Random Thoughts of Chris Tilley

Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

That is the challenge that Al Gore put forth. We can do it! This is going to be a challenge on the scale of the President Kennedy's landing a person on the moon in 10 years.

There are a number of challenges in meeting this goal the first is the electrical grid which is in shambles as seen by some of the blackouts in past years.

Today, our grids are antiquated, fragile, and vulnerable to cascading failure. Power outages and defects in the current grid system cost US businesses more than $120 billion dollars a year. It has to be upgraded anyway.

There is enough energy available the challenge is capturing it, sending it to where it is needed and a method of storing it. There are ways of storing it at least on paper.

We have such fuels. Scientists have confirmed that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world's energy needs for a full year. Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide all of the electricity America uses.

And enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of US electricity demand. Geothermal energy, similarly, is capable of providing enormous supplies of electricity for America.

Building these technologies locally will create jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. I have said this before innovation and the entrepreneur spirit is going to be part of the solution.

When we send money to foreign countries to buy nearly 70 percent of the oil we use every day, they build new skyscrapers and we lose jobs. When we spend that money building solar arrays and windmills, we build competitive industries and gain jobs here at home.

Our economy cannot stand 10 more years of sending $2 billion every 24 hours to foreign countries for oil.

Time to offend some special interest groups. The evolution of business, change or die. Try finding a pay phones these days. The oil companies need to switch directions. Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens has announced a 2 billion dollar initial investment in his company to build the worlds largest wind farm in Texas.(source)

Of course the greatest obstacle to meeting the challenge of 100 percent renewable electricity in 10 years may be the deep dysfunction of our politics and our self-governing system as it exists today. In recent years, our politics has tended toward incremental proposals made up of small policies designed to avoid offending special interests, alternating with occasional baby steps in the right direction. Our democracy has become sclerotic at a time when these crises require boldness.