Safety and Security For The Next Age
The issue
The aging energy grid is a security issue, according to the Pentagon
This is a civilian, emergency services, and military security risk. Without power, communities lose their ability to manage disasters and communicate effectively between those sectors.
This puts our service members, our emergency services teams, and our civilians at risk for cyberattacks from foreign and domestic terrorism.
The energy grid is aging and hasn’t been properly invested in for decades.
The technology for our energy grid is old, outdated, and not future-proof for newer or mixed energy sources as our country’s terrain demands.
We also recognize that not every person is designed to work in a job behind a desk. Some Americans are engineers and builders who are wired to build things. This program helps us do both.
Our Program:
Upgrading our grid, providing jobs, allowing for a mix of varying energy sources, and investing in our future tech and manufacturing for the stability of the United States to be energy self-sufficient.
Allow Net- Metering on a federal level for all 50 states for residential homes. Let homeowners put solar panels on their homes, and sell back the energy they use to the energy companies to offset utility costs.
Build another solar farm in the deserts of Nevada, Arizona, and Utah where the land is uninhabited because water is hard or too cost prohibitive to move to. Much like the Kern Solar farm in California that already powers 250,000 homes.
In places where solar is not feasible, such as mountainous areas, - invest in mini nuclear plants. To bury the nuclear waste, we would invest in upgrading the maintenance of our rail and steel systems. We would bury the nuclear waste under the solar facilities in the desert. This moves nuclear waste away from civilian areas and under empty facilities already monitored.
Build wind turbines off the coasts like Europe has. Europe has allowed for wind turbines to be built off the coasts of their countries. The Department of Energy's Wind Energy Technologies Office estimates that the technical potential for offshore wind in the US is over 4,200 gigawatts, which could produce 13,500 terawatt-hours annually. This is equivalent to about three times the total electricity consumed in the US each year.
Oil
The truth is, we will never not need oil and gas. We will always need petroleum products for healthcare, for food safety, for the tires on our cars. But and a reduced rate. Even at our most “clean” energy grid, we will still need oil. The reduced need however will translate into jobs from the oil industry into our new infrastructure need. We have a lot of building to do!
Jobs: The people required for this undertaking and maintenance would be massive. Not doing it, is negligence to the safety and security of our people, our emergency services, and our military.
Upgrading the energy grid is expected to generate a substantial number of jobs. In total, the clean energy transition is expected to generate 10.3 million net new jobs around the world by 2030. The initial job creation will be 13 million jobs, with the net turnover of 3 million jobs from coal being lost. Those jobs will be retrained into maintaining the grid through job recertification and retraining in a new career. Coal is an industry we can all agree nets us no benefit, including the harm it does to its people and the land around it.
The bottom line:
Jobs, security, the future. This protects us from threats, makes our energy stable and self-sufficient, and reduces our reliance on an industry that harms our fellow Americans. Let’s put America to work!
