Lawrence J. Furman, MBA, co-founder of Popular Logistics, has been appointed to the Manalapan Township Finance Committee (Township here,  news article here). The Finance Committee reviews  expenditures, projects tax receipts, and submits the budget to the Township Committee. Back in 2007 Furman suggested that the Township Committee look into deploying solar energy systems on municipal properties. He was appointed to the Manalapan Township Environmental Commission in 2007, served for two years. In 2008, he ran for School Board with a platform built around solar energy for the schools.  While he lost the election, and Manalapan does not yet have solar energy systems on municipal properties or schools (are these related?) people are talking about it. He earned his MBA in Managing for Sustainability from Marlboro College in December, 2010.

He has delivered various iterations of a talk entitled “Beyond Fuel: Energy in the 21st Century,”  at the June meeting of the NYC Business Sustainability Action Round-Table, NYC B Smart, and in September, 2011 at the Space Coast Green Living Festival, Cocoa Beach, Florida.

Furman has been thinking about energy and what we now call sustainability since 1976, when, as a student intern with the New York Public Interest Research Group, Inc., NYPIRG, at Rachel Carson College, then at the State University of New York University of Buffalo, he helped develop a case for offshore wind power. His testimony, delivered to the “NY State Legislative Committee on Energy, the Economy, and the Environment” stated:

We could power the New York City Subway System with a battery of wind driven electric turbines, located off the shores of Long Island. It would burn no fuel, and, therefore, unlike coal, oil, gas, and nuclear power, create no waste.

When you factor in the life cycle of the fuel, and the pollution and health costs of the wastes, this would be less expensive than the fuel based alternatives.

Reflecting on this today, he said,

“My colleagues and I knew what we were talking about, but the Committee members didn’t get it. Sadly, it seems that the Committee’s name – Energy, the Economy, and the Environment – indicated it’s priorities.”

“If the cheapest unit of energy, the ‘negawatt,’ is the unit of energy that you don’t need, then the next cheapest is the ‘nega-fuel-watt,’ the unit of enegy you obtain without consuming fuel.”

On this committee I intend to look at our energy expenses and see where we can save money in the long term with PV Solar, LED lighting, insulation, micro-hydro, etc.

| | Tweet |  In ending the camp-out phase of Occupy Wall Street, Mayor Brookfield and Judge Stallman did the Occupy movement a favor.  The Occupiers can claim victory. Now they can focus on delivering the message -

• Economic Democracy – We must build sustainable economic systems which recognize that Earth is a stakeholder, that economic activity must be in harmony with earth / the biosphere.
• We May Occupy Wall Street – But No Sleeping and Banksters need Watchin’ – You can’t shut your eyes when the “Banksters” are in town – there must be strong regulations such as those both presidents Roosevelt put in place to regulate the railroads (Theodore) and the financial industry (Franklin).
• Dismantle the Revolving Doors between Wall Street and Washington (And City Hall)!

And do so without worrying about the logistics problems of food, water, shelter, sanitation, medical care, all of which are important – they are, after all, why they are there.

Mayor Brookfield threw out the bath. Let’s save the baby!

See also -

• Worldly Philosophers for Hire
• Can Anyone Really Create Jobs? Yes We Can!
• It’s the Feedback – It’s Always the Feedback

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The Newark Star Ledger reported (here and here) that Public Service Electric and Gas, PSE&G, a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group, PSEG, is installing a  2,700-ton chiller the University of Medicine and Dentristy of New Jersey, UMDNJ. This an $11.4 million investment in negawatts. The Star Ledger reported that UMDNJ will save $1.3 million per year on energy costs.What’s the payback? An $11.4 million investment will save $1.3 million per year. That means the system will pay for itself within 9 years, assuming the price of energy remains constant.  I think it’s a much more reasonable to assume that the price of energy will go up, so the payback will be higher and the system will pay for itself sooner.

The system will work long after it is paid for. It will save $13 Million over the next 10 years and $26 Million over the next 20 years – assuming electricity costs are constant.  Assuming electricity costs increase an average of 5% per year, this will save $16.35 Million over the next 10 years, and $42.99 over the next 20 years.

• Projected Savings of $11.4 Million investment.
• After 1 Year: $1.3 Million, a return on investment of 11.4% in one year.
• After 5 Years: Save $7.18 Million, for a total ROI of 63%, assuming a 5% annual increases in cost of energy.
• After 10 Years:  Save $16.35 M; total ROI of 143.4%).
• After 15 Years: Save $28.05 M; total ROI of (246%)
• After 20 Years: Save $42.99 M; total ROI of 377%).

