A Plan for the Solar Revolution
(Page 4 of 8)
April/May 2009
By Denis Hayes
Target Federal Procurement. The federal government should buy photovoltaic devices in bulk and install them on all federal buildings, military bases and the backs of billboards — pouring the power into the grid. The goal should be to grow the market in a rapid yet predictable way linked to constantly lower prices.
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Large federal purchases of computer chips for the military and NASA drove up the volume and drove down the prices of these semiconductor devices until they were cheap enough that the private sector saw an explosion of demand. Now we have semiconductor intelligence integrated throughout our lives. Serious federal purchases of solar panels could lead these devices to become ubiquitous.
Construct a Nationwide Smart Grid. Many carbon-neutral renewable energy sources are intermittent or diurnal. A resilient smart grid will make real-time data available to the grid-operator 24/7 and will embed intelligence on both sides of the meter. The best locations for sources and storage alike are widely dispersed. We need to be able to knit the nation together with a national smart grid. Only the government can assemble the multistate corridor rights and transmission capacity to make such a grid possible. The cost is generally estimated at about $400 billion, spread over 10 years. Forty billion dollars per year is hardly chump change, but remember that the government has recently invested $123 billion in one large insurance company, AIG, with no chance of the benefits a national smart grid would provide.
Get Serious About Gas Mileage. During World War II, Detroit was ordered to stop making cars and start making tanks. Today, Detroit needs to be ordered to stop making civilian tanks and start making cars! Manufacturers should be free to use any technology that can get at least 50 mpg by 2020 and 100 mpg by 2030 — though a preference should be given to electric and plug-in hybrid cars that can also provide distributed back-up storage for the electrical grid. Anytime Washington awards cash incentives to Detroit to help it get back on its feet and achieve fuel economy goals, it should provide parallel incentives to the innovative start-ups such as Tesla, Modec, Think, Aptera and a couple of dozen other companies with the guts and vision to challenge Detroit with electric and hybrid cars.
Build Electrified Railways for Busy Corridors. America is virtually the only industrial power without high-speed electrified rail — a superefficient mode of intercity travel that can be carbon-free. If Spain and Italy can do it, America can, too.
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