09/03/2022
More and more Americans are demanding that the USA ends the burning of all fossil fuels for the generation of electricity and transportation. Such a plan must include a massive investment in wind, solar, other renewables, and a new national Smart Grid. I also propose putting the fossil fuels companies into federal receivership until they can be transformed into employee-owned companies that produce non-fuel products ONLY for domestic use, not for export.
The fact is that to secure energy independence from the rest of the world as rapidly as possible the USA MUST create a temporary, national, federally funded program of the type that mobilized the USA for World War Two production, and of the type that sent us to the moon. The following system, once constructed, will NOT require the continuous, annual, decades-long subsidization that will always be required if we use fossil fuels and nuclear fission to generate electricity. However, it WILL provide PLENTIFUL green and renewable, lower cost, lower carbon energy for ALL sectors of American life, 24/7/365.
"US rooftops could host enough capacity to produce an annual 4.2 petawatt-hours (PWh) per year, which slightly surpasses the country's current total energy output of around 4 PWh per year." https://electrek.co/.../egeb-rooftop-solar-could.../....) https://www.freeingenergy.com/how-much-solar-would-it.../
"Analysis indicates that a network of land-based 2.5-megawatt (MW) turbines restricted to non-forested, ice-free, nonurban areas operating at as little as 20% of their rated capacity...in the contiguous United States, specifically in the central plain states, could accommodate as much as 16 times total current demand for electricity in the United States." https://www.pnas.org/content/106/27/10933 https://www.energy.gov/.../computing-america-s-offshore...
According to the US Department of Energy, the USA also has a recoverable offshore technical wind resource potential of more than 2,000 GW of capacity, or 7,200 TWh of generation per year. For context, this is nearly double the nation’s current electricity use. That means that by developing those wind resources and by installing solar panels on every home, small business, and factory that is practical, along with strategically located PVC-solar and solar molten salt steam-generating industrial-scale electric plants (and backup battery banks with their own backup diesel generators fueled by vegetable and seed oils produced by American farmers) linked to further back-ups consisting of geothermal, wave, and tidal sources to help cover base load and peak demand, all controlled by a new nationwide Smart Grid to send power where it is needed most, quickly and efficiently, we have the potential to generate UP TO TWENTY TIMES our nation's current electrical consumption, without intermittency. https://www.nrel.gov/.../inertia-and-the-power-grid-a...
The materials and labor for this massive undertaking should absolutely be sourced from the USA. The new grid should also be broken up into nationwide customer-owned Co-ops for each county/parish, with the operations costs being paid by the customers that use the utilities. This publicly financed system should NEVER be owned by energy oligarchs that currently control much of the energy system for their own personal profit. This will help to keep costs as low as possible.
Battery storage is now 30% cheaper than building new natural gas peaker-plants. https://www.energy-storage.news/battery-storage-30.../
Yes, the USA has its own lithium. https://www.bbc.com/.../20201124-how-geothermal-lithium... https://www.usgs.gov/data/lithium-deposits-united-states https://interestingengineering.com/lithium-from-seawater...
"Solar PV and onshore wind are now the cheapest sources of new-build generation for at least two-thirds of the global population. Those two-thirds live in locations that comprise 71% of gross domestic product and 85% of energy generation." https://www.smart-energy.com/.../solar-and-wind-are-the.../
Thoughts on this proposal, anybody?