We have Governor Corzine to thank. as well as Governors Whitman, McGreevey, Codey, and Christie.

More on the PSE&G Green Solutions is here.

UMDNJ will pay $2.7 million over the next three years. PSE&G’s Hospital Efficiency Program will fund the $8.7 million balance.

Back in March, 2009, Jon Corzine, then-Governor of New Jersey, signed a package of renewable energy bills (here).

1. People may install solar energy systems and wind turbines on industrial properties 20 acres or larger.
2. Developers must offer home buyers a solar energy option, on developments with 25 or more units, including single family homes and condos.
3. The Board of Public Utilities may give grants for energy efficiency programs.

At a press conference in March, ’09, Corzine said the new laws further New Jersey’s efforts to protect the environment, reduce dependence on foreign oil and, “a cleaner New Jersey means a better New Jersey, and an even more attractive place for people to live, work, run a business and raise a family.”

When he did this he acted on policies set in place by the BPU under Gov. McGreevey and continued by Acting Gov. Codey. McGreevey, in turn, was carrying the ball thrown by Gov. Whitman.  Popular Logistics hopes that Gov. Christie continues to carry this ball.

Back in 2009, Senate Environment Committee chair Bob Smith, D-Middlesex, said developing clean energy sources will help on a number of levels, including global warming, energy sustainability, and reducing overall pollution. “We should be doing everything in government to foster carbonless energy sources.”

Assembly Republicans, however, called the first two laws “an intrusion on private or municipal rule.”

“I just don’t believe the state should be using a broad brush approach to locating these wind turbines in all industrial zones,” Assemblyman Vincent Polistina (R-Atlantic) said. “Municipalities should have the right to zone where they see fit.” Polistina should realize that this gives energy entrepreneurs the right to install wind turbines on (moderately large) properties, but not the obligation to do so.

Assemblyman Jay Webber (R-Morris) said if homeowners “wanted to install solar energy or energy saving devices into their homes they could do that on their own without Trenton telling them to discuss the matter.”  This may be the case, however, the economics logistics and financial ramifications of solar energy remain largely unknown. Again, home buyers have the right to a solar energy system. They are forced to buy one.

This is a silly argument. The first and second laws allow people to build wind and solar. They do not, however, compel people to do so.

They do prohibit people from taking a “NIMBY A NIYBYE – BANANA!” (“Not in My Backyard And Not In Your Backyard Either – Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything”) approach and preventing their neighbors from exercising their right to invest in clean, renewable, sustainable energy.
We may have the right to be stupid, short-sighted, ignorant of science, and in denial about things scientists tell us their data indicate. However, we elect representatives to various houses in the hope and expectation that they are not stupid, short-sighted, ignorant, and in denial.

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“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?

Oyster Creek, courtesy of Nukeworker.com

Chicago, Illinois based Exelon Corporation recently announced that it will close the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in 2019. (NY Times, NJ.com AP). Oyster Creek, in Lacey, New Jersey, is the nation’s oldest operating nuclear power plant. It’s roughly 75 miles south of New York City and 60 miles east of Philadelphia. Exelon was recently granted a 20-year extension on its operating license by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission despite the wishes of local environmentalists, environmental groups, and people concerned about evacuations in the event of an emergency, and public concerns from the NJ Department of Environmental Protection.

The plant uses a single pass cooling system which sucks in 500 Billion gallons of cool water each year (click here) from Barnegat Bay, heats it 20 to 30 degrees, and returns the heated water to the bay. This kills billions of adult and juvenile fish, clams, crabs, and shrimp, and hundreds of billions, if not  trillions of hatchlings, less than a centimeter in length. This has had a negative effect – possibly a disastrous effect – on the fish and wildlife populations of Barnegat Bay during the 40 year operating life of the plant to date. The NJ DEP demanded that Exelon retrofit the plant with cooling towers.

Exelon claims the cooling towers would cost $600 million, roughly $1.00 per watt for the 610 megawatt reactor. Other estimates for the cooling towers range from $200 million to $800 million. Exelon decided to close the plant rather than spend the money on the cooling towers and other maintenance.  This is a gain for current Exelon shareholders as they defer a hundreds of millions on capital improvments, and corresponding hundreds of millions of liabilities, while they collect revenues and realize profits from the sale of electricity for the next nine years.

Oyster Creek, aerial view.

