2007-09-03 Blown Away

Specs

Date:	2007-09-03
Link:	http://web.archive.org/web/20080209192421/http://www.thenewamerican.com/node/5215
Author:	Ed Hiserodt (writingscat)
Source:	The New American (articlescat)
Topics:	sustainability wind power oil addiction global warming
Categories:	sustainability wind power oil addiction global warming

Blown Away

longer text

Hardly a stump speech goes by without a political candidate calling for "more renewable sources of energy such as wind or solar" to either stop our dependence on foreign oil or to slow the CO₂ emissions that mean certain doom for our planet. The politicians are doing what most politicians do: spewing rhetoric that they know voters want to hear; proposing programs they know little or nothing about.

But as of August 3, the rhetoric was backed by action and the stakes became serious – as they say, "The price of poker just went up." On that day the U.S. House of Representatives voted to require electrical utilities to obtain 15 percent of their power from renewable sources. Since in some cases four percent of the renewable requirement could be satisfied by some "energy efficiency methods," this means that as "little" as 11 percent would need to come from renewable sources. The deadline for this conversion is 2020, with the threat of millions of dollars in penalties for those not meeting the requirement.

shorter text

“[On {{date|2007-08-03|August 3