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Clinton Plan To Power Every US Home With Renewables By 2027 Is Achievable

Posted by samzenpus on from the cleaner-and-greener dept.

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.

3 of 528 comments (clear)

  1. Fun question: by Penguinisto · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    How the hell much is this going to cost?

    Note that cost has many dimensions here:
    * taxes
    * personal cost of having to replace bits and bobs to meet these efficiency standards
    * increases in the power bill

    etc...

    It's nice to promise something, but has anyone run the numbers on cost to individuals and to the economy at large?

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    1. Re:Fun question: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      So make current bills for the middle class higher, make commuting to work much more costly for the middle class, and by basically giving a fuck you to anyone who isn't either rich enough to be using renewables already or so poor that they're already getting benefits to pay for their life? Destroying the middle class is a good thing. Those of us who are at the top can now pee on those upstarts with impunity under her new plan.

  2. Talking points? by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Ya know, instead of listening to what the politicians *say*, we could look at what the politicians *do*.

    The two biggies I can think of are job outsourcing and civil rights. Let's see what Hillary has been doing for the last few years:

    Voted YES on reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act. (Mar 2006)
    Voted YES on establishing a Guest Worker program. (May 2006)
    Voted YES on allowing illegal aliens to participate in Social Security. (May 2006)
    Opposes illegal immigration, but doesn’t vote to follow up. (Jun 2007)
    Sponsored bill funding social services for noncitizens. (May 2006)
    Voted YES on loosening restrictions on cell phone wiretapping. (Oct 2001)
    Rated 60% by the ACLU, indicating a mixed civil rights voting record. (Dec 2002)

    Overall, a mixed bag of non-caring of our jobs and rights.

    Do we want yet another president that doesn't care about the people?