While cooling towers would not pump heated water into the bay, they would pump steam into the atmosphere – which would have other environmental effects. Looked at from a systems perspectives, nuclear power is a technology for generating electricity, heat, radioactive wastes, which also presents national security challenges.

Dan Yurman, writing in The Energy  Collective, suggests that there might be more to Oyster Creek than the economics of avoiding the expense of the cooling towers. “In a December 9 message to subscribers,” he writes, “Morningstar called Oyster Creek the ‘lowest margin plant’ for Exelon, and said that it had been plagued by ‘relatively high operating costs.’”

Like Vermont Yankee (click here) and Indian Point (here), Oyster Creek is associated with leaks of tritium (here). Dennis Zannoni, the former nuclear safety engineer for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, has long held that Exelon was not managing Oyster Creek safely (click here) and its operating license should have been revoked, not renewed. We wrote here about Kerry Beal, the whistleblower who exposed guards sleeping on the job at the Peach Bottom Nuclear Power Plant, and who was fired in 2007 by Exelon Nuclear.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency is expected to draft regulations in 2011 under Section 316 of the Clean Water Act to require power plants to reduce their thermal discharges into the nation’s waterways. This could have significant implications for other power plants, such as Indian Point, on the Hudson River, and the Salem plant on the Delaware.

New Jersey has 311 megawatts of solar energy, about 221 which were installed between June 30, 2009 and Sept. 30, 2010. The energy from Oyster Creek and the other nuclear power plants can easily be supplied by new photovoltaic solar systems and wind turbines. These clean, renewable and sustainable energy technologies operate with significantly lower environmental externalities – no radioactive or other hazardous wastes, no national security concerns, no fuel, therefore no mines, wells, fuel processing and transportation.

An Iceberg

An Orca

• TVA Kingston: 1.2 Billion Gallons of toxic coal ash sludge, upstream of Kingston, Tennessee, 12/22/08.
• Chevron Texaco: (alleged) 18 Billion Gallons (428.6 million barrels) of Oil Process Waste, Rainforests of Ecuador, 1964 to 1990.
• Oil Fires of Kuwait: 6 Million Barrels per Day, up to 6 Months, 1991.
• Exxon Valdez: 250,000 Barrels, Prince William Sound, 1989.
• The Niger Delta, in Nigeria, 250,000 Barrels per year for the last 50 years (click here), “Big oil spills are no longer news in this vast, tropical land….has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates…. Perhaps no place on earth has been as battered by oil, “

Flares in the Jungle

1. Fossil Fuels and a Walk on the Moon,
2. Drill Baby Drill or Drill Baby Oops,
3. The Magnitude of the Spill,
4. One Month After,
5. The Chernobyl of Fossil Fuels?, and
6. Magnitude, Part 2.

Ships trying to Extinguish the Flames at the Deepwater Horizon Rig

1. Fossil Fuels and a Walk on the Moon, May 3, 2010.
2. Drill Baby Drill or Drill Baby Oops, May 7, 2010.
3. The Magnitude of the Spill, May 15, 2010.
4. One Month After The Spill BP Siphoning 3,000 Barrels Per Day, May 20, 2010.
5. Deep Water Horizon – The Chernobyl of Deepwater Drilling?, June 2, 2010.
6. The Deepwater Horizon: 40,000 Barrels Per Day or 70,000, June 13, 2010.
7. The Deepwater Horizon After the Macondo Well Explosion, June 19, 2010.
8. Deepwater Horizon – Bombs and Hurricanes, July 1, 2010.
9. Like a Bad High School Math Problem, July 14, 2010.
10. Crisis Management and the Gulf Oil Spill, July 16, 2010.
11. The Deepwater Horizon: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, October 7, 2010.

Google asked “How will we read in 100 years?”

Here’s what I think.

If we reinvent our economy to run on solar, geothermal, and kinetic energy, we will get our news and technical information electronically. We will still read classics on paper and mount on our walls images of loved ones and special places. If we don’t those left will struggle for survival.

I was invited to join a panel on Jumpstarting the Green Economy hosted by the Sustainable Business Incubator at Fairleigh Dickenson University on May 21, 2009.  Copies of the conference presentations are available from the organizers for about $50. Copies of my presentation in audio and powerpoint format are available for $15, including shipping and taxes. Call or E-Mail me here or at Furman Consulting Group.

It boils down to this: Wind, Solar, Geothermal, other sustainable energy and Negawatts vs. Coal, Oil, and Nuclear; to Sustainable Business or Bernie Madoff and the Mafia.

