The Time Is Now: A Vision For U.S. Renewable Energy

[OneBlueSky]

The Time Is Now: A Vision for U.S. Renewable Energy
Report finds America poised for a major energy shift.

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/infocus/story?id=46015



American Energy: The Renewable Path to Energy Security, a report just released by the Worldwatch Institute and the Center for American Progress, details how the emerging renewable energy industries can address U.S. energy demands, national security, and the environment, as well as similar concerns around the globe.

The following is excerpted from the report's Introduction, titled "21st Century Energy."

If there was ever a time when a major shift in the U.S. energy economy was possible, it is now. Three decades of pioneering research and development by both the government and the private sector have yielded a host of promising new technologies that turn abundant domestic energy sources -- including solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, biomass, and ocean energy -- into transportation fuels, electricity, and heat.

Today, renewable resources provide just over 6 percent of total U.S. energy, but that figure could increase rapidly in the years ahead. Many of the new technologies that harness renewables are, or soon will be, economically competitive with the fossil fuels that meet 85 percent of U.S. energy needs. With oil prices soaring, the security risks of petroleum dependence growing, and the environmental costs of today's fuels becoming more apparent, the country faces compelling reasons to put these technologies to use on a large scale.

Energy transitions take time, and no single technology will solve our energy problems. But renewable energy technologies, combined with substantial improvements in energy efficiency, have the potential to gradually transform the U.S. energy system in ways that will benefit all Americans. The transition is easier to envision if you look at the way the oil age emerged rapidly and unexpectedly in the first two decades of the 20th century, propelled by technologies such as refineries and internal combustion engines and driven by the efforts of entrepreneurs such as John D. Rockefeller.

Americans today are no less clever or ambitious than their great-grandparents were. A new and better energy future is possible if the country can forge a compelling vision of where it wants to be. Recent developments in the global marketplace show the potential:

-- Global wind energy generation has more than tripled since 2000, providing enough electricity to power the homes of about 30 million Americans. The United States led the world in wind energy installations in 2005.

-- Production of electricity-generating solar cells is one of the world's fastest growing industries, up 45 percent in 2005 to six times the level in 2000.

-- Production of fuel ethanol from crops more than doubled between 2000 and 2005, and biodiesel from vegetable oil and waste expanded nearly four-fold over this period.

Global investment in renewable energy (excluding large hydropower) in 2005 is estimated at $38 billion -- equivalent to nearly 20 percent of total annual investment in the electric power sector. Renewable energy investments have nearly doubled over the past three years, and have increased six-fold since 1995. Next to the Internet, new energy technology has become one of the hottest investment fields for venture capitalists.

These dynamic growth rates are driving down costs and spurring rapid advances in technologies. They are also creating new economic opportunities for people around the globe. Today, renewable energy manufacturing, operations, and maintenance provide approximately two million jobs worldwide.

The United States will need a much stronger commitment to renewable energy if it is to take advantage of these opportunities.

...This vision will become reality only if Americans come together to achieve it, mobilized behind the goal of increasing our national self-reliance and leaving a healthy environment for the next generation. The time is now.

The Worldwatch Institute, one of the partners for this report, is an independent research organization that focuses on innovative solutions to global environmental, resource, and economic issues. The other partner is the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to promoting a strong, just and free America that ensures opportunity for all.

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/infocus/story?id=46015

[luckyleftyme2]

1. how to make it happen

all we need to do is demand it now. we the people have the power of the vote. so lets vote the oil companies and big business out in November

VOTE STRAIGHT DEMOCRAT FOR CHANGE
VOTE OUT THE DINOSAURS IN NOVEMBER(OIL AND BIG BUSINESS PUPPETS)
VOTE BLUE!!!!

[Skidmore]

2. The time is now, but now that Big Oil has dropped prices

for gas at the pump and people are lulled into thinking that they the $2/gal prices for gas is reasonable now, I'm afraid that the dialogue around this issue and the will to do something will dissipate as it did in the 1970s. We need to keep hammering away.

[4dsc]

3. Keep praying to the technology god

Energy transitions take time, and no single technology will solve our energy problems.

There is no silver bullet and that includes techonology.. But in the very next sentence: But renewable energy technologies, combined with substantial improvements in energy efficiency, have the potential to gradually transform the U.S. energy system in ways that will benefit all Americans.

Confusing peak oil with technology again I'm afraid.. And by the way if peak oil occurs within the next 10 years, as is advocated by more and more people, then there will be no GRADUAL transformation.. The only transformation is one of a future where everybody lives on less energy, alot less energy!!

Flame away!!

[skids]

4. But wait...

...isn't technology essential to reducing demand, too? Just sayin, I think it would be more effective to push the point home if you didn't come off as a luddite and found a better catch phrase. (BTW, one I like is "The cheapest watt is the Negawatt" even though Lovins isn't a personal favorite of mine.)

[The2ndWheel]

5. Has our demand for energy gone down?

Technology and efficiency don't decrease anything. They increase the amount of people who not only want, but expect, more of everything.

[skids]

6. If we had no technology and efficiency improvements for ten years...

...demand would still rise. While it is true that technology brings new products to bear on the market, old products will increase their sales just as well. You think they won't put that new traffic light up on that new street if it weren't for LEDs? Hardly.

Drill to the core issue: it's the "god of perpetual growth" not the "god of technology."

[The2ndWheel]

7. No question

You just have to look at the last few thousand years. There wasn't the level of technology we have today, but demand only went up. I'm just saying that technology and efficiency aren't going to help if the goal is to change the way we live. That isn't the goal obviously, so technology and efficiency will be the answer.

[RedEarth]

8. KR