home care without Medicaid.  Many are poor children.  Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down’s syndrome.  Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care.  These are the Americans we’d be telling to fend for themselves.

“Worst of all, this is a vision that says even though America can’t afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can’t afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy.  Think about it.  In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90% of all working Americans actually declined.  The top 1% saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each.  And that’s who needs to pay less taxes?  They want to give people like me a two hundred thousand dollar tax cut that’s paid for by asking thirty three seniors to each pay six thousand dollars more in health costs?   That’s not right, and it’s not going to happen as long as I’m President.

“The fact is, their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America.  As Ronald Reagan’s own budget director said, there’s nothing “serious” or “courageous” about this plan.  There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.  There’s nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill.  And this is not a vision of the America I know.”

Offshore Wind Energy: Its potential to mitigate climate change

Sunrise

(For Webinar Click Here) New England Faculty Colloquium: Climate Change, Policy, and Energy Solutions Wednesday, March 2, 2011 – 2:30 pm

James Manwell, U Mass Amherst, Director, Wind Energy Center, (Press Release: Renewable Energy Research Laboratory)

Wind power in the United States has grown from 1,800 MW in 1990 to 35,000 MW by the end 2009. And off-shore wind farms are planned from Virginia to Massachusetts.  The costs have dropped ten-fold.  Electricity from wind is now less expensive than electricity from coal and nuclear – with none of the environmental costs.

Wind and solar are the opposite of fossil fuels and nuclear. With fossil fuels and nuclear it is easy to regulate the electricity the plant produces, but the wastes can be a problem.  With wind and solar there is no waste, but we can not regulate the output. Or rather, we can easily turn it down, but we can’t turn it up.  If we are to shift to a clean, sustainable energy paradigm we need to develop a more flexible grid and other technologies for a combined cycle system. The  Wind Energy Center at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is, in their words, “responding to the need for superior, cutting edge research solutions to these issues.”

Tweet

“Join me in setting a new goal:  By 2035, 80 percent of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources.”  – President Barack Obama, State of the Union, January 25, 2011.

When a mouse makes noise, only other mice and local cats take notice. When a lion roars, however, everyone notices; other lions, elephants, zebras, gazelles, smaller cats, mice ….

New Jersey is one of 27 states, which, like the District of Columbia, have a Renewable Portfolio Standard, or RPS, mandating that by a certain date, a specific target of a renewable energy capacity will be deployed. An additional five states have non-binding goals. (This are listed by the U. S. Dept. of Energy at Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.)

In New Jersey the RPS is 22.5%, about 1.6 gigawatts (GW), by 2021. New Jersey today, in January, 2011, has about 300 megawatts of renewable energy capacity.  I am confident that New Jersey will meet, and possibly exceed its RPS goal. We started with 9.0 kilowatts (KW) of photovoltaic solar in 2001. We were up to 211 megawatts (MW), by the end of September, 2010, and we added an additional 24 MW in December, 2010. Even when you factor in 30 MW of biomass, 8 mw of wind power, and 1.5 mw of fuel cells, this is less than 20% of the goal of 1.6 gw. (This is shown at the NJ Clean Energy Program Renewable Energy Technologies page.) However paradigm shifts are systems phenomena. They occur at exponential rates.  We went from 9.0 kw in 2001 to 211 mw in mid-2010, to 360 mw  by the end of 2010.  In December, 2010, we added an additional 10% – moving from 236 mw to 260 mw.  We are hitting the handle of the hockey stick.

California’s RPS is 33% by 2030. In Texas, the RPS calls for 5,880 MW by 2015. California , New Jersey and Texas are the roaring mice in domestic US clean energy policy. And a cat – the lion in the Oval Office – the President of the United States – has listened to the mice in California, New Jersey, and Texas. Last night he roared.

Courtesy of the White House.

In his “State of the Union” address, January 25, 2011, President Obama set a lofty goal: “80% clean electric generation by 2035.” While I think we can do better – 100% clean renewable sustainable energy by 2025 – Obama’s goal is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. It’s SMART. It’s also wise.

As a President should, Obama is thinking, and thinking long term.  We at Popular Logistics wish him success because success for a President means a better future for the nation.

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Two observations.

1. There is no such thing as “Clean Coal.” Even if we capture and sequester all the carbon dioxide produced from burning coal, which is expensive, there are still impurities, such as arsenic, lead, mercury, uranium, zinc in coal. And mining and processing coal is a very dirty business.
2. Nuclear is heavily regulated. We exercise tighter control over the wastes. In practice, nuclear power is arguably cleaner than coal. But in reality, things happen.

One question is “Can we achieve Obama’s Clean Electricity Goal?” But a better question is “How can we achieve this goal? ” My back of the envelope response is:

• 100 gigawatts offshore wind,
• 100 gigawatts land based wind,
• 50 gigagwatts solar,
• 75 gigawatts stored micro-hydro or biofuel, for when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.

And as Amory Lovins, of the Rocky Mountain Institute, says, “The cheapest unit of energy is the ‘Negawatt’ – the energy you don’t have to buy.”  How much can we reduce our energy requirements? How much can we gain by conservation?