Wind power is plentiful in the U.S. interior. “The U.S. Great Plains are the Saudi Arabia of wind power,” said Lester Brown from the Energy Policy Institute. “Three wind-rich states – North Dakota, Kansas and Texas – have enough harnessable wind to meet national electricity needs.”
Solar power could provide for all of America’s energy needs also, according to Rob Morgan, chief development officer at solar power company Ausra. He says that a solar power plant using Ausra's Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector technology covering a square of land 92 miles to a side would be adequate. That square, seemingly large in area, represents an area less than one percent of America’s deserts.
Unfortunately, we can’t just turn off the coal-fired power plants and switch to wind or solar energy right away. The problem is transporting the electricity from where it is generated to where it is needed – urban centers that could be well over a thousand miles away. This presents an insurmountable problem with the current, antiquated power grid.
An electricity superhighway is needed instead of the “system conceived 100 years ago to let utilities prop each other up, reducing blackouts and sharing power in small regions,” said Matthew Wald of the New York Times. “It resembles a network of streets, avenues and country roads.” Under this old system, it’s tough to get from here to there.
Al Gore put it best in another piece that appeared in the Times. “New high-voltage, low-loss underground lines can be designed with smart [meters] that provide consumers with sophisticated information and easy-to-use tools for conserving electricity, eliminating inefficiency and reducing their energy bills. The cost of this modern grid - $400 billion over 10 years – pales in comparison with the annual loss to American business of $120 billion due to the cascading failures that are endemic to our current balkanized and antiquated electricity lines.”
If the power grid were only five percent more efficient than it already is the energy saved would be equivalent to taking 53 million cars off the road permanently. In many parts of the United States, the power company only knows the power is out when a customer calls in to complain.
There are numerous benefits to a smart power grid but moving renewable energy from one area of the country to another is a primary one. Within such a system consumers are equipped with smart meters that report on energy consumption in real-time. Smart appliances can also be factored in that automatically cycle on or off based upon the demands of the power grid. Customers who allow the utility to cycle down power usage would be credited on their monthly bill.
Plug-in hybrid cars also play into the smart power grid. At peak times, a plugged-in car can supply energy to the grid, effectively rolling back usage for the car’s owner. Hybrid car batteries could also be used as a backup source of power when necessary, such as when power is out during a storm. The battery could even be used to store cheap power accumulated late at night for use during the day when power is more expensive.
The future looks bright for a smart grid. Speaking to an Air America audience president-elect Barack Obama said that he will make a smart grid a top priority during his presidency. “If we’re going to be serious about renewable energy,” said Obama. “I want to be able to get wind power from North Dakota to population centers, like Chicago. And we’re going to have to have a smart grid if we want to use plug-in hybrids. Then we want to be able to have ordinary consumers sell back the electricity that’s generated from those car batteries back into the grid. That can create five million new jobs, just in new energy.”
Energy Policy Institute
Center for Advanced Energy Studies
Idaho National Laboratory
P. O. Box 1625
Idaho Falls, ID 83415-2213
https://inlportal.inl.gov
Ausra
2585 East Bayshore Rd.
Palo Alto, CA 94303
http://www.ausra.com
Comments