RMI Offers a Positive Energy Vision For the Future
"RMI Offers a Positive Energy Vision For the Future"
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Yesterday, Republican Presidential candidate Rick Perry issued a “positive” video highlighting his environmentally disastrous energy policy: Drill more, mine more, burn more. Michele Bachmann, another candidate who has proposed opening the Florida Everglades to offshore oil drilling, said of Perry’s plan: “I appreciate you endorsing my energy ideas.”
All the leading Republican candidates might as well be endorsing each others’ plans. Except for centrist John Huntsman, they are all calling for a shut-down of the Environmental Protection Agency, a rollback of environmental regulations, a repeal of renewable energy programs, and a drill-everywhere-burn-everything-under-the-ground approach.
Where’s the vision from these so-called “leaders?”
If you’re looking for some inspiration on the energy front during these dark political times, you can always find some from the Rocky Mountain Institute (where Climate Progress editor Joe Romm worked for 2 years in the early 1990s). The organization, which focuses on profitable, market-based solutions to our energy challenges, is about to release its latest project: Reinventing Fire.
The promo video below offers a teaser to RMI’s Reinventing Fire project, a detailed plan showing how to transition to a mostly renewable energy-based country by 2050 — all while growing the economy by 158%. This is the conversation we should be having. Why don’t we see more videos like this from leading politicians?
Here are some great factoids from RMI’s plan:
Much as cold warriors cast about for a new enemy after the Soviet Union collapsed, many feel that coal is now the irreplaceable fossil fuel. Electricity is essential to modern life, they say, too expensive to store, and far too asset-intensive to change even over a generation. We suspect they suffer from a dearth of practical imagination, as illustrated by this list of what approximate equivalent percentage of U.S. coal-fired electricity could be saved by:
- Using electricity only as efficiently (per GDP) as the top ten states averaged four years ago: ~60 percent (ert.rmi.org/cgu/index.htm);
- Systematically using electricity with cost-effective efficiency: 100–150 percent, at a lower cost than just buying the coal;
We mean to speed the transformation from pervasive waste to elegant frugality, from causing scarcity by inattention to creating abundance by design, from liquidating energy capital to living better on energy income.
- Adding windpower in available windy sites: over 400 percent, at or below wholesale power prices;
- Building just the windpower now stuck in the interconnection queue: 50 percent;
- Properly exploiting profitable industrial cogeneration: 40 percent (plus more in buildings); and
- Running coal plants less and existing but partly idle combined-cycle gas plants more: 35 percent immediately, at an extra cost much less than displacing coal with new nuclear plants. In practice, a combination from this far from exhaustive menu can create a practical transition beyond coal, with cleaner air, right-side-up landscapes, more jobs, greater energy security, and lower electric bills.
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“Why don’t we see more videos like this from leading politicians?”
er…
because the US does not appear to have any politicians…
With the necessary scientific understanding and competence, who are more scared of climate change than the Koch brothers et al and have a long term plan rather than a short term view.
Who are not fearful of change and are will to push change through because it is to the benefit of all of humanity, and because it is the moral and right thing to do.
Who have balls big enough to take on big oil and their Koch, Murdoch cohorts and slap them down permanently regardless of the personal cost.
Who actually work as public servants in that they work for you the American people all the time, rather than pretending that they do at the ballot box while you vote for them after which they simply shill for the entities who sponsored their political campaigns.
Aah, the joys of a plutocracy masquerading as a democracy.
RMI Plan for Energy including Renewables and Energy Efficiency is excellent.
Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
Wind Energy Expert
E-mail: anumakonda.jagadeesh@gmail.com
A commenter on another of today’s posts mentions Gwynne Dyer’s Climate Wars. Here’s a quote relevant to RMI, from page 129:
This is a hopeful message for those already favorably disposed. It should not be controversial. But like a lot of things, that should be common sense, it has been politicized. Just as “climate change” now is a dirty word, “green jobs” is now considered a leftist conspiracy, “renewable energy” as “not practical”. The argument it is not practical to get off of fossil fuels anytime soon.
I would like to see some practical demonstrations, at least at the local community level that what RMI is suggesting is true. (Initially, it will be more expensive, but it would demonstrate viability, and the cost will come down with more deployments.) I would like to nix the argument that we cannot get off of fossil fuels, or that we cannot get 80% of our energy from renewables. (And if it cannot be done, we need to seriously ask the question, why?)
I have worked all my life developing low cost clean energy. Amory is the only North American who wrote and called seeking economic information on new technology.