Thinking Big Is Getting Big

Washington, DC -- It's clear that we've got big problems. Economists are now routinely saying that this is the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The military analysis of how things are going in Afghanistan is grim. Climate scientists warn that we're running out of time and need to change course radically. In 2008, in addition to the worst economic crisis in seventy years, we experienced the worst energy crisis in thirty, and the worst food crisis in fifty.

Big problems need big responses, and big solutions, and what's really exciting are the number of new, big-solution ideas cropping up. Here's a sampler of four big concepts to whet your appetite -- like any big ideas, these have flaws and inconsistencies, barriers and obstacles -- but we've got to start thinking at the scale of our problems.

I'm not sure which combination of the exciting ideas below will be acted on first -- but our leaders have no excuse for going small, and the President-elect, so far, shows no inclination to do so.

The 2030 Stimulus Plan

Ed Mazria at Architecture 2030 has creatively married a proposal to ease the mortgage crisis with the concept of retrofitting homes for high energy performance and efficiency. Basically, if homeowners invest in energy retrofitting to lower their utility bills, the government will also lower their mortgage interest rate. Lower mortgage payments and utility bills have an obvious immediate benefit to homeowners, and housing prices would rise because buildings would be worth more.

According to its advocates, the 2030 Stimulus Plan would

in just two years,

• create at least 8.445 million new jobs and
• create a new $1.6 trillion renovation market

and in just five years,

• save consumers $142.33 to 200.88 billion,
• reduce CO2 emissions by 481.13 Million Metric Tons,
• reduce energy consumption by 6.17 Quadrillion Btu,
• save 1.83 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and
• save 83.35 million barrels of oil.

Storing Carbon Through Regenerative Agriculture and Biochar

Then there is the idea put forth by the Rodale Institute's Tim LaSalle that if we paid farmers for the additional carbon stored by converting from conventional to regenerative, low-chemical agriculture (which his studies put at more than three tons of CO2/acre),  the agricultural sector could potentially sequester 25 percent of current U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. That would enable us to combine major progress on climate with huge reform of our agricultural sector.  This concept is now being tested in Pennsylvania by Governor Ed Rendell.

This level of sequestration would be greatly enhanced if the newly emerging science of biochar, which suggests that by heating agricultural wastes or other organic material without oxygen we can convert up to half of the short-term carbon created by photosynthesis into long-lived biochar, which when added to the soil dramatically improves water retention and productivity. This could be an enormous, scalable way to increase both incomes and agricultural productivity in the Third World.

REPI -- The Pickens Plan in a Recession

So T. Boone Pickens's plan won't save $700 billion at today's oil prices, and private capital markets right now won't fund his wind turbines. But a public-power-based initiative called REPI, for Renewable Electric Power Power Initiative, could take advantage of surplus transmission capacity in the federal power system and the free borrowing authority of the federal government in today's markets to start supplementing the hydro power from projects like Lake Mead and Fort Peck with essentially free renewables: REPI advocates believe that they could get 20,000 MW of solar and 20,000 MW of wind under construction within two years, putting 180,000 people to work and paying the Treasury back with power sales. And Boone's core point, that natural gas is cleaner and cheaper than gasoline for whatever needs we have in future vehicles, still holds true, even with the collapse in the price of oil.

Whipping Poverty While Solving Global Warming

And finally, take a look at Green for All's Clean Energy Core, which with new funding of only "$3 billion per year over 5 years would be leveraged to underwrite the financing for a $50 billion public revolving loan fund -- with tax exemption, credit guarantees, and the ability to package loans for sale to secondary markets -- to make investments and leverage private money in the national building retrofit effort. The fund would be replenished both by its proceeds from projects approved for direct investment and through its sale of packaged loans via private investors." And this approach would be directly tied to job training and service opportunities to engage the next generation in the clean energy economy.

The good news is that at a time when we are suffering from the economic downturn and job loss, there is no shortage of big solutions that could lift us out of the hole we're in -- and that we've elected a President who's willing to make the leap.

Comments

[Frank Grassi]

From: Frank Grassi
1793 Manchester Blvd.
Grosse Ponte Woods, MI 48236
313 886-1354

Please forward my letter to the appropriate people.

I am the inventor of a wind power system using static airfoils. Power Towers can demonstrate that wind power is the way forward and knowing the effort that you are placing on wind power, this project may interest you.

I envision these twin slender skyscrapers size towers that can used as both habitable structures and power generating towers. They would have an airfoil shape and produce 50 MW of power. These slender towers would be wild life friendly and will use 1/10 the land needed by horizontal turbines.

I have discovered a means of producing electric power from the wind that is many times more efficient then the horizontal turbines now in use. My patent pending wind machine will power the 21st. Century! Imagine a 50 MW wind power plant that can integrate a hydrogen enhanced natural gas as the fuel and is operational 100% of the time. There will not be need to cover landscape with thousands of ugly wind turbines.
The cost of wind electric energy must be reduced to below $.03/ kWh. and made more reliable in order for wind power to become competitive with coal. My discovery is an innovative machine using static airfoils. Rotors produce power proportional to the diameter squared. My patent pending invention produces power from the wind not by increasing rotor diameter to immense sizes but by increasing the wind velocity, and since power is proportional to the cube of the velocity you immediately see the advantage.
A wind tunnel test was done this fall semester at University of Michigan. This test confirmed my calculations, and will provide data to direct my next steps. If you are able to assist me please do. The importance of this project can not be minimized.
Imagine how the world will change if the world knew what I know about wind power and its abundance. Enclosed is a confidential patent pending proposal.
You can reach me at 313 886-1364 or at modbrick@gmail.com
Sincerely:
Frank Grassi

[joe vecchio]

I went to a Sierra meeting and I didn't see one member driving a 45 MPG Geo Metro. Too embarassed? I did see a Cadillac DTS like the one Gore drove in his movie, An Inconvenient Truth. I saw suvs. sports cars, and mini-vans that get 18 mpg. Why can't members sacrifice like I do.? GM made a four door Geo Metro in 1992 to 2001 that got 48 mpg and the Sierra Club never once supported its viablity. And the Sierra club, under Pope's leadership, never advertised it in their magazine. Thanks to him, gas consumption went up and so did CO2 emissions. Why? If the 1.3 million members and if the 48 million people who voted for Gore in 2000, would have purchased and supported these great commuter vehicles, we would be saving 2 million barrels a day and hundreds of millions of co2 emissions over the last two decaeds. It's not all technology. It's attitude and ego. Are us democrats really hypocrits? Yes!
Joe Vecchio
writer, director, producer of the political environmental documentary,
WHY I LEFT THEDEMOCRATIC PARTY AND JOINED AL-QAEDA.

[Dr. James Singmaster]

As I have posted many times here, until face up to the ever-expanding messes of organic wastes and sewage, we are losing the battle for our descendants to survive. I have sent Carl a statement on "CHARCOAL JOBS to get the UGLY out of water with clean green actions for sustainability", the UGLY being the rising amounts of pollutants getting away from collecting services and dumps.
I wonder if any Sierra Club members reading this like the idea of drugs in drinking water as EPA is holding this month a conference on risks from such drug pollution. And Natl. Acad. of Sci. just released a report on need for major action to control pollution coming out of storm drains. These reports tell me at least that we need to tackle those messes, but Carl's above posting indicates no one is concerned that those wastes may soon overwhelm us mainly with polluted water supplies. I call on Sierra Club members to get those wastes messes to the attention of government officials for action. Dr. J. Singmaster