he doesn't do anything to reduce coal, but whatever.  In this world of petroextraction I'll take what I can get.

doing his thing, but that does NOT absolve our local, state and national governments from doing THEIR thing.

Blue print is there.  Technology is being developed.  The infrastructure is beginning to implement those changes.  But notice, its not 30% EEC by 2010 or 20% wind by 2010.  

Bush has mandated EEC in all fed facilities in 07.  Kaine has mandated EEC in all state facilities last year also.  VEP, EPAct 2005 and EISA 2007 all address your concerns.  And DVP just introduced their upcoming proposal to upgrade their grid with smart switches and meters from 2009 to 2014 in the amount of $600 million.  They say it will get them one-third to their voluntary EE&C goal of 10% by 2022.  This will probably places VA below only a few states like California and CT in terms of smart grid technologies.  If true, this is great news.  A more intelligent grid will allow for greater savings from EEC and the increased implementation of intermittent renewables, which are less geographically suited in places such as our state.

The full impact of the 30% of EEC, won't be reached until a more intelligent grid is implemented.  That's the key.  When it does, we'll see all these loose pieces, all these other advances work more in harmony.  The Smart Grid is the hub of the net result you seek.  It makes most all other aspect to the energy revolution efficient and market sustainable.

In the meantime, the nation is still growing.  Old polluting powerplants need to be retired.  The industry cannot go totally w/o new dirty coal while it decommissions the oldest dirty coal plant, and still keep pace with growing electric demand.  

If you heard Jamie Dimond speak today, he too is critical of the nation's lack of implemented energy plan to date, but he also believes, we need all solutions on the table and implemented, while our nation undergoes this transition period from dirtier to cleaner.  Natural gas isn't "the" answer, but it is part of the solution.  Pickens plan is old news, as the power markets have already sent that signal some time ago.  But the clean energy transformation isn't going to happen overnight, because non-political hurdles do exists, and they require time.

we don't have.  The polar ice caps are melting NOW and oil money is flowing to terrorist groups (and countries that don't like us) NOW.  That's why we need an urgent, Manhattan-Project-style push by the government to transform our energy economy.

Your talking about guiding the largest ocean vessel you can think of, and demanding it stop immediately, and  mandate a Manhattan style project to retrofit the vessel right now, so that it can turn itself around on a dime and go the opposite direction, tomorrow.  Even if there were no such thing as a global warming denier, the possibilities of what you are eluding doesn't exist.

I definitely agree with your sentiments, but reality side of me knows better than to expect or say anything similar.  So now one is faced with very vital decision.  Do we just jump all-in head first, or should we take careful smaller steps, so we can make leaps and bounds later with more accuracy?  

First look what will be happening in the state of VA over the next 8 years:

DVP has stated and validated by the PJM, Virginia will need to 4400MW of baseline power by ~2015 to meet growing demand.    

1.  Proposed Mt. Storm coal fulltime to meet NJ/MD/DC needs +1500MW by 2012
2.  Proposed North Anna nuclear expansion +1200MW by 2016
3.  Applied Caroline County gas plant +500MW 2012
4.  Applied Buckingham County gasplant +600MW 2014
5.  Proposed Warren Count gasplant +300 MW 2016
6.  Proposed EEC implemented program, -1200MW by 2014
7.  Approved Wise County coal & biomass, +585MW by 2014
8.  Likely decommission of one of the several 50+ year old coal plants in VA: Potomac River (514MW), Bremo Bluff (254MW), Chesapeake (464MW), Yorktown (375MW), Clinch River (712MW), Glen Lyn (337MW)

And these events do not necessarily address peak demand or reliability standards.

If DVP were to supplement all the new megawatts from those sources, 3185MW, with renewables, while not even considering the possible decommission of one or more old coal plants, what are we talking about here?  

If its a wind farm, lets say to supplement 50% of this power need, your talking 796 2MW turbines which will basically power 33% to 45% of that capacity in a given year, maybe less, intermittently.  Besides the actual capital costs, there's the eminent domain costs of 7 acres per turbine if no one agrees to sell + cost for new transmission + more backyards to obtain the right-of-way + plus any eminent domain costs for that right-of-way + backup generation to make reliable the power supply, 55% to 67% of the year.  (Without the smart grid today, the only backup source really worth mentioning considering today's climate, is none other than natural gas.  And people think Wise County electricity will be expensive?!)  

If we are talking an ocean wind farm, other costs due to deep saltwater siting will only replace those costs avoided if not on land.  

We should be pushing Dominion to get their (1) smart switches out there to install on every stinkin' outdoor a/c unit in the state!  The smart ac switch load management program should be tested in a small city as a mandatory program w/ a credit, and compare those results per unit, to a voluntary program elsewhere throughout the state.  Implement the program which is most worthwhile.

As the smart grid is built-out, customers will need new "smart" appliances to communicate with the grid.  (2) A fund to give every resident buyer in the state a discount should be started today.  

