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The First Alternative Energy Manhattan Project
We have heard calls for a “Manhattan-type Project” to help solve the energy crisis and to address global warming. Everyone uses the term and seems to agree on the need but when it comes to details it breaks down into partisan political camps. Those on the right say let free market solve the problem. Those on the left want a broad government program that covers everything fom new techology to taxing emissions. Both sides get wrapped around the axle and norhing gets done. So where does the role of government lie? One can look to history to gain some insight on what the US government has done in the past. In a word: infrastructure.
For example, the Federal Government encouraged expansion into the western US by using land grants to the railroads, which led directly to construction of the transcontinental railroad. Since then, the government has made many investments in infrasturture: roads and interstate highways for automobiles, airports for airplane travel, and subways and light rails for suburban/urban transportation (though possibly not enough in this area). However, more recently, the government decided to let private industry lay broadband (fiber). The result: the US is now 15th in braodband adoption and falling further behind.
The elctric grid is another place where the government is allowing private industry to make infrastructure decisions. The result: the power grid is old and outmoded. Even more importantly it is not in the position to carry elctrical power from some of the new wind farms already built and those proposed. If we were to build large solar plants in the southwest there is no grid to carry the power to market. Industry isn’t willing to make this risky investment just as it wasn’t willing to invest in the railroads until after they were built.
The so-called Manhattan Project should focus on the electrical grid. Without this investment, many of the energy alternatives will never come to fruition. The Manhattan and theApollo Projects were successful because they were focused with a single purpose: build an atomic bomb, land a man on the moon. If we try to unleash the goernment in a broad “Manhattan Project” to solve all of the enrgy crisis at once it will be doomed to failure. Once the risk of inadequate grid is removed, investors will rush to fund energy alternatives such as wind farms and solar plants.
I think that the gouverment must help the free market. One of te possibilities is to make fossil fuels more expensive due taxes. In the Netherlands you will pay 2,32 US dollar a liter benzine and 1,16 US dollar a m3 gas (with 80 US dollarcent tax!!) Those people who invest in energy saving can get subsidy (wich will come from the subsidies). In a great part of the world is energy big bussines or it will be in the near future. Bussinespeople must jump on the train.
Greetings,
René
Maastricht
The Netherlands
I agreee that government is best at infrastructure and a focused project. This is at all levels of government in the USA.
Let’s present this good idea about the scope of government to influencers.
I wonder what people like Thomas Freidman or T. Boone Pickens say about this idea. Or Cynthia Todd Whitman the former cabinet member of the Bush first term in the energy department.
I will be looking for other voices who agree with your correct analysis.
INDIAN INITIATIVE OF GETTING GREEN ENERGY THROUGH INSTITUTIONS OF PEOPLE’S-FAITH, NAMED AS ‘GAUSHALA’
There are 4500 institutions funded by the faith of people of rural India in saving the destitutes cows from miseries and then providing them with shelter, healthcare and feed. The ANIMAL WELFARE BOARD OF INDIA under its current Chairman, Major General (retired) Dr R M Kharb, constitutea a ‘panel for reforms and empowerment of such cow-shelters’ under my chairmanship and I presented a ‘Report’ to the ‘full house Executive Meeting’ of the ANIMAL WELFARE BOARD OF INDIA on 21 June, 2008. Most important recommendations were relating to green energy production through availability of huge dung-waste in the cow-shelters of more than 3000 cows. A vision for 1 MW dung-biodigester power plant was presented.
The 1 MW Biodigester Power Plant policy proposal has since drawn a voluminous support from investors. It is at this stage we are to grapple with the question of managing the whole project with ‘cleanest technologies’ so as to integrate the whole production in ‘zero GHG emissions’ and get necessary ‘carbon credits’ for the stakeholders of the project.
That kind of projects in rural India are likely to be supported by various departments of the Government of India so the question of infrastructural support is very much there in place but the question remains here whether we are able to source best of the technologies and innovations so as the replication of these products in rural India spawns such solutions which are reducing the GHGs and other carbon-foot-prints?
Manhattan Project and likes- were all initiatives supported by the government and as also Prof Mike Morris demonstrated to UNIDO in his famous work relating to INDUSTRIAL CLUSTERS in Johannesburgh, the help and intervention of the government is required for getting industrialisation off ground because there is a bottleneck in developing countries of infrastructure. In energy sector, this ‘bottleneck’ could be in form of availability of certain structures such as GRIDS. Let us leave this question to the wisdom of a CONSORTIUM OF GREEN CONSULTANTS (CGC) and HABITAT CONSULTING GROUP of HABITAT CAMPUS-BRIDGE could provide help in building this GLOBAL COALITION. In India, a movement of reform called ARYA SAMAJ led by SWAMI DAYA NAND in 19th Century has motivated us to start ‘GAUKRSYADHIRAKSHINI ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL or GAI’, which is an organisation which is working for the improvement of agricultural, health, energy production through innovative and sustainable technologies for all round transformation. GAI has extensive places for implementing its vision at least in 4500 places all across the world.
For this kind of vision to be implemented in rural India, there is a CONFERENCE being organised by ANIMAL WELFARE BOARD OF INDIA from 30 January to 1 February, 2009 at Ballabgarh (near Delhi) at the head-quarters of Natinal Institute of Animal Welfare. We have to learn and understand that global warming problems were brought at the altar of the world by man but the global flora and fauna led by holy cow could find the solution of this harbinger of holocaust?
