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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.
Great Scott!!!!!!!
To put 21 gigawatts in perspective, that's approximately 17 trips through time.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
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.
Please, enough with your sexist, cis-male, privileged bullshit. Everyone knows that Clinton has always run a clean, transparent operation wherever she goes and isn't one to blame significant swaths of the country for her failures. Next thing you'll be telling us she has a foundation that acts as a pay-for-play slush fund that enables assholes from around the world to get access to her and Bill.
Would you prefer "naturally replenishing on a scale that is non-depletable in any practical sense at the present time"? It takes a little longer to say, but maybe it would be more to your liking?
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.
She was basically expected to fail. For various political reasons within the DNC she needed to be given the presumption of a chance but there was an understanding from the start that she'd not go anywhere.
Sort of like the republicans running John McCain or something... the know he's not going to win. They might even nominate him... but if they do... they know he's not going anywhere.
Hillary is the same thing and so is Bernie or Trump. the political forces that know anything know that these people are the opening circus attraction.
Behind Hillary there are a lot of people in the Dem ranks that can stand up and be more credible than her. And they will especially since Hillary appears to be self destructing faster than anything believed possible. This email thing is getting increasingly serious. I doubt she's going to jail over it but... it is looking like something nasty could come out of it. The sweater is getting unraveled.
On the other political side you have Trump... who also will not be president. Its not going to happen. Even if he got the nomination and he won't... but even if he did... he'd still lose.
So who cares what these people say they would do. I might as well stand up and say what I would do if I were president. Or anyone else on slashdot... Stand up and tell us what you'd do if you were president.
Whatever you said matters about as much as Hillary's various schemes to get enough votes to get her party's nomination.
I will say this... IF Hillary got nominated... she might win. She'd have a D after her name and that is a very powerful thing in an election. But... I don't think she's going to get nominated.
She's kind of a female Al Gore in a lot of ways. Neither Gore nor her wants to associate with Bill Clinton but neither of them would even be considered for high office without that association. I don't know why they distance themselves from Bill. If I were either of them I'd walk around on stage as Bill Clinton gave me piggybacks. As much as possible, I'd try to make people think they were voting for Bill Clinton.
Bill Clinton could actually win again... I mean... legality and term limits aside... people like him. No one likes Hillary. Even her supporters don't like her. They feel comfortable with her maybe or they think her politics are right or whatever. But they don't like her. Who wants to have a beer with Hillary? or a glass of wine or anything? No one likes her. Bill is funny. He's got stories. He's charming. You'd have a good time and he projects that in his politics and personality.
Hillary projects... Agnes from accounting... The woman in the office that does something boring and repetitive that no one cares about... she goes home every day at 5pm and people assume she has a lot of cats because of the pictures of cats all over her cubicle...
I mean seriously... imagine if Hillary were not a politican but just some person. Would you want to know her or spend any time with her?
Exactly. I mean... I'd rather spend time with Trump then her... and Trump is insane. But Trump is at least amusing. I'd likely deck him every so often... and doubtless he'd call the cops on me because I assume he's a whiny bitch on the subject. But... people you want to spend time with versus not is relevant in politics. Likability.
And that's a problem for old Hill. She isn't getting the nomination. I don't see it. And if she does... she's one of the weaker presidential candidates the dems could field.
I'd actually fear Bernie more in this election if I were the republicans more than Hillary. I mean... bernie is a frizzy haired crack pot. But he's at least sincere. He actually believes the shit that comes out of his mouth. Hillary doesn't believe anything. Those are just animal sounds she makes to lull the peasants. Everything is focus groups, talking points, lobbying scripts... she licks her finger, holds it up to the wind, and that's her position.
And I think THAT perception is going to be very hard for her to overcome.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Coal is also 'naturally replenishing on a scale that is non-depletable in any practical sense at the present time'.
Who knew we were already so green?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Or maybe because hydro is mature and already close to peak, so giving it incentives would not help the overall energy picture? The point of most of the "renewable energy bills" is to drive development and deployment of a large range of renewables. If solar panels become much cheaper/better (such that "the market" will handle it) then I'd expect solar panel subsidies to dry up. To my uninformed view, it looks like wind may be approaching that level?
Maybe Hillary could conduct a pilot project in her own home. Throw a few panels on the roof. It might even generate enough to power an email server.
Umm...it appears that the email server has been disconnected. Well, never mind. It's the thought that counts :-)
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...
If lying wins an election, then lying is not the problem.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The ACA was well intentioned
No it wasn't. IT was designed from the beginning to snooker the American people into a broken "insurance" scam designed to break the medical/insurance industry. It was designed to fail, so that Americans would jump into single payer, crap healthcare.
You can keep your plan (Lie)
It isn't a tax (Lie)
You can keep your doctor(Lie)
It will cost less(Lie)
You'll have better coverage (Lie)
And I am sure supporters will provide anecdotal evidence that some of these claims were true for them. Plenty of people lost their doctors, plans and spend more for less insurance. OH, and Obama lied about not increasing taxes on those making $250k or less. BUT who cares, Cecil the lion is dead!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Sometimes because of ACA, though I've heard rumors that in the decades before the ACA insurance companies sometimes changed their policy offerings without Obama causing it! Seems unlikely I know...
But yeah, the ACA did change a lot of "good if you never needed them" plans. You would think that the free market would have weeded out either the shysters who offered those plans or the gullible marks who bought them, but that never seems to happen in practice.
The ACA doesn't kill insurance plans, insurance companies kill insurance plans. (Yeah, this version is just as nonsensical).
ACA does kill the plans by making them no longer affordable. When the president or his lobbyists can add new things and require them to be covered at 100%, a lot of cheaper plans that younger people would have wanted fall apart.
And regardless, Obama is the one that made the claim that insurance would be cheaper once everyone was on it. That hasn't worked out at all as lots of people predicted.
Archangel Michael is correct. This was not a well intentioned plan. It was a plan designed to crash the current health system while making it look to be the fault of the evil insurance companies.
Say what you will about Obama, he is very good at making himself look like the victim being picked on by mean bullies. Name one debate where he didn't use the phrase "common sense solution" and then criticize or make fun of everyone who didn't agree with him
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
Here's one example: The cost of air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley is more than $1,600 per person per year, or $6 billion to the region's economy, according to the researchers.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
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
We already have the F-35.
You are welcome on my lawn.