I don't understand the reluctance here, renewable clean energy means jobs, it simply does and why in the hell hasn't anyone just stood up and told the American people that is exactly what it means. Why does it mean jobs? because we have too much dependance upon coal and oil and moving away from those means that we have to build new plants, new systems of getting the power into the grid and to the public. I'd even suggest that the people who work in coal and oil be given first dibs on the new jobs that are created.
We need to be a bit more like Portugal and simply move our oil swilling carcass away from the fossil fuel buffet. Are we building wind farms, yes we are. Do we have an investment in solar, to a degree yes, are we exploiting geothermal as well as we could, I don't think so. We should be dancing with the stuff that is esentially free once you tap into it. The wind always blows, the sun always shines and the planet is always hot beneath the surface. It really is that simple. Does it involve costs, yes it does, but I can tell you that it is more than likely that the costs are an initial investment and then its maintanence only from there on. If you want to speak about costs, ask about those associated with our current ongoing national disaster.
America has companies that make wind turbines, solar panels and have drilled geothermal wells. We have the knowledge on how to construct geothermal plants and solar panels could be hooked up damn near anywhere to keep the day to day needs of hot water available to us all, so why in the hell aren't we doing it everywhere?
There are nearly 600 coal plants in the US alone..... whereas the largest wind farm in the US (in Texas!) generates an equivalent amount of power to three nuclear power plants (if you can believe wikipedia). We have hot springs/geothermal sites that are unexploited all around the US, tap into them and set up the appropriate plants to exploit them and they emit roughly 2% of the greenhouse gases of an equiavalent coal plant. We have wide open spaces of our national highway system, how difficult would it be to tap into the grid that follows them (after all, we're lighting those road signs already aren't we?) and place panels on either side? Farmers could grow crops and harvest the wind of the great plains. Routing all of these new ideas into our existing structure would allow us to upgrade and modernize our grid. We could have light rail and bullet trains and well you get the idea, in order to do this, people need to build it, that means jobs, for architects, engineers, construction workers, and everyday folks like you and me that fill in all of the niches in between from someone selling food to the guys doing the building, to the people doing the clerical work that moves people and machines.
Just going on the "red dot" data alone, there are loads of places where geothermal could start being exploited:
http://map.ngdc.noaa.gov/...
As for wind farms.....here are the ten windiest cities on average:
10 windiest cities
Avg annual wind speed in mph
- Blue Hill Observatory, Massachusetts 15.4
- Dodge City, Kansas 14.0
- Amarillo, Texas 13.5
- Rochester, Minnesota 13.1
- Casper, Wyoming 12.9
- Cheyenne, Wyoming 12.9
- Great Falls, Montana 12.7
- Goodland, Kansas 12.6
- Boston, Massachusetts 12.5
- Lubbock, Texas 12.4
As for solar....maybe some projects around here would make sense
10 sunniest cities
Annual percent of possible sunshine
- Yuma, Arizona 90%
- Las Vegas, Nevada 85%
- Phoenix, Arizona 85%
- Tucson, Arizona 85%
- El Paso, Texas 83%
- Flagstaff, Arizona 79%
- Fresno, California 79%
- Reno, Nevada 79%
- Sacramento, California 78%
- Albuquerque, N.M. 76%
I'm not saying that we'll ever be completely devoid of coal and oil, but the people in charge need to let people know that energy conversion means jobs, of all kinds and that adopting and embracing change is good for the country and the economy.