GHG-free Electricity & Heat -- A Not So Modest Proposal

Complete elimination of green house gases (GHGs) from regional electricity and district heat production in the US over the next few decades is a real possibility supported by current research. The creation of, finding partners in or joining a project whose mission is to define policy statements, create project plans and economic models, and promote legislative action to enable that prospect is my personal goal.

Current political, policy and legislative impediments would obviously be part of its scope.

Based on objective and achievable research, science and economics, it would include

• goals and impacts,
• an open, dynamically modifiable project plan,
• on-going research and engineering needs,
• quantitative and qualitative measures of progress/change,
• alternative models and measures
• transition issues

Transition issues include current and on-going impacts on local, regional and national economies and populations. The plan would envision positive modes for the transition of and impacts on population centers, families, health, education, businesses, industries, infrastructure and, of course, jobs currently involved in the exploration, creation, packaging, delivery and burning of nuclear, coal, oil and gas for production of heat and electricity.

The project would NOT be advocacy for a particular technology or resource though personally I AM an advocate for expanded support and use of geothermal for electricity generation as well as for integrated household, commercial and district energy savings.

The New, New Deal for further explication and references.
To sponsor or support this effort, contact me via email.

James Hansen, The American Party

The American Party
29 May 2013
James Hansen
My remarks when receiving the Ridenhour Courage Award were written in Union Station on my way to the event. But my concluding comment -- that we are near a point when the American people should contemplate a centrist third party -- was not an idle spur-of-the-moment reflection.

I was in government 40 years, long enough to understand how aging organizations can evolve into self-licking ice cream conesa, organizations whose main purpose becomes self-perpetuation rather than accomplishment of their supposed objectives. The public can see this tendency in our politicians, our Congress, and our major political parties.

Our government has failed to address climate, energy, and economic challenges. These challenges, addressed together, actually can be a great opportunity. Our democracy and economic system still have great potential for innovation and rapid adoption of improved technologies, if the government provides the right conditions and gets out of the way. Complete paper (pdf)

New Paltz Sustainability Day, SUNY New Paltz

Canadian Geo Promotion

Scientific ? American

Scientific ? American -- comment on a comment on an article in Scientific American.

Geo = 3%, not .3% of total US electricity production.
therefore "Geothermal " [receives] ... .69, NOT "6.9 times the subsidies of Nuclear." Unfortunately Geo makes sense, not immediate profits. How about a "Project Hades" to demonstrate engineering and technical methodology where profits ($ & environmental) are little more than five miles from everywhere on earth? Unlimited energy, not disposable and transient commodities.

Compare the costs (direct and indirect impacts, $ and environmental) of fossil/nuc fuels, wind & solar with the costs of geo. AND the benefits (same). For the next 40 years.

Don't leave out the Fossil Fuel/Nuc Industrial Complexity: Mine/drill, refine, store, transport, store, burn/heat, dispose of waste and internal costs/complexities of each of those process steps.

And don't forget the taxpayer/investor costs/campaign contributions of Legislative/Legal/Political Industrial Complexities.

And transition costs/benefits in jobs, families, energy sourcing.

After you're done with a 75MW Geo plant, all the energy you'll ever need is available directly beneath your feet, with the added benefit of energy independence, no FFIC, no LLIC and no GHGs. Oops, sorry for the advocacy. Try it yourself:

http://geothermal.inel.gov/publications/future_of_geothermal_energy.pdf
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/52409-2.pdf
http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/staff_tssa.html

Sequestration? Yoo Hoo, Congress: Cut the poster child of Pentagon waste!

C'mon, Sean (and all the rest of you Congresspeople).

The F-35 is the NY Times and my favorite boondoggle program -- it's ABSURD -- and yet it goes on because our Congressional campaigns are financed by it.

Hey, FIVE F-35s for every Congress member -- @ $1,000,000,000 each ... what fun! Lockheed/Raytheon/Boeing Industrial Complex. It's ABSURD to continue this program even if you're the highest flyin' hawk. If you like flying machines, we could buy 100,000 drones to spy on all the rest of us (200 for every Congressional district!). Or, we could pay for the VA and DoD retirements for decades.

