Techdiplomacy

Offshore Wind Turbines

 

Renewable energy grew in leaps and bounds in 2008, and the future is promising with wind, solar and  geothermal power gaining in the foreseeable future.  You have the nuclear and fossil fuel industries saying that renewable energy is a good thought but is it economically feasible?  The answer is yes, although those industries would have the public believe otherwise.

Wind Power

In the past year we have seen wind power grow in places where there is surplus wind to be harnessed.  That would include Texas, Kansas, and Missouri.  There is a wealth of wind in Texas and they have done their best to utilize this power to grow tax revenues, create jobs, create a large tourism industry (people actually come to see the wind turbines in operation) and increase educational resources.  Towns that used to see most of their population moving on as they reached the age of the majority.  Now these towns are witnessing a rebirth of sorts as young people are staying in droves. 

The year 2008 was the best year in United States wind power history.  The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has released reports stating that the industry will easily surpass 2007, they added Wyoming and West Virginia to the list of states with the highest volume of wind power.  The AWEA revealed that only Germany, India, and Spain had more wind power capacity than Texas at the end of 2007.  They noted that West Virginia had the fastest wind power capacity growth which tripled it’s capacity.  Wyoming reportedly could have added 1,856 more turbines and around 2,800 MW of wind generation capacity. 

On the eastern seaboard offshore wind turbines seemed to be the answer according to the AWEA and is more cost effective than fossil fuel and nuclear power.  Plans have been revealed to build 96 offshore wind turbines arranged in a grid 16 to 20 miles off Cape May and Atlantic counties.

Congress has awarded wind a one-year Production Tax Credit (PTC) extension in the Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.  AWEA advocates a long term extension of the wind PTC.

Geothermal Power

The Geothermal Energy Association said 47 new geothermal projects are in various stages of development in California and Nevada.  When completed they will provide more than 2,100 MW, and there are projects getting started in Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington.  The U.S. Department of the Interior said in October that more than 190 million acres of federal land in 11 western states including Alaska will open to geothermal energy resource development. 

The Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency  and Renewable Energy report “Geothermal Tomorrow 2008″ stated that improved geothermal technologies have “the potential to access vast untapped geothermal energy sources.”  One such technology, enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) involves digging wells into hot rock, fracturing it to create a reservoir and then extracting the heat with a second well, making geothermal a viable source of power generation in areas that don’t have naturally occuring hydrothermal reservoirs.  This would mean geothermal generation could take place in much of the United States. 

There was a two year congressional PTC extension for geothermal energy, however costs are becoming economical without the PTC.

Solar Power

Solar Photovoltaic Panel Roof Installation

A congressional investment tax credit (ITC) extension is helping solar’s fast track growth.  The 30 percent federal ITC is for residential and commercial solar installations, has been extended for 8 years.  The director of research, Mike Taylor at the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA), stated that was the largest solar milestone for 2008.

New Energy Finance has seen a possible change in the photovoltaic (PV) and solar thermal electricity generators markets.  Some analysts think that supply will exeed demand and the result could be price decreases and consolidation. 

SEPA noted the large number of solar projects announced in 2008, both CSP and distributed PV was considered to be worthy of milestone status.  Recent estimates have CSP plants with an estimated total of 4,000 MW are in the planning stages. 

In 2008 utilities and the general public started to see the benefits of rooftop solar photovotaic and(PV)  installations, that was very fortunate rooftop PV installations are now in great demand.  Southern California Edison in March 2008 started to build what they said would be the largest solar cell project in the US.  This will be built on two square miles of commercial building roofs where they would generate 250 MW of advanced PV technology.  Duke Energy in North Carolina has stated they will build a 50 million dollar solar rooftop installation, they will generate 8 MW of of power from 425 sites over the next two years.  In April of 2008 the Center for Revolutionary Solar Photoconversion (CRSP) was launched.  Fourteen companies belong to the CRSP, the newest research center of the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory.

The Future of Renewable Energy

The sector will show strong growth in 2009, although it may not be a record year due the economy.  The poor economy will not affect European expansion in wind.  The US is as usual having growing pains and they need to be overcome in order for our country to keep up with our European counterparts.  The renewable energy industry need only keep up with demand for transmission, match renewables with demand response.  This is our business model for this sector.  We’ll save Americans money and we’llsave the planet as well.  We will need intelligent infrastructure from the generating station to the customer.  This fits in nicely with our next President’s (Obama) plans.  We will need to give our president help, where is the old American spirit of invention?  Donate 50 cents or a dollar, it will go to organizations involved in saving the environment.   Let’s see what we can do working together!