After thanking Matt Polsky, the moderator, introducing myself – I’ve been interested in Clean Energy since 1976 – and plugging the MBA in Managing for Sustainability at Marlboro College, and my forthcoming album, It’s Raining Outside the Cave by XB Cold Fingers, I spoke for about 20 minutes on Energy, the Economy, and the Environment.

We face some major challenges – the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the Dead Zone in Chesapeake, Global Warming.

• Energy
• The Economy
• The Environment
  

There are Gyres in every ocean, and they are accumulating masses of plastics and toxic organic molecules. Plastic in the toxic soup of the North Pacific Gyre outweighs plankton 6 to 1. While it photo-degrades, into smaller particles of non-digestible plastic, it doesn’t biodegrade. There are no metabolic pathways by which this stuff is “food.” Birds and turtles eat plastic, and Die.

Dead Zone in Red

In the Chesapeake, a shallow estuary fed by waters from what we humans call New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, a dead zone in the northern spur has developed. Chicken manure from factory farms feeds aglae, which bloom, die, sink, and suck up all the oxygen.  This kills fish, shellfish, and plants. The once fertile Chesapeake is as full of life as mars or the moon.

As Gore noted, “We’re borrowing from China to buy oil from the Middle East, and burn it in ways that destroy the planet.”

And as T. Boone Pickens noted, “We burn 12 million barrels of oil per day.  Saudi Arabia produces 9 million.”

This paradigm challenges to the environment, national security, and the economy. This energy economy is, in a word, UnSustainable!

President John F. Kennedy, on May 25, 1961, challenged us:

This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.

And we met the challenge on on July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong, followed by Buzz Aldrin took

One Small Step for (a) man, One Giant Leap for mankind.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, considers Gore’s Challenge – 100% clean renewable, sustainable electricity in 10 years – to be easy and conservative.

I also spoke about Ceres and BICEP. Organized in 1989, after the Exxon Valdes disaster, Ceres is composed of Investors, and Environmental Organizations who, for the health of the planet and its people, have decided to integrate sustainability into capital markets. The CERES Principles demand:

• Honest Accounting,
• Abolish the folly of Free Pollution
• Higher Standards of Business Leadership
• Bold Solutions that Accelerate Green Innovation
• Smart New Policies that Reward Sustainability.

The principles are vague, so Ceres evolved into BICEP – Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy.  BICEP looked at the Ceres Principles, and announced the BICEP Goals. These are, in management parlance, “S. M. A. R. T.” – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Bound. The BICEP goals include a Renewable Portfolio Standard of 20% by 2020 and 30% by 2050, and Carbon Sequestration.

Renewable Portfolio Standard 20% by 2020 is not bad, but Gore and Schmidt say we can do 100% by 2019, so why settle for 20% by 2020? And as for 30% by 2050; that’s ridiculous.  Regarding Carbon Sequestration, it’s hard to tell if it’s cost effective; we don’t know how to do it! And we don’t know What will it cost.

The goals are SMART, however, they are Also S.T.U.P.I.D.

• SMART
• Then again
• Under
• Powered
• Insufficient and
• Dumb

Alfred E. Newman, by Norman Mingo

There are Limits of Private Enterprise.

Voluntary Environmental “Regulation” doesn’t work.

Private police protection characterizes banana republics run by strongmen and drug pseudo-states.

If the fire department was run by an insurance company, and if my house were to catch fire, and I had no insurance, then my house would burn down. And so would yours.  This is the problem with insurance company run health care.

When you start thinking in terms of sustainability, “Cradle to Cradle,” The Chicken Manure in the Chesapeake, The Plastic Swirling Around the Oceans, even, Mercury, Arsenic, Carbon from Coal are Resources.

Markets for Manure -

1. Feed it to Algae -
2. Pull Carbon Dioxide out of the Air
3. Harvest for Glycerine / BioDiesel

In 1849 – “There’s Gold in Them Thar Hills!” Today – “There’s Gold in them thar Garbage!”

Here’s the choice: Nike, Timberland, Seventh Generation, Patagonia, or Madoff Investments and the Mafia. Or, as noted by Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia’s CEO, “Business can produce food, cure disease, employee people, and generally enrich our lives. It can do good things and make a profit without losing it’s soul.”

Sustainability – harness a process, rather than “consume” a resource. Sustainable Energy: Wind & Solar: The Wind Blows, The Sun Shines, regardless of the presence or absence of wind turbines or solar panels.