Jurisdictions like the city of Alexandria or Falls Church, make excellent examples of a (3) smart grid city, which to kick start an east coast grid renaissance so badly needed here in PJM (our) territory, and right under the nose of our Congress.  The city could give its electric utility an incentive to jumpstart the smart grid in that locality, and give a tax credits to property owners to install a pv roof.  The state should back up the funding.  

A smart grid + pv solar + a/c load mgmt = bigtime energy savings and less power plants.  And with customer co-generation rights already mandated EPAct 2005, energy credits from pv solar and plug-in hybrids make plenty sense even w/o incentives.

I think the time is coming for all market participants (lawyers and protesters) to realize the reality and join forces with the utility industry.  Democrats can't do it alone; and neither can the environmentalist.  Get the smart grid up and get customers to co-generate.  The utility regulators and gov't mandates on building and appliance manufacturers, will take care of the rest of the EEC hurdles.  The market will find the fastest and cheapest solution from there.

we either bite the bullet and deal with this situation, or our planet's environment is going to be completely trashed.  And that's not acceptable.  So let's stop worrying about what CAN'T be done and get moving on what CAN be done, immediately.

and it will happen w/i the 2050 timeframe, more like 2030 and not a 2010 to 2020 timeframe which you seem to demand.  

The DOE bagging of the FutureGen project probably was a good thing as it spreads out CCS possibilities amongst more players.  And Obama clearly supports CCS.  Look what US power plant manufacturer is getting involved with in Germany - a large CCS demonstration plant by 2015 with +50% generation efficiency goal, a 43% increase.  FYI - 1% rise in generation efficiency = 2% decrease in C02 emission.

Cleaner air is coming and the pedal is too the floor.  Banging the table for renewables in Virginia to supplant Wise County coal before the smart grid arrives, while facing future old coal plant decommissioning(s), is only going to bruise your hand.  

Instead, push the smart grid and for lay people, push a/c load management - its power  savings potential is huge, you can't feel the difference, and it costs the customer nothing.    

It's not me "demanding" anything, it's people like James Hansen and all the other scientists who have studied this issue and know what they're talking about.  Hansen has called for a coal moratorium, do you agree with that?

He calling for no new coal w/o CCS.  Others are against natural gas expansion.  Yet others are against new nuclear.  Meanwhile, more than 50% of the coal generation is 50+ years old, and 70% of existing nuclear is half-way there.  Totally different if one or two weren't the case.  We can't be opposed to everything and still get from A to Z.  

Switch out old dirty coal with new dirty coal - w/o question, its cleaner.  Require full-bore smart grid expansion investments, state-wide a/c load management, and pilot on and/or offshore wind, tax credited pv solar roofing incentives, start residential & comm'l smart appliance fund, comm'l demand response incentive plan, build new nuclear before old nuclear is a safety issue and for decomish of old fossil, introduce nuclear by thorium for waste reduction.  

When smart grid is ready, implement wind and other renewables and marry with gas backup and demand response + co-generation via pv roof & plug-in's.  Mandate % of C02 capture technology when technologically feasible and increase the % as advances and marketability make it more affordable.  Decomish oldest DFO & BLQ generators in both utility and in industry.

and you have to give Pickens credit for actually getting in the trenches with us to at least try to move the issue. Ideally, we'd all be using hydrogen fuel cells and cold fusion but seeing as theyre both decades away from being viable, we might as well at least cut back on oil consumption. Coal and natural gas are also issues but we at least own our own share of these resources. We can use that 300 billion dollars to solve the next fuel problem.

It takes energy to produce the hydrogen, where's that energy going to come from? Hmmmm.

Well, theoretically, the power grid would support fuel cell production. The cells would be used in anything not directly connected to the grid. And as previously mentioned, the grid would be supported by fusion.

In general, we need to solve our energy production issue before our transportation problem. I think though that shuffling resources will need to be done first. There ae costs involved with that as well.

This kind of discussion should be happening in every college and high school in the country.

This reminds me of Ross Perot with all of his charts--hilarious.

I am not sure that natural gas can do it all either, but I think this guy knows what he's talking about, and I believe him that substituting the natural gas in electricity generation with wind, and putting that into transportation, makes sense.  Reducing foreign oil usage SHOULD be the #1 problem to tackle.  The coal, however, is a big problem too, and I think both nuclear, solar, and more wind and hydro have to come into play there....

Bottom line; for-profit commercial energy companies are in business to make money.  Anything that distributes power production too widely is not something they like, because with distributed power production they lose control over their monopolies....  they vastly prefer centralized power production so they can control rates.

The irony is that distributed production is exactly what we need, because transmitting power around the country is enormously inefficient and wasteful and has a huge impact on the environment, not to mention being less reliable (major power outages are always between the source and the destination, almost never at one end or the other).

We can each screw the power monopolies by conserving energy and using less.  Replace your appliances, light bulbs, and gadgets with more energy efficient models.  Not all at once, but as they fail or need replacement anyway.

Augment your grid based electrical consumption with whatever works in your area, small solar gadgets, small wind gadgets, small water/hydro power gadgets - whatever works for you in your neighborhood.  Then when power outages happen, you still have some stuff working, and best of all those devices do not depend on shipping power thousands of miles.

