A recurring theme in President Obama's speech today was affordable energy:
That's because this grid, which is made up of everything from power lines to generators to the meters in your home, still runs on century-old technology. It wastes too much energy, it costs us too much money, and it's too susceptible to outages and blackouts.
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Now it's time to make the same kind of investment in the way our energy travels, to build a clean energy superhighway that can take the renewable power generated in places like De Soto and deliver it directly to the American people in the most affordable and efficient way possible.
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It's expected to save consumers more than $20 billion over the next decade on their utility bills. And I know nobody minds seeing their utilities bill cut. I'm sorry, Lew, but they really don't mind that.
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It will make our grid more secure and more reliable, saving us some of the $150 billion we lose each year during power outages.
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And to speed that process along, nine federal agencies have signed an agreement that will help break down the bureaucratic barriers that currently make it slow and costly to build new transmission lines on federal lands.
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And I'm pleased to report that a consensus is growing to achieve exactly that: a consensus between Democrats and Republicans, environmentalists and evangelicals, labor leaders and especially so many business leaders like Lew, that are ready to jump on board because they understand that the growth of clean energy can lead to the growth of our economy.
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There are those who are also going to suggest that moving toward a clean energy future is going to somehow harm the economy or lead to fewer jobs.
Which is rather amusing, because he was delivering this speech in a solar plant.
credit Monsters and Critics
The cost was $152 million for 25 MWe nameplate, est. 4.8 MWe average. ($32/W average)
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/state/epaper/2009/10/27/1027obamafpl.html
What can I say? Breathtaking (or is that heartbreaking?)
ReplyDeleteThat solar array is definitely a counter example to the words in the speech. I am not a big fan of "smart grids"; the grid system that we developed in the 1950s is reliable and depends on a much more distributed intelligence than is possible with switches programmed by a code jockey - it depends on millions of human brains.
ReplyDeleteWell, now that the United Nations has adopted Tinker Bell as an "Honourary Ambassador of Green" to raise environmental awareness (I kid you not), perhaps she can sprinkle a little pixie dust on the wind and solar projects to make them affordable and reliable. Who needs thermodynamics when you have magic?
ReplyDeleteLooks like this picture was taken on a somewhat-cloudy and quite windy day. Perhaps solar panels weren't the best option.
ReplyDeleteMeeanwhile, FPL is adding 400 MW to its nuclear capacity for $1.5 billion — about 4.5 $/W(average).
ReplyDeletePower Uprate for FPL’s St. Lucie and Turkey Point Plants Q&A