In the May issue of Vanity Fair, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has written an article that is must reading. He entitles it "The Next President’s First Task." And he is absolutely on target and explains very concisely how this country could quickly supply all its own energy needs with wind, solar and geothermal.
I urge you to read the entire short article at: http://www.vanityfair.com/...
The key to the success of such an ambitious national project is, according to RFK, presidential leadership on behalf of a national power grid built on High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) power lines.
Below the fold are quotes from RFK plus my own simple primer on what HVDC is and why it is the key to moving beyond fossil fuels.
From Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.:
"(The US )sits atop the second-largest geothermal resources in the world. The American Midwest is the Saudi Arabia of wind; indeed, North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas alone produce enough harnessable wind to meet all of the nation’s electricity demand. As for solar, according to a study in Scientific American, photovoltaic and solar-thermal installations across just 19 percent of the most barren desert land in the Southwest could supply nearly all of our nation’s electricity needs without any rooftop installation, even assuming every American owned a plug-in hybrid."
"There are a number of things the new president should immediately do to hasten the approaching boom in energy innovation. A carbon cap-and-trade system designed to put downward pressure on carbon emissions is quite simply a no-brainer."
"There’s a second thing the next president should do, and it would be a strategic masterstroke: push to revamp the nation’s antiquated high-voltage power-transmission system so that it can deliver solar, wind, geothermal, and other renewable energy across the country."
"(However), traveling via alternating-current (A.C.) lines, too much of that wind farmer’s energy would dissipate before it crossed the country. The nation urgently needs more investment in its backbone transmission grid, including new direct-current (D.C.) power lines for efficient long-haul transmission. Even more important, we need to build in "smart" features, including storage points and computerized management overlays, allowing the new grid to intelligently deploy the energy along the way. Construction of this new grid will create a marketplace where utilities, established businesses, and entrepreneurs can sell energy and efficiency."
Okay, so sources for alternative power are scattered around, often at great distances from the urban centers that use most electricity.
The need, then, is to build a reliable means of transmitting electricity from where it can be efficiently generated to where a lot of it gets used, for example from Nebraska to Chicago for wind or from Arizona to Atlanta for solar, and so on. The current high voltage power lines with which we are all familiar rely on alternating current (AC) This is the kind of electricity that is in your house. Direct current (DC) is the kind of electricity in batteries. Everyone knows that AC can be transformed to DC, as in your phone charger and similar devices.
Simple, so far.
AC can be changed to DC and back to AC and we all do it all the time. Also, a lot of DC can be packed into a power transmission line and is then called High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC)
Power companies do not invest in HVDC lines now because it is cheaper to use big coal, oil or nuclear plants and then send the electricity to nearby areas. That’s why there’s a nuclear plant at Indian Point, about 40 miles north of New York and a big oil-burning plant right on the East River a mile from Manhattan. And this is true of every city.
Building HVDC lines will require the kind of presidential leadership Obama can and must provide. To invest in 10,000 windmills in the Great Plains, for example, will necessitate simultaneous development of HVDC lines. This will take federal commitment to tax incentives, low-interest loans and grants to get the windmills spinning and the solar panels shining in the desert– but that is all it will take. We have the technology now.
But hold on –
As activists, we still need to know at least a little bit about HVDC if we are going to push for the kind of simultaneous government investment in a vast array of alternative power generators that will be useless with the kind of lines that can transmit their power to where it is needed.
For those who prefer a layman’s guide to HVDC, I suggest a quick look at the website of the Siemens corporation:
http://www.energy.siemens.com/...
No, I do not own stock in Siemens, but they do seem to know what they are talking about when it comes to HVDC. They are evidently one of the leading worldwide firms in constructing this kind of equipment and are continuing to refine it for use in certain limited situations, e.g. transmitting power for a long distance via an undersea cable. That identical technology is what we need to support a rapid transition to alternative energy sources.
If you go to the above site, look for a 48 page PDF entitled High Voltage Direct Current Transmission – Proven Technology for Power Exchange. This booklet is quite easy to understand, although keep in mind that Siemens, of course, is pushing their own product here.
On page 4 of the above PDF there is a quick explanation of why the world largely uses AC for power transmission: the equipment is simpler, requires less maintenance, and is fine for transmitting power for up to 40 km to 100 km.
The problem with AC is that beyond those distances, there is significant power loss. The second problem is that it is impossible to connect AC systems of varying frequencies, which we can anticipate could be the case if various wind, solar , geothermal and other power generating sources needed to be funneled into one system that could then carry power hundreds of miles. Even if two or more systems had the same frequencies, it could be impossible, according to Siemens, to connect them together. Obviously, AC will not support alternative power generation.
DC lines are more expensive for shorter distances and this is why, despite continuing improvements to the technology, they are not in wide use. The key fact , however, is that at distances of 500-800km, AC and DC costs break even and beyond that, DC is cheaper because it more effectively carries electricity at long distances without significant losses.
For those who feel up to it ( and I have to say I don’t) here is a link to a recent very technical book on HVDC:
http://www.wiley.com/...
Anyway, the above is my attempt to teach myself some very basic stuff on HVDC. And if I can make sense of this, so can anyone. The important thing is to be informed enough to argue the case for alternative power with people – Democrats as well as Republicans – who think it is a fantasy. Only with cheap and plentiful electricity can we reasonably hope to convert cars and trains to electric. To work on improving mileage standards at this point or to push off to 2050 a serious reduction in carbon emissions is to delay but not prevent climate disaster. We simply don’t have that long, as most of us here know.
And as to the politics of this - Even Obama, like Hillary, seems to think that the US needs something the coal industry calls "clean coal" and it is possible that he may be persuaded to see value in building new nuclear plants along with new oil refineries. The cost of funding alternative energy plus HVDC conversion is miniscule compared to the billions that could be wasted on coal, nuclear, and oil. Not to mention the $1 to $2 trillion on the Iraq War.
Moreover, this is the kind of energy plan that can provide plenty of incentives to corporate America to get on board since there is money to be made from huge wind and solar farms on the Great Plains or in the deserts of the Southwest, altho profits have to be tightly regulated so that electricity becomes cheap enough to replace fossil fuels for everything except maybe jet fuel and certain petroleum-based synthetics.
A further bonus could be that US companies could take the lead in perfecting and exporting this technology for China, India and other emerging economies. This answers the constant rightwing argument that the US shouldn't do anything about CO2 unless China does.
Comments and corrections wanted – Don’t take my amateur word for any of this.