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Clinton Plan To Power Every US Home With Renewables By 2027 Is Achievable
Lucas123 writes: As part of her campaign pledge, Hillary Clinton has said she would make it a priority in her first term to increase the number of solar panels by 500M and U.S. installed solar capacity from 21 gigawatts (GW) today to 140GW by the end of 2020. Her plan, is to increase solar, wind and other renewables so that they'd provide 33% of America's electricity by 2027, enough to power every home. While the plan may sound overly ambitious, experts say, it's not. Today, renewables provide about 15% of America's power. Shayle Kann, senior vice president at GTM Research, said the Clinton's renewable energy goal is doable, but with caveats. In order to achieve the goal, current programs, such as federal tax breaks for solar installations (set to expire next year), must continue and future initiatives, such as Obama's Clean Power Plan that will begin in 2018, must not be curtailed. Considering that if elected, Clinton wouldn't take office until 2017, the her campaign goals could be more bravado than reality. Clinton, however, is not alone. While most candidates have yet to announce their clean energy plans, Clinton's Democratic contender, Martin O'Malley, also came out with strong support for the end of fossil fuel use and a full clean energy economy by 2050, and creating a national goal of doubling energy efficiency within 15 years.
There is no such thing as "renewable" energy. It's only a goddamn law of thermodynamics.
If Hillarreah! were to tell me it's raining at night, I'd have to go outside to confirm it.
And I'd expect it to be sunny without a cloud in the sky.
headline says:
Clinton Plan To Power Every US Home With Renewables By 2027 Is Achievable
but the summary says
Her plan, is to increase solar, wind and other renewables so that they'd provide 33% of America's electricity by 2027, enough to power every home.
what this means is that the amount of renewable generation would equal residential use, not that each house would be 100% renewable.
In CA Southern California Edison is currently 22% renewable, and they have plans to go to 27%. This doesn't include home generation like rooftop solar panels, which should count for the 33% goal.
Heck, she could have asked around for predictions of renewable adoption so she could announce a "plan" to get us to 33%, knowing in advance that it will happen on its own. That way if she wins, she can look like a success without having to do anything. Not the worst idea ever.
Solar is currently the most expensive renewable by far. I know the dream is to power everything in your house with solar panels on the roof, but the technology just isn't there yet (at least without tremendous expense).
The latest complete electrical production stats (2013) put renewables at 12.8%. 6.6% of that is hydro, 4.1% is wind, 1% is burning wood (yes it's a renewable), 0.5% is "other biomass" - mostly natural gas captured from landfills, 0.4% is geothermal, and only 0.22% is solar (thermal and photovoltaic). Solar isn't last because of some grand conspiracy. It's last because it's the most expensive.
Why would you want to put the most expensive technology on the fast track for widescale adoption? Because it taps into the wishes and dreams of those who don't know better? The whole point of being an elected official is that your sole job is to learn this stuff so you can make better decisions about it than the voters who elected you who don't have the time (or sometimes the capability) to learn this stuff. A more well-reasoned approach would be to encourage wider adoption of wind (hydro is pretty much tapped out in the U.S., and wind is just a hair's breadth more expensive than coal), while continuing subsidies into solar R&D. Encouraging wide-scale adoption of PV solar at current levels of technology and cost is wasteful and foolish when better alternatives exist.
Or maybe due to negative externalities that weren't properly internalized into the price of energy, energy prices have been artificially low all along, encouraging people to live energy-intensive lifestyles, and now all of a sudden they have to pay the piper.
Nah, that couldn't possibly be true at all.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Are you really comparing the Clinton's promised diseases to the Obama's plague ?
In northern areas, you pitch the solar panels at an angle, and many houses have them on the high slope south facing roofs. There are these things called brushes we use to clean off snow so it doesn't collapse our roofs. My dad lives in a house in Vermont that is solar powered for electricity and hot water, and he survives the winters quite nicely. Helps if you have R28 insulation and triple pane windows too.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If Bush or Clinton are elected, exactly nothing will change.
