We CAN become energy independent in 10 years and SAVE THE ECONOMY at the same time

Here’s the challenge, in 3 minutes, with a beat to it.

by Ken Winston Caine

The U.S. CAN become 100% energy independent in 10 years and REBUILD THE ECONOMY at the same time, using existing clean-energy technologies.

I’ll show you a longer video in a moment that gives the specifics.

The video may make it seem simple. It’s not. To do this would require the type of will and vision and excitement and investment of the land-a-man-on-the-moon-in-10 years Apollo Project initiated by President Kennedy.

It will require the type of will and vision and excitement and investment of the interstate freeway system project spearheaded by President Eisenhower (which took a bit longer than 10 years — about 25 for the four major east-west arteries to be complete from coast to coast. But one section of I-70, through the particularly beautiful and delicate Glenwood Canyon in the Colorado Rockies wasn’t completed until shortly after I left my assignment as a reporter up there in the early ’90s).

Creating a nationwide clean-energy production and distribution system and economy is a huge undertaking.

The biggest challenge?

Political.

Because the fossil-fuel-based energy monopolies and their related support industries wield tremendous pressure and will not simply smile, nod and agree to be replaced.

And all those people whose jobs are dependent upon the fossil-fuel energy economy must be absolutely sure in the assurance that they will be retrained and transitioned to good, sustainable new-economy jobs and financially assisted in the process. And that must be part of any 10-year plan if the transformation is to win the public support it needs in order to get moving.

Shifting to a clean energy economy will require a sustained public and governmental mandate.

How can this be accomplished with existing clean technologies? Here’s a 27-minute video that spells out, plainly, step by step, how the U.S. can become 100% energy independent in 10 years using existing wind and solar technologies, and by moving to zero-emission technologies for cars. (The video embedded above is a teaser only.)

NOTE: Skip forward to 2:20 to get past the courtesy greetings and acknowledgments and into the exciting stuff.

Here is more about each of the challenges involved in converting to a clean energy economy in 10 years: creating new jobs, establishing the grid, etc.

What we currently lack is the infrastructure: the manufacturing capability to crank out the number of solar panels, racks, trackers, windmills, towers, generators, replacement parts, etc., and the distribution grid to store and carry this energy from the windy sunny south and north West and Plains states to the population centers.

A 10-year Manhattan Project type of commitment solves that and creates millions of new specialized jobs in the process; results in technological breakthroughs that increase efficiency in every aspect of clean energy production, thus expanding the economy even more. As technologies are developed that increase efficiency, we retool and upgrade. As we develop and prove this technology we export it — both at a profit to emerging economies and as aid to struggling Third World countries in exchange for a long-term agreement that they will not exploit fossil-fuel resources, or in exchange kilowatt per kilowatt for dirty coal-burning powerplants.

(But first, we must give up our own dirty coal-burning powerplants and prove it can be done.)

As we do this, and export the technology to the emerging countries of the world, the skies will begin to clear and the suicidal momemtum toward increasing global warming will begin to recede.