Or, we could put 3 deep geothermal EGS plants in every Congressional district and power the US "forever" with NO greenhouse gases and no Commodities Industrial Complex, no XL, no frackin', no gulfin', no No.Dakin'.

I love you guys, but pullease spend our money on something just a bit less absurd.

_____

PS: All we talk about are the contract costs ... operational/program costs are also ABSURD. These babies are so cute and so delicate and so ROLEX, that maintenance and fuel go into the $10,000s/hr of operation. Hey, my plain old corporate jets cost me only $5 million each and run only $1000/hr. ( And we can write it off ... you can't!)

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: The plane that ate the U.S. budget
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 15:03:12 -0500 (EST)
From: Mary Zerkel and Peter Lems, AFSC
Reply-To: actioncenter@afsc.org
To: vlashua@thnktnk.net


Wage Peace, a campaign of the American Friends Service Committee

F35

Tell Congress to cut the poster child of Pentagon waste!

Sequestration kicked in on Friday—and we think you’ll agree that these blanket cuts are not a smart way to make decisions about federal spending.

Congress doesn’t think so either. As they negotiate the budget in the coming weeks, we need to remind them that just a few smart cuts from the bloated Pentagon budget could easily account for the $1.5 trillion in cuts that the sequester mandates over the next 10 year.

How? Take the F-35 program, the most expensive and least effective weapons system in history. The total lifetime cost of the F-35 program is $1.5 trillion—making it equal to the entire 10 years of cuts mandated by the sequester.

The F-35 program has been grounded twice and has a history of being overdue and over-budget. Why should we continue to throw money at outdated and ineffective weapons systems like the F-35 while cutting vital social programs instead?

Email your members of Congress today to say that there are some easy ways to eliminate waste without cutting programs that create real security.

Wage peace,

Enhancing Geothermal Systems (EGS)

Geothermal power generation (Geo) is the most cost-effective, least polluting, least resource-intensive AND most endurable alternative to nuclear, coal, gas, petroleum, wind and solar for base/regional power generation. Hydro is the only close competitor to Geothermal -- except for the negative environmental impacts of artificial reservoirs and its dependence on a continuous water resource.*

That probably sounds like a baseless proposition if one were to base judgment on the truly baseless and dismissive assertions, "... the hot temperatures required for power generation are found primarily in the West", "It's too deep" or "It causes earthquakes". The President, the Administration, Congress and most of the rest of us ignore or are innocently ignorant of the enormous potential of Geothermal power generation (25% of Northern California's power comes from Geo; Nevada is the fastest growing developer!) and the enormous long-term environmental and economic burden of the "commodities industrial complex" that supports the coal, oil, gas and nuclear commodities businesses.

Production of Geo is not based on direct or services-oriented income and profits from mining, drilling, refining, storage, transportation, re-storage, processing, burning, and trading commodities simply to boil water. The cost of the electricity produced through Geo is not based on commodities markets.

Misleading and sometimes absurd coal, gas and oil commercials don't help: "America's Fuel: Clean Coal" or "Clean Gas" or "fulfilling the promise of energy independence" or "energy for the next 80 years". Unfortunately there are no commercials for "Unlimited power less than ten miles from everywhere on Earth" or "No GHGs, particulate free!" or "Energy for the next billion years".

Once a Geo plant is established, everything except the wires are on-site. All generating equipment and processes are conventional and virtually identical with any other plant that boils water and turns a turbine, except that the "fuel" is directly underfoot. Ownership can be private or public, self-supported authorities -- like water and sewage plants, toll roads, bridges or the Hoover Dam.

Energy Independence? Geo has the proven capacity to supply all future base-load electricity for the US -- no kidding. Every airport and every domestic military base could produce its own power and power its neighbors. Plants situated on public lands (even Interstate rights-of-way) could provide most of our needs.

There is no one alternative for our energy needs, but for regional/base electrical power, Geo provides electricity the least expensively with the least pollution and environmental impact. Learning how to best exploit deep geothermal resources through Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) is a top priority if we want to eliminate emissions from hydrocarbons and tap unlimited power for future generations.

For more, see http://thnktnk.net/drill.html (for references),

http://thnktnk.net/RachelMaddow.html (policy).

*http://geothermal.inel.gov/publications/future_of_geothermal_energy.pdf (seminal research)