As much as you can, decentralize your power sources.  This is challenging, because your power company is probably trying to do the opposite; but pressure them through money, lobbying, pressure through the press, and political action.  Here in Virginia there are only a few places where wind makes sense; but put it to use if you have it!

All along the "fall line" small amounts of power can be generated on the rivers, and that is why our cities mostly follow that line (it both stopped navigation up river, and offered a source for 18th century mechanical power).

We do get enough sun to make solar borderline effective today, and probably more effective as we improve technology.

Capacity resources gained thru EEC and then distributed to other customers, is profit thru less capital costs. This is the power behind EEC as an energy resource.  Its cheaper, cleaner and faster to implement than all others, and utilities in general have accepted this, such is why DVP plans to invest $600M in such technology.  

Distributed resources is something the big bad utility company also wants to do.  Beside the regulators from DOE to FERC to states are pushing it.  Co-generation still requires grid connection, so don't expect to earn the same about per kWh as a power plant, but there is definitely something to gain and the local utility distributor can easily find a buyer for those resources and sell it for a profit after paying you.  Again, more incentive because the cost to sell more capacity, is gained thru much decreased capital costs.  And don't worry, the utility company knows demand will never decrease.  Its not that individuals are wasteful, its the changing lifestyle which will require more electricity.  

Mircogrid = higher efficient + greater reliability + cheaper price per kilowatt = decreased needs for more transmission and powerplants.  

A more intelligent electric power grid, will give us more of a microgrid model, and decrease our dependency of the wasteful "$5-to-push-$1-of-electricity" macrogrid we currently use.

and that we can have BOTH economic growth AND lower electricity demand.  Think about it, if every heat pump, refrigerator, hot water heater, etc. got twice the energy efficiency, we'd use half the energy for the same # of appliances.  Is this doable?  Hell, this is America - of course it's doable!

SEER rating has had its mandated improvements considerably raised over the past decade, 28.6% increase in efficiency.  And I'm sure more will come, but again, going from A to Z, requires time because there are sustantive non-political hurdles standing in your way - and everything is being done to hurry it up.  

However, neither you grandmother or mine, can afford a state of the art 18 or 20 SEER rated a/c if her old outdoor 10-SEER a/c compressor breaks, requiring her to replace both the interior and exterior units, even though the interior is working fine.  The minimum 13 SEER or Energy Star 14 SEER is plenty beneficial.  

Once again, the greatest impact of energy savings involving a/c, is thru an a/c load management.  That's what you want.  Eventually, higher efficient appliances will make its way into every home and business, but that can't be mandated.  A/c load mgmt is a totally different story.

so that SEER ratings of 18 or 20 are affordable. We need to look at geothermal heat pump systems for entire neighborhoods and cities.  We need to do a lot of things at once, not just one or two things like load management or whatever.  Personally, I'm all for putting a steep price on carbon and letting the market do its thing - less government bureaucracy, more efficiency, the only problem is the regressivity and that will have to be dealt with (e.g., by cutting payroll taxes).

higher and affordable seer hvac is a long ways away, probably when the smart grid is complete by 2030.  

a/c load mgmt seems puny to you because a/c only uses appx ~7% of your annual residential energy costs.  However, if every single a/c unit had a smart switch, imagine the impact!  

Your a/c unit over the course of :30 minutes, runs intermittently probably about 75% of the time during the summer's peak heat - 23 minutes on, 7 minutes off.  You don't know when its will go on or off, and neither does any other Joe Dick or Harry in your neigbhorhood, or any business or building owner in town.  We're talking apartment buildings, business complexes, gov't buildings, college campuses, shopping malls, etc.  Nobody, not even the utility company knows when the a/c will kick on or off.  

A/C load management organizes the tens of thousands of a/c units in groups ~ six.  The first group run for the first 23 minutes, then off for 7.  The next group, waits one minute and runs for 23, then off 7, and so on.  Instead of having an unlimited number of a/c units running with no one knowing when or how long, managing all of this in similar fashion can reduce electricity demand from a/c by ~18%.  

Since we know increases in spikes in peak demand is the primary driver which leads to increased grid expansion, attacking the grid at this level is how to forestall future proposals for new powerlines and power plants.  

All Va Electric CO-OP's have an a/c load mgmnt program.  Its voluntary, cost the customer nothing, and can be taken off-line at one's request.  Most offer sameday a/c service diagnosis when the unit goes down.  I have a 2-zone hvac system, and they are activated by different radio signals, so they don't shut down at the same time.  The family can't tell the difference.   Dominion will introduce there's in 2009.  Would like to see a program to have load mgmnt available for every a/c unit in the state.

The capital costs compared to the resources gained are proven more cheaper than any other capital investment, and Dominion has even put it in writing.  

...do our "leaders" understand any of this?

The first item on the list of strategy for EEC in Virginia's Energy Plan is nothing more than education.  Basically, the consumer doesn't know diddly.  I imagine the vocalize reaction from both a liberal Arlingtonian, would be similar to that of a conservative southsider from Halifax County - "I'm not giving control of my a/c to Dominion!"  

n/t -