Texas Goes for Big Wind

Texas has approved a plan to be able to accommodate 18,500 MW of wind power by 2012, enough to power 3 million homes. Texas is a big, windy state, but it still shows the potential. If one state can produce enough power from just one alternative energy source to power 3 million homes by 2012, it starts to put Al Gore's call yesterday for a carbon free electrical system within 10 years in context. We can do it.

Of course generating the power is only half the equation. The cheapest form of alternative energy is increasing fuel efficiency. Reducing the energy used in each home by 50% would mean that same power would supply 6 million homes. This is a very achievable goal. Lester Brown outlines some good ideas on significantly increasing energy efficiency in Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. This is an incredibly important book I will be coming back to. The idea of Factor 10 Engineering goes even further, seeking to increase resource productivity by a factor of 10-100. In other words, using 1/10th to 1/100th the energy and raw materials to make the things we use. Hey, the first industrial revolution did the same thing for labor productivity, so no reason the next industrial revolution can't do that for resource productivity.