The 2020 American presidential campaign has broken out. Democratic candidates are casting the net wide in search of political goals to energize their campaign, get themselves on TV, and be the first to capture the interest of likely primary voters. With the economy strong, green energy/environment proposals are among the top topics.
As is unfortunately common, news reporters and commentators on both sides of the spectrum are unable to knowledgeably assess the reasonableness of candidate statements on green energy. This leaves voters in the dark about whether a candidate has sound ideas or is being outlandish to just gain face time on TV. While advocating for green energy has been popular for decades, now the focus is on undertaking the transition relatively quickly. As America’s transition to sustainable energy is unavoidable, American engineers need to understand what makes sense and what doesn’t as this is an implicit responsibility of an engineer in our society. American engineers need to be prepared to respond knowledgeably when a friend or co-worker says: “Hey, you’re an engineer. What do you think of this idea of moving quickly to green energy? Can we do this?”
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I’ll be upfront. This posting is also a plug for my new eBook, Astroelectricity: Why American engineers should advocate for GEO space solar power to end America’s CO2 emissions, make American energy secure, and prepare America for the 22nd century. I’ve spent the last decade researching, calculating, developing charts, and writing about America’s transition to sustainable energy. Expecting that this would become a political topic for the 2020 elections, I published a quick-read eBook at the beginning of this year. I was proven right as green energy became a topic of the 2020 presidential campaign by several Democratic candidates and is the focus of several members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s green energy goal
With Democrats retaking control of the U.S. House of Representatives, they are emphasizing climate change/global warming in response to President Trump dropping the United States out of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. (I wrote about why this agreement was not sound in early 2016.) They have announced the intent to form a new standing committee on climate change.
With her election to the House, Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has become a leading spokesperson on quickly transitioning to green energy. It is being reported of her intent, with Congressman Ed Markey, to introduce a “Green New Deal” bill to achieve this. (The text of the Green New Deal bill is here.) (Link updated 20190209.)
Recently, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez very briefly explained her view on quickly transitioning to sustainable energy on 60 Minutes.
Here is the pertinent part of the interview:
60 Minutes: You’re talking about zero carbon emissions; no use of fossil fuels within twelve years.
Ocasio-Cortez: That is the goal. It is ambitious. And …
60 Minutes: How is that possible? You’re talking about everybody having to drive an electric car?
Ocasio-Cortez: It’s going to require a lot of rapid change that we don’t even conceive as possible right now. What is the problem with trying to push our technological capacities to the furthest extent possible?
Questions for engineers
As an engineer—the profession that will be tasked with pushing “our technological capacities to the furthest extent possible”—is fully transitioning from fossil fuels to sustainable energy in twelve years a realistic goal?
Obviously, the answer is quantitative. What needs to be done? What are the options? What is reasonable to accomplish in twelve years?
These are typical questions that you could be asked, perhaps by a friend or co-worker. How would you answer?
Transitioning to sustainable energy
I fully support America’s transition to 100 percent sustainable energy as this is a game-changing opportunity for the United States. My eBook explains why and I have discussed this in earlier postings. If you believe that America should blindly continue with its use of fossil fuels, I’ll let you wrestle with the professional ethical and environmental/energy security implications of doing so.
Let’s put this question aside for the moment and focus on what needs to be done. This leads to more questions:
- What size population are we talking about
? What standard of living is desired post-transition?- How much energy per capita per year is needed for America to remain prosperous?
- How much energy in total per year is needed?
- In what forms must this sustainable power/energy be supplied?
- How much total continuous power generation or stored energy capacity of each type is needed?
- How will this power/energy be distributed?
- What practical choices of meaningful sustainable power/energy does America have?
- Where will these new power/energy sources be located?
- How much land will be needed?
- What changes will be needed to use these new energy sources?
- Who will be impacted?
- What will be the environmental impacts?
- In the ballpark, how much will this cost?
- Will America remain free and prosperous?
If American engineers generally can’t answer these questions, how can we expect politicians or news commentators to know the answers? (Have you ever seen an engineer on TV talking about green energy?) If the politicians and commentators are in the dark about what it will take for America to transition from fossil fuels to sustainable energy in an orderly manner, then how can American voters have a clue whether setting such a political goal is realistic? Or is America in danger of politically acting blindly such as happened with health care?
Our ethical responsibility as American engineers
The presidential campaign will be crowded with many important topics—immigration, the federal debt, health care, national security, etc. Energy security and undertaking an orderly transition to sustainable energy clearly fall within the engineering profession’s area of responsibility. We have an obligation to understand and inform voters what the choices are, what needs to be done, and realistic estimates of how long this would take. We cannot let America blunder forward based on false hopes despite good intentions. Boldness is certainly needed for America to transition from fossil fuels to sustainable energy. But this needs to be successfully undertaken and done in an orderly, fair manner that does not diminish our standard of living or reduce our economic freedoms.
If not already following this blog, please click the “follow” button at the bottom right to sign up. Receiving notification via email is best to ensure that you do not miss a new posting. Sending notifications is the only use of your email address. It is not sold or used elsewhere. Besides, you can always unsubscribe. Please forward these postings to your friends who share your spacefaring interest. Also, please check out the Spacefaring Institute’s YouTube channel.
James Michael (Mike) Snead is an aerospace Professional Engineer in the United States, an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and a past chair of the AIAA’s Space Logistics Technical Committee. He is the founder and president of the Spacefaring Institute LLC (spacefaringinstitute.net) which is focused on space solar power-generated astroelectricity and the astrologistics infrastructure necessary to enable the spacefaring industrial revolution that will build space solar power energy systems. Mike Snead has been involved in space development since the mid-1980s when he supported the U.S. Air Force Transatmospheric Vehicle (TAV) studies, the National Aerospace Plane program, and the Delta Clipper Experimental (DC-X) project. In 2007, after retiring from civilian employment with the Air Force, he began to study the need for (and politics associated with) undertaking space solar power. Beginning in the late 1980s, he has published numerous papers and articles on various aspects of manned spaceflight, astrologistics, and energy. His technical papers are located at https://www.mikesnead.com and https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike-Snead/research. His blog is at: https://spacefaringamerica.com. His eBook, Astroelectricity, can be downloaded for free here. He can be contacted through LinkedIn or through email sent to spacefaringinstitute@gmail.com.