Pushing Together for Energy Security
(Page 3 of 3)
April/May 2003
By Denis Hayes and Lisa A. Hayes
If the federal government hadn't thrown its buying power behind those early chips, the information revolution never would have been born. Today, by buying huge numbers of photovoltaic cells, the federal government could launch a global energy revolution. Bulk purchases of up to $10 billion during the next four years would drive the learning curve up and the costs down, until the price hits levels at which the global market will take control.
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Wind already is making economic sense in the windiest areas. The problem is that those regions generally don't share transmission grids with the most-populated areas. But there is a long tradition of government providing this sort of infrastructure. Consider the Bonneville Power Administration, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Western Area Power Administration. We should immediately begin building transmission facilities linking our major wind regions to our major population centers.
And, finally, we need hydrogen. During the last couple of decades, a near-consensus has emerged that the best way to store surplus energy for use when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining is to generate hydrogen. Later, the hydrogen can power extremely efficient fuel cells to generate electricity, heat and water.
All the basic elements of a hydrogen economy now exist. We know how to build the infrastructure—in particular, the pipelines and storage areas—For the coming hydrogen age. An informed public should demand that its government start constructing these elements, even as it commissions fuel cells for thousands of government buildings in 2003, contracts for fleets of fuel-cell vehicles in 2004 and continues to research advanced technologies (such as photoelectrochemistry) to produce hydrogen super-efficiently.
These five steps are bold. Cynics might say all five fall at that point on the political compass where the public welfare intersects with fat chance. In ordinary times, we would agree. But a total national mobilization that was inconceivable before Pearl Harbor was unstoppable afterward. A moon shot that was unthinkable before Sputnik was in evitable afterward. In times of crisis, the United states makes its greatest strides. This is such a time.
Denis Hayes was National Coordinator of the first Earth Day, a former director of the National Renewable Energy Lab and is the current president of the Bullitt Foundation, an organization working on behalf of the environment in the Pacific Northwest. Lisa A. Hayes is a Seattle attorney.
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