Repowering America
by Chris Tilley
Ad for Al Gore’s Repower America
In the Automotive X Prize article I mentioned that in 2004 cars on US roads accounted for 314 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. The US power industry is responsible for 2.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. Currently 68% of power is generated from fossil fuel.(source) Al Gore is promoting a plan to move America to 100% clean power in the next ten years.(source)
The first piece of the plan is increasing efficiency.(source) There a number of ways to increase efficiency from improving building standards and the Energy Star program. Another good idea in the plan is policies to align the interests of renters and landlords so that both benefit from improved efficiencies. Universal implementation of certain technologies to improve efficiency, things like CFL bulbs, and programmable thermostats. Changing electronic so the don’t have phantom loads while turned off is another point.
The second piece is replacing the fossil fuel portion of out generating capacity with renewables like wind and solar.(source) We have talked about this before with wind power.(Article) Between wind, solar cell and thermal solar power plants it is quite possible to replace the fossil fuels. Wind would take an area roughly the size of West Virginia amd solar could be done in a square 100 miles to a side.(source) An interesting map compares the solar resources available in the US to Germany. Germany has far worse resources but eight times the install capacity due to policies.
The last piece is redoing the electricity grid. The current grid is regional and that will not allow moving electricity from solar plants in Arizona to New York. A national modern grid would allow us to do that and like watching east coast stations on the west coast we can use the time shift to cover peak loads that will occur at different times across country. A new grid will also be more efficient than the old and more reliable. Power outages cost the economy over 80 billion dollars. There is a lot of talk about stimulating the economy, this could be a great works project.
The end result would be a drastically reduced dependence on fossil fuels and if we move to electric vehicles and even greater savings. This is a grand plan and it will be tough to implement but it is doable and it will have a great effect on the economy and the environment.
I loved the video! Great Article! Very interesting point about shifting power from coast to coast based on peak load and the point about Power outages cost the economy over 80 billion dollars.
Comment by Shaunah — Monday, December 29, 2008 @ 9:39 am