I request you all to join hands in 4500 project of 1MW each in India.
There is something missing from the infrastructure argument for a “Manhattan-type Project†for alternative energy. The infrastructure projects of the past were motivated by the fear of what would happen if we didn’t do them. The Manhattan Project was motivated by World War II, the Cold War motivated the Interstate Highways Project, and Sputnik spawned the race to be the first to put a man on the moon. And now it appears that the two American political parties are amazingly putting aside their differences in today’s financial bailout in fear of the alternative, a devastating financial collapse.
The motivation for developing some parts of the electrical infrastructure to allow some types of alternative energies an unimpeded distribution to the rest of the electrical grid to save the world from the Climate Crisis, does not have the same imaginative impetus as developing an atom bomb to win the war, beating the Russians to the moon, or the vision of masses of troops not getting to your town because of an inadequate American road system.
What is needed is a new “War Cry†that defers the impending Climate Crisis, saves an ailing economy, and gets the nation off the dependency on foreign oil. The red herrings of offshore drilling and “clean coal†need to be exposed for what they are, and a rallying cry for what, a “hydrogen powered, solar generated, wind farmed, biofueled, sustainable futureâ€? What we need to do is get on a “Green Machineâ€, run a “Carbonless Campaignâ€, or live in a “Sustainable Superstructure†to cite a few feeble examples.
How would you sum up what we are in the midst of doing? Perhaps we should learn from our past mistakes and deem the project a biblical undertaking by avoiding the dreaded “Atlantis Effectâ€.
In response to Dan North’s comment, I believe he has a point about fear motivating us. Even the Interstate Highway system was done in response to the cold war. So we need to get a couple of those spin doctors who are so aptly screwing up the presidential campaign to ocme up with a slogan like: Energy Independence or starve! Or some such stuff.
Having slept on the idea, I have more to add. The threat of Global Warming is a great threat, but for me, in Delaware, that would mean that my property, at 40’ above sea level, would become a beach front property when all the land based ice melts, probably after I am dead. Obviously terrorism, which has kind of worn away at us all, is not as big an imminent threat as it once was, even though it is really, still, as big a threat as it ever was. However, the economy has taken its place for the time being.
So we want the government to do something about it, a “Manhattan Project†or a new “Space Raceâ€, but we have to wait for the next president to do it. Only Obama is signing onto being green in ten years and that’s just a campaign promise. How likely is that going to be, at the level we would like to see it, with a foreign war or two going on and the economy in a mess? Then there is a Texas millionaire with a decent plan to get us off of foreign oil dependence as quickly as possible, but that would still take a bit of government backing to succeed. And finally, we have the “We can do it†campaign that is not waiting for anybody. That, I think, is the right idea, but it still needs a little fear in there to get people off their seats.
So here goes, the “EDAT Initiativeâ€, “Energy Diversity Against Terrorismâ€. OK, so it needs a better acronym, but think about it. What do the terrorist want to see? They want to see the United States collapse into an abyss using whatever kind of calamity it can bring upon us. Global Warming is God’s revenge, oil is the poison we drink, and the evil financial markets the poison we eat. And, gee whiz, it looks like we are going down that path already. Are we going to stand for it? Doesn’t that let the terrorists win if we don’t do what is needed, and do it right now? (Insert commercial break here)
(Continue) Let’s look at this as if we were really at war with these people. Oh, yeah, we are, aren’t we? Well, our mistake is that we have the politicians running it. Oil is not the way to go, although we can let the oil companies dig where they like. Oil is still going to become more and more expensive any way you look at it. And look at the target potential, super tankers, refineries, pipelines, and the like. Nuclear Power is great, but then they are great targets, too, aren’t they? Even if they were meltdown proof, all you need to do is crack a radioactive pipe open and it’s an international incident. Natural gas is the same as oil, only it is already volatile when it comes out of the ground. Then there is coal, well, burning it still produces carbon dioxide. But wait! Who are we kidding? So does oil and natural gas! The thing about coal is it’s plentiful in this country, right now. And just think! If we can pump all that carbon dioxide underground, it will be just as safe from terrorists as nuclear waste. But then what about an earthquake, or a leak? You can see what I am getting at, centralized power sources, and their supply chains (And even their waste sites?), are natural targets in a war.
Solar Power and Wind Power do not have some of those problems. OK, yes, it is easy to target them too, if you concentrate them all in one place. But then, you don’t have to do that, do you? What we need in this war is to diversify, not use just one type of sustainable energy. Why limit ourselves to the sun and wind? There are other forces of nature out there to be tapped. And that brings me to the second idea, what if we were all to use our own roofs, and our own fields, if we own one, and spread solar and wind power as mini power plants all over the United States? What would the terrorists target then? Suppose we were to commit ourselves to making as many mini power plants as we could over the next five years? How far could we get with an idea like that?
OK, now there are problems with all that, too. But they are local problems, things we can handle without a huge government effort. That ought to make the Republicans happy. And the Democrats love a grassroots campaign. So let’s go for it! Only, can someone think of a better name than “EDAT