My proposals for a New Energy Policy for America will include several common themes designed to meet the goals I outlined in my previous post. These were:
- It will provide jobs all across our great land.
- It will reduce and eliminate our dependence on foreign oil.
- It will make our nation’s energy supply more reliable and very resistant to attack by terrorists.
- It will reduce energy costs for most citizens.
- It will be a springboard for a resurgence of American innovation.
- Oh, and by the way, it will reduce carbon emissions.
The first theme will focus on decentralization of our energy infrastructure. Centralized energy means corporate controlled energy. Think of the big oil companies and electric power companies. Centralized energy makes our energy supply subject to massive disruption by single point failures or terrorist attacks. Centralized energy means that any failure or attack can take months or years to repair and restore. Centralized energy means that jobs are concentrated in a few energy centers around the United States. Centralized energy means that prices are controlled by a few companies limiting the benefits of a free market. Centralized energy limits consumer choice of their energy supply. To get the benefits of a free market in energy we must evolve our energy infrastructure to one more distributed in nature with redundant interconnections, alternative sources of supply and localized storage.
In the case of electricity supply this will mean moving more electricity generation and storage capacity to be located at local businesses, residences, municipalities and cooperatives. Our power grid will need upgrading to become smarter and capable of moving and aggregating electrical energy in both directions as sources and users of electricity become more distributed.
In the case of oil and natural gas this will mean better strategic location of our refineries, oil and natural gas storage facilities and a network of interconnected pipeline systems for both unrefined and refined oil products. Due to the scale needed to make a refinery profitable, oil refining will need to remain somewhat centralized while natural gas storage and distribution can be more easily distributed. In time, investment in innovative refining technology will allow more on demand smaller refineries.
With regard to coal, I believe we must move away from coal production as we know it today. Due to the cost of production and distribution coal will continue to become less economically competitive, particularly with natural gas. We should continue to fund some basic research in new technologies that could result in the clean conversion of coal to gas or another refined energy product as a back-up to oil and natural gas.
The next theme focuses on elimination of our dependence on foreign oil. This is best done by driving change in what types of energy supply are best suited to the end use of energy. Fixed users of energy such as residential and business must migrate to electricity and natural gas supplies and move away from oil and coal energy sources.
Some forms of transportation will require oil or natural gas based fuels for the foreseeable future. These include air transportation, long distance water vessels, long distance rail, large trucks and busses.
Other forms of transportation such as automobiles and regional rail transit systems must continue to migrate to hybrid, fuel cells or electricity based energy supplies.
The migration and realignment of energy supply and consumption is already well underway in some areas just because the economies make sense. But as expected, the large oil and electric power companies are promoting legislation, creating fake news stories and running numerous advertising campaign to protect their monopoly on energy. You know they are worried that Americans are waking up and they want to keep us from seeking legislation that will support the decentralization of energy.
As citizens we must become educated in the alternative energy sources available and not believe the advertising campaign being mounted by the entrenched energy companies that now control our federal and state legislators.
As we enter the mid-term elections, we all must seek out and support legislators who are willing to stand for American citizens and are not owned by the powerful energy companies and their wealthy owners.
Roger That! 