P.E. | President & Founder Spacefaring Institute LLC - Charting America's path spaceward! ™
With the re-election of Donald Trump, climate "hysterics" is resurfacing after temporary being "tamped down" during the election campaign. I have studied America's clean energy needs in detail for the last 15 years; building detailed quantitative models of how to practicably "go clean". To go clean—meaning replacing all fossil carbon fuels while retaining America's middle-class standard/style of living—will require building a new clean energy infrastructure capable of meeting all dispatchable electrical power needs as well as all clean fuel needs. A clean electric–hydrogen infrastructure will require the ability to supply the equivalent of 13 kilowatts of equivalent continuous electrical power per person if, for example, the primary power source is all nuclear. This equates to needing 13 large 1-GW nuclear reactors per 1 million Americans. Today's U.S. population is around 330 million. Hence, to go clean today, America would need to build 13 x 330 = 4,290 1-GW nuclear reactors. A good idea? I define "climate fanaticism" as forcefully advocating on what to accomplish without any reasonable discussion of how to technologically achieve this goal. To successful transition to clean energy, the first step is to define an orderly, technologically practicable path to "go clean". Does this article—originally apparently published through Politico—provide any clue as to how this worthy goal is to be actually achieved? Common sense tells me that America needs robust supplies of affordable American fossil fuels and reasonable environmental regulation while it transitions to practicable clean energy—which will take decades to achieve. I think Trump understands this. America's middle class—the only real bill-payers—must be prosperous to want to pay the cost to "go clean". #cleanenergy #nuclear #trump #EPA #fossifuels
