My Take on The Green New Deal
Basics of the (GND), the Grid, Jobs, Financing — AND
the $#|+ critics are throwing at it.
The GND It is a mission statement that seeks to put the brakes on climate change before it’s too late. In its current form is a non-binding congressional resolution.
It’s a broad outline of a massive effort with two main parts –
• Green - stopping greenhouse gas emissions, by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy in ten years
• Other goals include mitigation of the many harms from fossil fuel extraction
• New Deal - creating massive guaranteed employment, with good jobs and fair pay intended to achieve these goals
The legislation that follows will include more detail and the specific mechanism to fund and implement the transition from our dependence on fossil fuel to 100% renewable energy.
Our current dependence on fossil fuel looks like this:
The chart above shows what kind of power we use on the left, and how it gets consumed on the right. Fossil Fuels account for about 80% of our total power consumption.
Because the GND seeks to eliminate Nuclear power as well as hydro-power, the GND seeks to replace 95% of our existing power sources in ten years.
( Neither Nuclear nor Hydro power is specifically mentioned in the Resolution as it had been in a widely circulated letter of support.
Nuclear power is about 8% and hydro 5% . Thanks to a reader for catching this )
++ the GND seeks to replace over 80% of our existing power sources in ten years.
Over a million people are currently employed providing fossil fuel for consumption. Another million are employed by private health insurance companies and health-care claims processing. Both the GND and Medicare for all would eliminate almost all of these jobs.
The GND seeks a ‘just transition’ from obsolete old jobs to new jobs including the ones required to implement the renewable energy goals.
It also seeks to employ others not currently looking for jobs and those not recently employed.
You may hear the words ‘All hands on Deck’ and its scope is ‘as big as the WWII effort.’
Also the technical challenges are likened to ‘the moonshot’ when JFK called for landing a man on the moon, and the technology to do it did not exist.
The primary New power sources are expected to be- Wind Turbines and PV Solar panels.
The good news is that prices for them have been dropping to the point that in 2017 & 2018 Wind and solar are now cheaper than Coal power and Nuclear power, and on a par with Natural Gas.
The decades long decreases in Renewable energy prices is expected to continue its decline.
Things are changing so fast, if you’re not careful to set your browser to last month or last year you’re likely to get obsolete information about renewable energy.
Critics will use this phrase. “When the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.”
(That phrase is a tipoff)
“Common sense” says if you have solar on your roof and a wind turbine in your yard, that on a still night, you will have no power.
This is an invalid, red herring argument.
The plans for huge wind and solar installations include the new Smart Grid which will be able to efficiently transmit power from anywhere the power is, up to thousands of miles away to where it is needed.
Folks in one time zone will get power from sunnier and windier locations, even from other time zones.
The so-called smart grid will take power distributed across the country and route it to where it’s needed.
The GND also includes the ability of small so-called Micro Grids to be owned and operated by individuals and municipalities that can either connect to The Grid, or unplug from it and operate independently.
The Smart Grid opens possibilities for new paradigms of ownership and control of the Grid as a publicly owned Utility.
This emphasis on Electrical power will enable the use of bullet trains and other Electric Vehicles.
Batteries and other energy storage options will be employed and the success of the Smart Grid will depend on the continuation of falling prices, and development of new efficient technologies.
The GND includes the most cost effective way to meet energy demands; conservation and energy efficiency. This will include sealing and insulating buildings, and using some -Thermal Solar for heating.
Paying for it.
Critics will invoke another trope about afford-ability. Proponents of the GND rely on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) to disabuse the critics of the myth of afford-ability and Government debt and raising taxes to pay for it.
MMT explains how the economy actually works. It’s not a philosophy of advocacy.
The Critics of the GND use ‘common sense’ and invalid arguments about debt and money management.
Their false arguments are based on old ideas about gold in Fort Knox, running out of money, or crushing debt. It’s nonsense.
The USA has what’s called fiat money which means the USA creates money by crediting accounts electronically, not by waiting to find the money or raise the tax money, and then spending it.
There are some really good videos by Stephanie Kelton about MMT and how the federal government
( Not state or local governments ) is much less constrained by budget concerns than you or I.
The federal government can NEVER “run out of money.”
If done responsibly, sovereign governments using fiat money can afford to do big things like Medicare for All and the GND. They've been doing it to pay for endless war.
You don’t have to hit up tax payers first to – “get the money.”
It’s really eye opening! It’s Worth the time hear all about it.