We are losing ground with regard to our economy and global warming is costing us 3.6% of GDP. We have to do something about the climate changes or lose 3.8 trillion dollars according to a recent report. 

 Global warming is a problem for which we have an answer.  The country need only to switch to clean renewable energy resources.  We could lower CO2 emissions and reduce global warming by 25% of 1990 standards by 2020.  By 2050 we could reduce global warming by 80% of 1990 levels. We are obviously at the end of our time where fossil fuels can be any part of our energy needs.  We face serious losses in our economy and our way of life if the climate changes are not abated. The future can be seriously changed by the change to alternative energy in the form of renewable energy.

There must be a move by private and public investors to invest in wind, solar, and geothermal energy, along with energy efficient buildings, homes, automobiles and appliances.  In Texas, California, Missouri, Michigan, and New Jersey wind farms are being proposed and erected creating new jobs, helping the economic base in those states that are embracing renewable energy and creating new income for landowners and business owners.  

By August of 2008 there were 97 new geothermal projects being developed in 13 states generating 7000 full time permanent  jobs.

Green Jobs have the advantage of usually being the same jobs that the area in which they are located had to begin with.  The jobs are simply upgraded and new descriptions are given to more or less the same job.  The manufacturing skills these individuals have now become the means to creating products to be used to make renewable energy a viable power source and our only power source.  Having been in the power industry, I know that nuclear, coal, and fossil fuel production are not industries that will create new opportunities as they are capital intensive.  The new economy based on renewable energy resources will be labor intensive.

The switch to renewable energy will take action on a large scale from our elected officials.  They must legislate our country into the future or we will not get there.  The right incentives for renewable energy sources must be created and a cap on global warming pollution. (CO²)  There will be new clean renewable energy, high technology to replace our aging fossil fuel system.

The consensus is that converting to clean renewable energy will serve both urban and rural areas.  A study by The University of Tennessee suggests that 5.1 million new jobs in rural areas would be created by the year 2030 if politicians take action now to incentivize the next generation of electricity production. 

 The renewable energy sector alone, which includes wind, solar, and geothermal power, already employs over half a million people nationwide.  The energy efficiency sector includes the automobile, building, appliance and power plant industries.  There are hundreds of thousands employed in these industries.  The problems confronting our country today could literally be solved by embracing alternative energy in the form of renewable energy resourses.  The jobs that would be created would put our people back to work and this in turn would help stabilize the economy. 

We are in need of a new grid to transmit electrical power using digital technology whether or not we switch to renewable energy sources.  We are obliged to create this new grid and it makes the time for the move away from fossil fuels now.  A switch to wind, solar and geothermal power means we save our environment as well as our economy.  Our infrastructure is in serious disrepair.  All of these things need to be addressed immediately, we are simply out of time.  If we are to restore American confidence in our own products and self worth then we should do so by taking the first step.  This first step according to many studies being produced currently is to convert to clean renewable energy resources.

We have the right political outlook now, we have elected a president and a legislative branch that could take the steps necessary to save our environment and our economy now!  We need only to ask our elected officials to pass the legislation needed to bring about change.

The National Renewable Energy Laboritories have recently identified, “inadequate workforce skills and training as one of the primary obstacles to developing energy efficiency and renewable energy”.  We need to fully fund the Green Jobs Act detailed in the 2007 energy bill.  We can train and employ millions of Americans and save our environment as well.  Public job training can reach at risk young people and people who are unemployed and hit the hardest by the current economic crisis.

Green job development can serve the states hit hardest by the economic downturn.  Since 1998 the US has lost 7.2 million jobs to mergers, outsourcing, bankruptcies, automation, globalization and trade policy.  The states that are hit the hardest are home to manufacturing companies and workers who can be trained to produce the renewable energy products that we are importing from Germany and Japan.  These products include wind turbines, solar cells and other green building materials. 

At this moment there are thousands of people involved with many organizations whose main goals are to convert to a clean way to generate electricity and to shut down fossil fuel plants which are leading to ecological ruin.  We should convert to renewable energy resources and start to generate the 5 million jobs that would come from our efforts.  The people who would be the most affected by our inaction would be the poor and disenfranchised.  We have seen what major climate change does to those of our people fellow Americans that are not as well off as others.  We must not accept the status-quo, it is the time for change!