Last time we had a Clinton, we shrunk the deficit down to zero and grew the middle class and the economy.
Last time we had a Bush, we exploded the deficit, started multiple wars that we couldn't end, and crippled the economy.
While I too wish that the parties and candidates were a bit more different, I'm not sure you can call them identical...
I'm afraid you're equating change with good.
Change is not the equivalent to good. Change is change. The only thing you know about change is that it's not "no change".
Trump is change. It's a big change. You get the possible benefits you've listed out. And you'll also get a raving lunatic on an ego trip. That's a marked change from the past 24-28 years.
But is it a good change? Because a big change can mean really good. And it can mean really bad. And since we're a little bad right now, really good would net us good, but really bad nets really, really bad.
Are the benefits of Trump's "big changes" worth the risk? That's for you to decide I guess.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
The only person who has a remote chance of caring about us is Trump.
Wait, wait, don't bring out the pitch forks... yea, I know he is a walking ego trip, yes he is a arrogant SOB.. I am well aware of that... but he also has nothing to gain by screwing us at this point. .
That doesn't mean he cares about you, it just means he's responding to different incentives.
He is now old, very wealthy, and has nothing else to do but take the country in a new direction.
He also isn't owned by lobbyists or 30 years of political connections the way Bush and Clinton are.
If Bush or Clinton are elected, exactly nothing will change. If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten.
The fact he has different baggage doesn't he has no baggage. If anything I'd say he's more likely to have some massive skeletons stuffed in the closet of an unsavoury operator.
As for a new direction 'new' doesn't necessary mean better, I don't see how a guy batting to the looniest of the fringes is going to be a change for the better.
At least Trump will kick over the table and say, "new direction".
Will it turn out well? Hard to say, we won't really know without trying, but at some point we either try something new, or accept the current situation forever.
Just read this twitter exchange. It's not a policy position or anything like that but I think it's illustrative.
First, who in their right mind gets in an insult fight with a professional comedy writer?
Second, once they're in that fight who throws out insults like a 5 year old and acts like they're kicking ass?
Trump was obviously once competent enough at one thing to make billions, but at this point, in this context, it's pretty clear that he's spent so long surrounded with yes-men that he's completely out of touch with reality. The prospect of having him in power scares me more than Sarah Palin.
I stole this Sig
At the end of the day I'd expect a Palin Whitehouse to be a bit of chaos quickly taken over by bureaucrats as she realizes that being President is a) confusing, and b) a lot of hard work. It would be incompetent and shoddily run but the kind of damage people can work around.
Trump is the kind of person who will follow through with an absolutely terrible idea because it's his idea and he won't let anyone deter him, he can cause real damage.
Have you stopped to consider that some of his comments of the past few months are actually quite carefully considered? He would not be getting anything close to the media attention without them, he is leading the republican polls, so clearly he is doing something right.
Have you stopped to consider he's only polling so high because he has huge name recognition and he's essentially a sideshow. The Republican primaries have been a gong-show since 2012 and I'm doubtful that most of the people indicating him would be actually do so if they thought he had a chance of winning.
Why does everyone want to hire a lawyer or professional lifetime politician to be President, instead of a CEO?
Another example, Steve Jobs was a PITA to work for, he'd yell, scream, tell you were you a moron, yet he clearly knew something.
Some of the nicest people in the world would make for crappy leaders.
CEO is a very different skillset than President. I don't have any objection to CEOs as Presidents in general though I think Trump would be terrible. Jobs too, I don't think he'd have been bad, but the things that made him special as a CEO wouldn't translate to being a President.
And back to Trump, have you considered the possibility that his behaviour is just some early manifestation of senile dementia? I don't want to focus on it because it sounds very insulting, but at the same time his behaviour and seeming obliviousness is downright bizarre. He wouldn't be the first politician past retirement age to start acting erratically and be diagnosed with dementia a few years later, if you're considering him for President I think it's a possibility you have to take seriously.
I stole this Sig