• No Fuel,
• No Waste
• No Green House Gases
• No Radioactive Wastes
• No Mercury

We are here -

Earth From Space

In Monmouth County, NJ, the Marlboro Republican Club, and the Manalapan Republican Club, are hosting  a Green Awareness Event, “An Event to Educate and Benefit our Environment” Tuesday, December 9, 2008 @ 7:00 PM, Marlboro Recreation Building – 1996 Recreation Way, Marlboro Township.  This is the statement I planned on making. I did not get a chance to speak.

However, I did get a chance to Listen.

• Freeholder Barbara McMorrow, Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders, who told us what the Freeholders will be doing for Monmouth County.
• Mayor Fred R. Profeta, Jr, Deputy Mayor for Environment, Maplewood, NJ, who told us what people are doing in Maplewood.
• Madea Villere, NJ Sustainable State Institute, Rutgers University, who offered a clear, succinct definition of “Sustainability” – meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future – and told us what we can do in our communities.

I’d like to thank the Manalapan Republicans and the Marlboro Republicans for holding this event.

I’d am available to talk about Nuclear Power and Coal and then Solar and Wind.

When you think about e=mc2 – the energy in stuff is the product of the mass and the speed of light squared, and the speed of light is 3 times 1010 cm / second – you realize that there’s a tremendous amount of energy in stuff. Senator McCain spoke about building 50 new nuclear power plants in the next 30 years. Nuclear power can be operated more or less safely – the 1986 Chernobyl disaster was in the Soviet Union. The famous accidents here, Three Mile Island in 1979 and Browns Ferry in 1975 were not as bad. However, operating them safely renders it very expensive. Nuclear power plants are regulated, or some say “rubberstamped,” by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission – the industry has it’s own special government bureaucracy. That renders it even more expensive. According to the New York Times, the cost of new nuclear power plants would be $8.0 billion per gigawatt, and that’s without the cost of fuel, the NRC, and managing the wastes, the ties to the nuclear weapons, the special security challenges.

The cost of utility scale solar power is less. The Atlantic County Municipal Authority paid $3.25 million for a 500 KW installation – that’s $6.5 billion per GW. And there’s no “Solar Regulatory Authority,” no waste, and no fuel. If terrorists bomb the solar energy installation we’re out $3.25 million and we lose some generating capacity – but it’s no big deal. If terrorists were to bomb Oyster Creek we’d have some severe problems.

Saddam wanted nuclear power – and Israel destroyed the Iraqui nuclear “research facility” at Osirak in 1981. Our “good friends” in Iran want nuclear power. They don’t want solar power. You can’t make nuclear bombs out of solar panels. You can make nuclear bombs out of nuclear fuel rods.

Coal – there was a lot of talk about clean coal in the Presidential election cycle. Senator McCain and President-Elect Obama both spoke about “Clean Coal.” The truth of the matter is that “Clean Coal” is Madison Ave. hype. Here’s why.

Mining coal is a very messy process. Coal, oil, and natural gas are hydrocabons, chemical compounds composed mostly of carbon and hydrogen, with mercury, nitrogen, and sulphur thrown in. We take the stuff out of the ground and burn it, releasing energy, and converting the stuff into oxides – carbon dioxide, water, sulphur dioxide, oxides of mercury and nitrogen. This is basically high school chemistry, when you take coal or oil out of the ground and you burn it, you’re moving the carbon from underground into the atmosphere. What “clean coal” would do, is capture all the carbon dioxide and store it underground. But we can’t do that without doing two things -

1. figuring out how to do it
2. spending money – a lot of money.

Solar is expensive – up front. Less expensive than nuclear; more expensive than wind. T. Boone Pickens forecasts $2.0 billion per gw for the wind farms he wants to build in W. Texas. The wind farm Garden State Wind Offshore Energy will be building off the shore are forecast at $2.86 billion per gw.

Two final points – we have to move from fossil fuels and nuclear to clean, renewable, sustainable energy. It’s the law. The Supreme Court ruled, on April 2, 2007, that the EPA MUST regulate carbon from coal plants. And after whining for 18 months, the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board ruled, on November 13, that it would regulate carbon emissions.

And it’s a good idea. When you have solar panels on a school and a disaster strikes, like Katrina, September 11, or the 2003 power failure that resulted from an accident, you have hardened the grid. You have made it more resistant to accident and act of war. You have shelters with power, at least during the day, in the event that the rest of the grid is down.