(Oak Ridge) Researchers propose (renewable) energy plan (20% by 2020)

[jpak]

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060911-112300-5039r

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Sept. 11 (UPI) -- Two U.S. researchers have unveiled a strategy for meeting 20 percent of the nation's electricity demand with clean, renewable energy by the year 2020.

The executive director of the Network for New Energy Choices, Chris Cooper, and Benjamin Sovacool of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory say their plan would use a federal renewable portfolio standard, or RPS, involving market-based strategies.

Cooper said the plan doesn't mandate a specific amount of renewable energy. Instead, it sets the RPS goal as 20 percent of electricity demand, thereby creating incentives for utilities to pursue demand-reduction strategies.

The plan also sets national standards for home and business owners who wish to generate their own electricity and sell the excess to the central transmission grid.

<more>

[JohnWxy]

1. Decrease prices and increase security, sounds like an intelligent plan.

Cooper and Sovacool say their plan could decrease retail electricity prices by up to 17 percent, save consumers more than $580 million and utilities as much as $74 billion.

The researchers say it would also decrease the probability of a major blackout in the next 20 years from nearly 100 percent to about 1 percent and make the U.S. transmission grid safer from terrorist attacks.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sounds like an intelligent plan. Wind power is the cheapest source of power today, and it will only keep getting cheaper and cheaper relative to all fossil fuel energy sources.

Increasing the proportion of power generated by wind farms will also decrease the likelihood of terrorists targeting nuclear and coal fired plants because as a greater proportion of the total power comes from distributed sources (wind farms)and thus could be transferred into an area where power would be taken out by an attack, such an attack wouldn't cause a regional power outage and the terrorists would be less likely to make the effort or take the risk.

... of course that doesn't reduce the attractiveness of the nuclear plants as targets because of the risk of leakage or meltdown initiated by an attack.

But the GOP prefers to follow the Katrina-FEMA disaster management model. Don't take any pro-active action. Wait until a disaster is upon you and then try to figure out how to deal with it.

And with the new electronic voting machines being installed all over the country I think you can forget about any Democrats winnning an election ever again - no matter how many people THOUGHT they voted Democratic.


HOw they Stole Ohio - Greg Palast

and:

Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House. ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.>

[kestrel91316]

2. Bush is gonna fire their a- - es for coming up with such a hairbrained,

unpatriotic scheme.

Why do Cooper and Sovacool hate America???????????